To newcomers reluctant to take this advice, Casey was wont to offer a story about the film director John Waters. In one of his early movies, Pink Flamingos, Waters's drag-queen star, Divine, had eaten a bit of dog excrement off a suburban lawn. Years later, Waters was still being asked about that glorious moment of cinematic history. Finally he snapped. "It was just a little piece of dogshit," he told a reporter, "and it made her a star."
So get down on your knees and ask for help even if you don't like it, Casey always finished. After all, it's just a little piece of dogshit.
Dan couldn't very well get on his knees behind the steering wheel of his car, but he assumed the automatic default position of his morning and nightly prayers--eyes closed and one palm pressed against his lips, as if to keep out even a trickle of the seductive poison that had scarred twenty years of his life.
God, help me not to dri--
He got that far and the light broke.
It was what Dave had said on their way to Cloud Gap. It was Abra's angry smile (Dan wondered if the Crow had seen that smile yet, and what he made of it, if so). Most of all, it was the feel of his own skin, pressing his lips back against his teeth.
"Oh my God," he whispered. He got out of the car and his legs gave way. He fell on his knees after all, but got up and ran into the garage, where the two men were standing and looking at Abra's abandoned pack.
He grabbed Dave Stone's shoulder. "Call your wife. Tell her you're coming to see her."
"She'll want to know what it's about," Dave said. It was clear from his quivering mouth and downcast eyes how little he wanted to have that conversation. "She's staying at Chetta's apartment. I'll tell her . . . Christ, I don't know what I'll tell her."
Dan gripped tighter, increasing the pressure until the lowered eyes came up and met his. "We're all going to Boston, but John and I have other business to take care of there."
"What other business? I don't understand."
Dan did. Not everything, but a lot.
3
They took John's Suburban. Dave rode shotgun. Dan lay in the back with his head on an armrest and his feet on the floor.
"Lucy kept trying to get me to tell her what it was about," Dave said. "She told me I was scaring her. And of course she thought it was Abra, because she's got a little of what Abra's got. I've always known it. I told her Abby was staying the night at Emma's house. Do you know how many times I've lied to my wife in the years we've been married? I could count them on one hand, and three of them would be about how much I lost in the Thursday night poker games the head of my department runs. Nothing like this. And in just three hours, I'm going to have to eat it."
Of course Dan and John knew what he'd said about Abra, and how upset Lucy had been at her husband's continued insistence that the matter was too important and complex to go into on the telephone. They had both been in the kitchen when he made the call. But he needed to talk. To share, in AA-speak. John took care of any responses that needed to be made, saying uh-huh and I know and I understand.
At some point, Dave broke off and looked into the backseat. "Jesus God, are you sleeping?"
"No," Dan said without opening his eyes. "I'm trying to get in touch with your daughter."
That ended Dave's monologue. Now there was only the hum of the tires as the Suburban ran south on Route 16 through a dozen little towns. Traffic was light and John kept the speedometer pegged at a steady sixty miles an hour once the two lanes broadened to four.
Dan made no effort to call Abra; he wasn't sure that would work. Instead he tried to open his mind completely. To turn himself into a listening post. He had never attempted anything like this before, and the result was eerie. It was like wearing the world's most powerful set of headphones. He seemed to hear a steady low rushing sound, and believed it was the hum of human thoughts. He held himself ready to hear her voice somewhere in that steady surf, not really expecting it, but what else could he do?
It was shortly after they went through the first tolls on the Spaulding Turnpike, now only sixty miles from Boston, that he finally picked her up.
(Dan)
Low. Barely there. At first he thought it was just imagination--wish fulfillment--but he turned in that direction anyway, trying to narrow his concentration down to a single searchlight beam. And it came again, a bit louder this time. It was real. It was her.
(Dan, please!)
She was drugged, all right, and he'd never tried anything remotely like what had to be done next . . . but Abra had. She would have to show him the way, doped up or not.
(Abra push you have to help me)
(help what help how)
(swapsies)
(???)
(help me turn the world)
4
Dave was in the passenger seat, going through the change in the cup holder for the next toll, when Dan spoke from behind him. Only it most certainly wasn't Dan.
"Just give me another minute, I have to change my tampon!"
The Suburban swerved as John sat up straight and jerked the wheel. "What the hell?"
Dave unsnapped his seatbelt and got on his knees, twisting around to peer at the man lying on the backseat. Dan's eyes were half-lidded, but when Dave spoke Abra's name, they opened.
"No, Daddy, not now, I have to help . . . I have to try . . ." Dan's body twisted. One hand came up, wiped his mouth in a gesture Dave had seen a thousand times, then fell away. "Tell him I said not to call me that. Tell him--"
Dan's head cocked sideways until it was lying on his shoulder. He groaned. His hands twitched aimlessly.
"What's going on?" John shouted. "What do I do?"
"I don't know," Dave said. He reached between the seats, took one of the twitching hands, and held it tight.
"Drive," Dan said. "Just drive."
Then the body on the backseat began to buck and twist. Abra began to scream with Dan's voice.
5
He found the conduit between them by following the sluggish current of her thoughts. He saw the stone wheel because Abra was visualizing it, but she was far too weak and disoriented to turn it. She was using all the mental force she could muster just to keep her end of the link open. So he could enter her mind and she could enter his. But he was still mostly in the Suburban, with the lights of the cars headed in the other direction running across the padded roof. Light . . . dark . . . light . . . dark.
The wheel was so heavy.
There was a sudden hammering from somewhere, and a voice. "Come out, Abra. Time's up. We have to roll."
That frightened her, and she found a little extra strength. The wheel began to move, pulling him deeper into the umbilicus that connected them. It was the strangest sensation Dan had ever had in his life, exhilarating even in the horror of the situation.
Somewhere, distant, he heard Abra say, "Just give me another minute, I have to change my tampon!"
The roof of John's Suburban was sliding away. Turning away. There was darkness, the sense of being in a tunnel, and he had time to think, If I get lost in here, I'll never be able to get back. I'll wind up in a mental hospital somewhere, labeled a hopeless catatonic.
But then the world was sliding back into place, only it wasn't the same place. The Suburban was gone. He was in a smelly bathroom with dingy blue tiles on the floor and a sign beside the washbasin reading SORRY COLD WATER ONLY. He was sitting on the toilet.
Before he could even think about getting up, the door bammed open hard enough to crack some of the old tiles, and a man strode in. He looked about thirty-five, his hair dead black and combed away from his forehead, his face angular but handsome in a rough-hewn, bony way. In one hand he held a pistol.
"Change your tampon, sure," he said. "Where'd you have it, Goldilocks, in your pants pocket? Must have been, because your backpack's a long way from here."
(tell him I said not to call me that)
Dan said, "I told you not to call me that."
Crow paused, looking at the girl sitting on the toilet seat, s
waying a little from side to side. Swaying because of the dope. Sure. But what about the way she sounded? Was that because of the dope?
"What happened to your voice? You don't sound like yourself."
Dan tried to shrug the girl's shoulders and only succeeded in twitching one of them. Crow grabbed Abra's arm and yanked Dan to Abra's feet. It hurt, and he cried out.
Somewhere--miles from here--a faint voice shouted, What's going on? What do I do?
"Drive," he told John as Crow pulled him out the door. "Just drive."
"Oh, I'll drive, all right," Crow said, and muscled Abra into the truck next to the snoring Billy Freeman. Then he grabbed a sheaf of her hair, wound it in his fist, and pulled. Dan screamed with Abra's voice, knowing it wasn't quite her voice. Almost, but not quite. Crow heard the difference, but didn't know what it was. The hat woman would have; it was the hat woman who had unwittingly shown Abra this mindswap trick.
"But before we get rolling, we're going to have an understanding. No more lies, that's the understanding. The next time you lie to your Daddy, this old geezer snoring beside me is dead meat. I won't use the dope, either. I'll pull in at a camp road and put a bullet in his belly. That way it takes awhile. You'll get to listen to him scream. Do you understand?"
"Yes," Dan whispered.
"Little girl, I fucking hope so, because I don't chew my cabbage twice."
Crow slammed the door and walked quickly around to the driver's side. Dan closed Abra's eyes. He was thinking about the spoons at the birthday party. About opening and shutting drawers--that, too. Abra was too physically weak to grapple with the man now getting behind the wheel and starting the engine, but part of her was strong. If he could find that part . . . the part that had moved the spoons and opened drawers and played air-music . . . the part that had written on his blackboard from miles away . . . if he could find it and then take control of it . . .
As Abra had visualized a female warrior's lance and a stallion, Dan now visualized a bank of switches on a control room wall. Some worked her hands, some her legs, some the shrug of her shoulders. Others, though, were more important. He should be able to pull them; he had at least some of the same circuits.
The truck was moving, first reversing, then turning. A moment later they were back on the road.
"That's right," Crow said grimly. "Go to sleep. What the hell did you think you were going to do back there? Jump in the toilet and flush yourself away to . . ."
His words faded, because here were the switches Dan was looking for. The special switches, the ones with the red handles. He didn't know if they were really there, and actually connected to Abra's powers, or if this was just some mental game of solitaire he was playing. He only knew that he had to try.
Shine on, he thought, and pulled them all.
6
Billy Freeman's pickup was six or eight miles west of the gas station and rolling through rural Vermont darkness on 108 when Crow first felt the pain. It was like a small silver band circling his left eye. It was cold, pressing. He reached up to touch it, but before he could, it slithered right, freezing the bridge of his nose like a shot of novocaine. Then it circled his other eye as well. It was like wearing metal binoculars.
Or eyecuffs.
Now his left ear began to ring, and suddenly his left cheek was numb. He turned his head and saw the little girl looking at him. Her eyes were wide and unblinking. They didn't look doped in the slightest. For that matter, they didn't look like her eyes. They looked older. Wiser. And as cold as his face now felt.
(stop the truck)
Crow had capped the hypo and put it away, but he was still holding the gun he'd taken from beneath the seat when he decided she was spending way too much time in the crapper. He raised it, meaning to threaten the geezer and make her stop whatever it was she was doing, but all at once his hand felt as if it had been plunged into freezing water. The gun put on weight: five pounds, ten pounds, what felt like twenty-five. Twenty-five at least. And while he was struggling to raise it, his right foot came off the F-150's gas pedal and his left hand turned the wheel so that the truck veered off the road and rolled along the soft shoulder--gently, slowing--with the right-side wheels tilting toward the ditch.
"What are you doing to me?"
"What you deserve. Daddy."
The truck bumped a downed birch tree, snapped it in two, and stopped. The girl and the geezer were seatbelted in, but Crow had forgotten his. He jolted forward into the steering wheel, honking the horn. When he looked down, he saw the geezer's automatic turning in his fist. Very slowly turning toward him. This shouldn't be happening. The dope was supposed to stop it. Hell, the dope had stopped it. But something had changed in that bathroom. Whoever was behind those eyes now was cold fucking sober.
And horribly strong.
Rose! Rose, I need you!
"I don't think she can hear," the voice that wasn't Abra's said. "You may have some talents, you son of a bitch, but I don't think you have much in the way of telepathy. I think when you want to talk to your girlfriend, you use the phone."
Exerting all his strength, Crow began to turn the Glock back toward the girl. Now it seemed to weigh fifty pounds. The tendons of his neck stood out like cables. Drops of perspiration beaded on his forehead. One ran into his eye, stinging, and Crow blinked it away.
"I'll . . . shoot . . . your friend," he said.
"No," the person inside Abra said. "I won't let you."
But Crow could see she was straining now, and that gave him hope. He put everything he had into pointing the muzzle at Rip Van Winkle's midsection, and had almost gotten there when the gun started to rotate back again. Now he could hear the little bitch panting. Hell, he was, too. They sounded like marathoners approaching the end of a race side by side.
A car went by, not slowing. Neither of them noticed. They were looking at each other.
Crow brought his left hand down to join his right on the gun. Now it turned a little more easily. He was beating her, by God. But his eyes! Jesus!
"Billy!" Abra shouted. "Billy, little help here!"
Billy snorted. His eyes opened. "Wha--"
For a moment Crow was distracted. The force he was exerting slackened, and the gun immediately began to turn back toward him. His hands were cold, cold. Those metal rings were pressing into his eyes, threatening to turn them to jelly.
The gun went off for the first time when it was between them, blowing a hole in the dashboard just above the radio. Billy jerked awake, arms flailing to either side like a man pulling himself out of a nightmare. One of them struck Abra's temple, the other Crow's chest. The cab of the truck was filled with blue haze and the smell of burnt gunpowder.
"What was that? What the hell was tha--"
Crow snarled, "No, you bitch! No!"
He swung the gun back toward Abra, and as he did it, he felt her control slip. It was the blow to the head. Crow could see dismay and terror in her eyes, and was savagely glad.
Have to kill her. Can't give her another chance. But not a headshot. In the gut. Then I'll suck the stea--
Billy slammed his shoulder into Crow's side. The gun jerked up and went off again, this time putting a hole in the roof just above Abra's head. Before Crow could bring it down again, huge hands laid themselves over his. He had time to realize that his adversary had only been tapping a fraction of the force at its command. Panic had unlocked a great, perhaps even unknowable, reserve. This time when the gun turned toward him, Crow's wrists snapped like bundles of twigs. For a moment he saw a single black eye staring up at him, and there was time for half a thought:
(Rose I love y)
There was a brilliant flash of white, then darkness. Four seconds later, there was nothing left of Crow Daddy but his clothes.
7
Steamhead Steve, Baba the Red, Bent Dick, and Greedy G were playing a desultory game of canasta in the Bounder that Greedy and Dirty Phil shared when the shrieks began. All four of them had been on edge--the whole True was on edge-
-and they dropped their cards immediately and ran for the door.
Everyone was emerging from their campers and RVs to see what the matter was, but they stopped when they saw Rose the Hat standing in the brilliant yellow-white glare of the security lights surrounding the Overlook Lodge. Her eyes were wild. She was pulling at her hair like an Old Testament prophet in the throes of a violent vision.
"That fucking little bitch killed my Crow!" she shrieked. "I'll kill her! I'LL KILL HER AND EAT HER HEART!"
At last she sank to her knees, sobbing into her hands.
The True Knot stood, stunned. No one knew what to say or do. At last Silent Sarey went to her. Rose shoved her violently away. Sarey landed on her back, got up, and returned to Rose without hesitation. This time Rose looked up and saw her would-be comforter, a woman who had also lost someone dear on this unbelievable night. She embraced Sarey, hugging so hard that the watching True heard bones crack. But Sarey didn't struggle, and after a few moments, the two women helped each other to their feet. Rose looked from Silent Sarey to Big Mo, then to Heavy Mary and Token Charlie. It was as if she had never seen any of them.
"Come on, Rosie," Mo said. "You've had a shock. You need to lie d--"
"NO!"
She stepped away from Silent Sarey and clapped her hands to the sides of her face in a huge double slap that knocked off her hat. She bent down to pick it up, and when she looked around at the gathered True again, some sanity had come back into her eyes. She was thinking of Diesel Doug and the crew she had sent to meet Daddy and the girl.
"I need to get hold of Deez. Tell him and Phil and Annie to turn around. We need to be together. We need to take steam. A lot of it. Once we're loaded, we're going to get that bitch."
They only looked at her, their faces worried and unsure. The sight of those frightened eyes and stupid gaping mouths infuriated her.
"Do you doubt me?" Silent Sarey had crept back to her side. Rose pushed her away from her so hard Sarey almost fell down again. "Whoever doubts me, let him step forward."
"No one doubts you, Rose," Steamhead Steve said, "but maybe we ought to let her alone." He spoke carefully, and couldn't quite meet Rose's eyes. "If Crow's really gone, that's five dead. We've never lost five in one day. We've never even lost t--"