Read Online Desperation by Stephen King - Free Book Online Page B

brother with swimming eyes.
    â€œWe’ll come back and get her and clean her all up,” David said.
    â€œPromise?”
    â€œUh-huh. I’ll even help you wash her hair.”
    â€œWith Prell?”
    â€œUh-huh.” He put a quick kiss on her cheek.
    â€œWhat if the bad man comes?” Kirstie asked. “The bad man like Mr. Big Boogeyman? What if he dollnaps Melissa Sweetheart?”
    David covered his mouth with his hand to hide the ghost of a grin. “He won’t.” The boy glanced up into the rearview mirror, trying to make eye contact with the cop. “Will he?”
    â€œNo,” the cop said. “The man we’re looking for is not a dollnapper.” There was no facetiousness Ralph could detect in his voice; he sounded like Joe Friday. Just the facts, ma’am.
    He slowed briefly as they passed a sign which read DESPERATION , then accelerated as he turned right. Ralph hung on, praying that the guy knew what he was doing, that he wouldn’t roll them. The car seemed to lift slightly, then settled back. They were now heading south. On the horizon, a huge bulwark of earth, its tan side cut with cracks and zigzag trenches like black scars, loomed against the sky.
    â€œWhat is he, then?” Ellie asked. “What is this guy? And how did he get hold of the stuff you use to stop speeders? The watchamacallit?”
    â€œHighway carpet, Mom,” David said. He ran a finger up and down the metal mesh between the front and back seats, his face intent and thoughtful and troubled. Not even a ghost of a smile there now.
    â€œSame way he got the guns he’s toting and the car he’s driving,” the man behind the wheel said. Now they were passing the Rattlesnake Trailer Park, now the headquarters of the Desperation Mining Corporation. Up ahead was a huddle of business buildings. A blinker-light flashed yellow under a hundred thousand miles of blue-denim sky. “He’s a cop. And I’ll tell you one thing, Carvers: when you’ve got a nutty cop on your hands, you’ve got a situation.”
    â€œHow do you know our name?” David asked. “You didn’t ask to see my dad’s driver’s license, so how do you know our name?”
    â€œSaw it when your dad opened the door,” the cop said, looking up into the rearview mirror. “Little plaque over the table. GOD BLESS OUR ROAMING HOME. THE CARVERS . Cute.”
    Something about this bothered Ralph, but for now he paid no attention. His fright had grown into a sense of foreboding so strong and yet so diffuse that he felt a little as if he’d eaten something laced with poison. He thought that if he held his hand up it would be steady, but that didn’t change the fact that he had become more scared, not less, since the cop had sped them away from their disabled roaming home with such spooky ease. It apparently wasn’t the kind of fear that made your hands shake ( it’s a dry fright, he thought with a tiny and not very characteristic twinkle of humor), but it was real enough, for all that.
    â€œA cop,” Ralph mused, thinking of a movie he’d rented from the video store down the street one Saturday night not too long ago. Maniac Cop, it had been called. The line of ad-copy above the title had read: YOU HAVE THE RIGHT TO REMAIN SILENT. PERMANENTLY. Funny how stupid stuff like that sometimes stuck with you. Except it didn’t seem very funny right now.
    â€œA cop, right,” their cop replied. He sounded as if he might be smiling.
    Oh, really? Ralph asked himself. And just how does a smile sound?
    He was aware that Ellie was looking at him with a kind of strained curiosity, but this didn’t seem like a good time to return her glance. He didn’t know what they might read in each other’s eyes, and wasn’t sure he wanted to find out.
    The cop had been smiling, though. He was somehow sure of it.
    Why would he be? What’s funny about a