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.He s anticipated something like this, and he s ready.They ll never catch old Bill with his pantsdown.He pulls a Smith & Wesson.44 magnum from under his bed, snatches his brown coverall from across the back of the chair at his desk,where he has left it so that he can find it in the dark, and pulls it on without letting go of the enormous pistol.He goes to his door and raises thepistol alongside his head.Purple light flickers from his desk as the computer monitor screen comes to life.INTEGRITY BREACH, it reads, andbegins blinking.Bill narrows his eyes and turns back to the door.He snatches it open and peers into the corridor.Nothing.The bell continues to ring.file:///C|/.prehensive%20collection/Anthologies/Book%20of%20The%20Dead/Stephen%20King%20-%20Book%20of%20the%20Dead.htm[3/19/2010 4:15:02 PM]He jumps into the corridor and lands in a policeman s firing stance, legs straddled, left hand around right hand holding the gun, back straight, armsa little bent.He didn t read Soldier of Fortune for nothing.He turns quickly.The corridor is clear.He straightens and moves for the stairwell and the monitor room.Leonard is puh-puh-panning cameras like mad, searching for any sign of motion, when Bill bursts into the room.He starts, then bolts out of hischair when he sees that Bill clutches the buh-buh-biggest pistol he has ever seen, aimed square at his chest.He glances at the monitors and Billlowers the gun. You sounded the alarm?Leonard shakes his head. Window buh-buh-broke.In the orchard.Bill frowns, still looking at the monitors. False alarm? He sounds disappointed.Leonard shrugs.Bill peers forward. Hold Camera Five, he says.Leonard hits a button on the console.Bill leans until his face is five inches from the screen. Bring it up. Do you mean zoom, or p-p-pan up?Bill glares. Zoom, he says.Leonard works the controls until Bill is staring at a Ryder truck not three hundred yards downhill from the desert environment.He turns to look atLeonard.He raises the gun.Leonard raises his hands as if to ward off bullets.From outside they hear gunshots.Pop.Pop-pop.[13]Haiffa swims naked in cool tropical water.She cannot bear to open her eyes in salt water and so swims blindly, coming up for a breath andflipping back down again.Her long hair streams behind her; she is a mermaid.Or a Siren, perhaps, to torture the naked ears of Ulysses.She likes to swim after making love.She likes to think of Deke lying spent on the shore, waiting for his Venus to emerge.She swims out past the sandbar and surfaces.She waves toward the narrow shore, but Deke does not see her because he is facing the Staff Quartersto the west and scratching his head.She draws a deep breath and dives.The bottom is less than twenty feet down, here; she grabs it with her hands.Grit collapses in her palms.Sometimes she has accidentally grabbedcrabs here, or scraped herself against rock, or been startled when something slides across her leg.She jerks, but of course it is only a fish, though for a moment it feltHer ankle is grabbed.The grip is cold and firm.She whirls and opens her eyes.Salt water stings.Dark water.She reaches.Her fingers brush thecloud of her hair.She kicks out, but encounters nothing.Her leg is tugged.She jackknifes to free herself from whatever holds her.Something withridges.It feels like a hand, but that s ridicAgony as something rips along the blade of her foot.Air bubbles contain her scream, float to the surface, and pop without a sound.Haiffa curls upand grabs at her foot.Her hands encounter something round, with hair.A head.But it can t be a head, not down here.Her hands slide across it asher foot pulses into the cold water.Her fingers trace cold flesh and opened eyes.Following her next scream is a short gasp.It contains water.She forces herself to check it.Salt water in her throat.She coughs.The little air thatremained to her bubbles up.Her lungs feel scoured.Her foot throbs.Her leg is pulled in again.Two hard crescents press into her thigh, and pressharder.In the sudden pain of tearing flesh she rips away a clot of hair in one hand.Thrashing now.She tries to scream, but there is nothing.Hermouth works to call, but the world lies above a veil of water she cannot part.The only sound is the beating of her heart.The flailing arm that holds the hair is grabbed, is pulled.Her mouth stretches horribly as arm muscle is pulped and torn away.Mottled red tingesthe darkness in her eyes.A tone builds in her ears, the sustained ringing of a distant underwater bell.Some threshold is crossed in her brain, a linefile:///C|/.prehensive%20collection/Anthologies/Book%20of%20The%20Dead/Stephen%20King%20-%20Book%20of%20the%20Dead.htm[3/19/2010 4:15:02 PM]of resistance past which the instinct to breathe defeats the knowledge that there is no breath to draw.She inhales.Her lungs fill with water.Relieffloods into the midst of her pain.Coolness quenches the burning in her chest.Something tears loose inside her.The ringing grows, her heartbeat slows.Red lace webs her vision.Pain spreads up her arm as she is drawn into acold embrace, is held like a lover, is kissed with great passion, is consumed, while around her the water grows warm.Deke rises from the beach at the sound of gunfire.Pop.Pop-pop! Pistol, sounds like.He brushes sand from his butt and turns toward theagricultural wing.He opens his mouth to improve his hearing, but there is nothing further to hear.He does not see the hand rise from the waterbehind him, wave a frantic goodbye, and sink again.He picks up his jeans, shakes them out, and begins pulling them on. Haiffa, he calls. Haiffa!He peers forward, straining to see in the darkness.The Olympic-sized ocean is placid.Been under an awful long time now.Prob ly swam out past the sandbar, but she oughta be able to hear him call.Should check out that gunfire.Better make sure Haiffa s okay first.He walks to the end of the beach and skirts the ocean to the west, where the savanna begins. Haiffa?Probably somebody finally had enough of ol Billy-boy and did it to him.More than likely idjit did it to himself, way he handles a gun.Damn foolcould screw up a two-car funeral on a one-way street.Three shots, though [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]