Stephen King - Firestarter (1980)

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S t e p h e n

KING

FIRESTARTER

Warner Books

'It was a pleasure to burn.'

— Ray Bradbury, FAHRENHEIT 451

A Warner Book

First published in Great Britain in 1980

by Macdonald & Co

Published by Futura Publications in 1981

Reprinted 1981, 1982, 1983, 1984 (twice), 1985,

1986 (twice), 1987, 1988, 1989, 1990, 1991 (twice)

This edition published by Warner Books in 1992

Reprinted 1993 (twice), 1994, 1996, 1998 (twice), 2000 (twice)

The moral right of the author has been asserted

All characters in this publication are fictitious

and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead,

is purely coincidental.

No part of this publication may be reproduced,

stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any

form or by any means without the prior

written permission of the publisher, nor be

otherwise circulated in any form of binding or

cover other than that in which it is published and

without a similar condition including this

condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

A CIP catalogue record for this book is

available from the British Library.

ISBN 0 7515 0439 4

Printed in England by Clays Ltd, St Ives plc

Warner Books

A Division of

Little, Brown and Company (UK)

Brettenham House

Lancaster Place

London WC2E 7EN

In memory of Shirley Jackson,

who never needed to raise her voice.

The Haunting of Hill House

The Lottery

We Have Always Lived in the Castle

The Sundial

New York/Albany

'Daddy, I'm tired,' the little girl in the red pants and the green blouse said fretfully. 'Can't

you stop?'

'Not yet, honey.'

He was a big, broad-shouldered man in a worn and scuffed corduroy jacket and plain

brown twill slacks. He and the little girl were holding hands and walking up Third

Avenue in New York City, walking fast, almost running. He looked back over his

shoulder and the green car was still there, crawling along slowly in the curbside lane.

'Please, Daddy. Please.'

He looked at her and saw how pale her face was. There were dark circles under her

eyes. He picked her up and sat her in the crook of his arm, but he didn't know how long

he could go on like that. He was tired, too, and Charlie was no lightweight anymore.

It was five-thirty in the afternoon and Third Avenue was clogged. They were crossing

streets in the upper Sixties now, and these cross streets were both darker and less

populated. . . . But that was what he was afraid of.

They bumped into a lady pushing a walker full of groceries. 'Look where you're goin,

whyn't ya?' she said, and was gone, swallowed in the hurrying crowds.

His arm was getting tired, and he switched Charlie to the other one. He snatched

another look behind, and the green car was still there, still pacing them, about half a

block behind. There were two men in the front seat and, he thought, a third in the back.

What do I do now?

He didn't know the answer to that. He was tired and scared and it was hard to think.

They had caught him at a bad time, and the bastards probably knew it. What he wanted to

do was just sit down on the dirty curbing and cry out his frustration and fear. But that was

no answer. He was the grownup. He would have to think for both of them.

What do we do now?

No money. That was maybe the biggest problem, after the fact of the men in green car.

You couldn't do anything with no money in New York. People with no money

disappeared in New York; they dropped into the sidewalks, never to be seen again.

He looked back over his shoulder, saw the green car was a little closer, and the sweat

began to run down his back and his arms a little faster. If they knew as much as he

suspected they did — if they knew how little of the push he actually had left — they

might try to take him right here and now. Never mind all the people, either. In New York,

if it's not happening to you, you develop this funny blindness. Have they been charting

me? Andy wondered desperately. If they have, they know, and it's all over but the

shouting. If they had, they knew the pattern. After Andy got some money, the strange

things stopped happening for a while. The things they were interested in.

Keep walking.

Sho, boss. Yassuh, boss. Where?

He had gone into the bank at noon because his radar had been alerted — that funny

hunch that they were getting close again. There was money in the bank, and he and

Charlie could run on it if they had to. And wasn't that funny? Andrew McGee no longer

had an account at the Chemical Allied Bank of New York, not personal checking, not

business checking, not savings. They had all disappeared into thin air, and that was when

he knew they really meant to bring the hammer down this time. Had all of that really

been only five and a half hours ago?

But maybe there was a tickle left. Just one little tickle. It had been nearly a week since

the last time — that presuicidal man at Confidence Associates who had come to the

regular Thursday night counseling session and then begun to talk with an eerie calmness

about how Hemingway had committed suicide. And on the way out, his arm casually

around the presuicidal man's shoulders, Andy had given him a push. Now, bitterly, he

hoped it had been worth it. Because it looked very much as if he and Charlie were going

to be the ones to pay. He almost hoped an echo —

But no. He pushed that away, horrified and disgusted with himself. That was nothing

to wish on anybody.

One little tickle; he prayed. That's all, God, just one little tickle. Enough to get me and

Charlie out of this jam.

And oh God, how you'll pay . . . plus the fact that you'll be dead for a month afterward,

just like a radio with a blown tube. Maybe six weeks. Or maybe really dead with your

worthless brains leaking out your ears. What would happen to Charlie then?

They were coming up on Seventieth Street and the light was against them. Traffic was

pouring across and pedestrians were building up at the corner in a bottleneck. And

suddenly he knew this was where the men in the green car would take them. Alive if they

could, of course, but if it looked like trouble . . . well, they had probably been briefed on

Charlie, too.

Maybe they don't even want us alive anymore. Maybe they've decided just to maintain

the status quo. What do you do with a faulty equation? Erase it from the board.

A knife in the back, a silenced pistol, quite possibly something more arcane — a drop

of rare poison on the end of a needle. Convulsions at the corner of Third and Seventieth.

Officer, this man appears to have suffered a heart attack.

He would have to try for that tickle. There was just nothing else.

They reached the waiting pedestrians at the corner. Across the way, DON'T WALK

held steady and seemingly eternal. He looked back. The green car had stopped. The

curbside doors opened and two men in business suits got out. They were young and

smooth-cheeked. They looked considerably fresher than Andy McGee felt.

He began elbowing his way through the clog of pedestrians, eyes searching frantically

for a vacant cab.

'Hey, man — '

'For Christ' sake, fella!'

'Please, mister, you're stepping on my dog — '

'Excuse me . . . excuse me . . .' Andy said desperately. He searched for a cab. There

were none. At any other time the street would have been stuffed with them. He could feel

the men from the green car coming for them, wanting to lay hands on him and Charlie, to

take them with them God knew where, the Shop, some damn place, or do something even

worse —

Charlie laid her head on his shoulder and yawned.

Andy saw a vacant cab.

'Taxi! Taxi!' he yelled, flagging madly with his free hand.

Behind him, the two man dropped all pretense and ran.

The taxi pulled over.

'Hold it!' one of the men yelled. 'Police! Police!'

A woman near the back of the crowd at the corner screamed, and then they all began to

scatter.

Andy opened the cab's back door and handed Charlie in. He dived in after her. 'La

Guardia, step on it,' he said.

'Hold it, cabby. Police!'

The cab driver turned his head toward the voice and Andy pushed — very gently. A

dagger of pain was planted squarely in the center of Andy's forehead and then quickly

withdrawn, leaving a vague locus of pain, like a morning headache — the kind you get

from sleeping on your neck.

'They're after that black guy in the checkered cap, I think,' he said to the cabby.

'Right,' the driver said, and pulled serenely away from the curb. They moved down

East Seventieth.

Andy looked back. The two men were standing alone at the curb. The rest of the

pedestrians wanted nothing to do with them. One of the men took a walkie-talkie from his

belt and began to speak into it. Then they were gone.

'That black buy,' the driver said, 'whadde do? Rob a liquor store or somethin, you

think?'

'I don't know,' Andy said, trying to think how to go on with this, how to get the most

out of this cab driver for the least push. Had they got the cab's plate number? He would

have to assume they had. But they wouldn't want to go to the city or state cops, and they

would be surprised and scrambling, for a while at least.

'They're all a bunch of junkies, the blacks in this city,' the driver said. 'Don't tell me, I'll

tell you.'

Charlie was going to sleep. Andy took off his corduroy jacket, folded it, and slipped it

under her head. He had begun to feel a thin hope. If he could play this right, it might

work. Lady Luck had sent him what Andy thought of (with no prejudice at all) as a

pushover. He was the sort that seemed the easiest to push, right down the line: he was

white (Orientals were the toughest, for some reason); he was quite young (old people

were nearly impossible) and of medium intelligence (bright people were the easiest

pushes, stupid ones harder, and with the mentally retarded it was impossible).

'I've changed my mind,' Andy said. 'Take us to Albany, please.'

'Where?' The driver stared at him in the rearview mirror. 'Man, I can't take a fare to

Albany, you out of your mind?'

Andy pulled his wallet, which contained a single dollar bill. He thanked God that this

was not one of those cabs with a bulletproof partition and no way to contact the driver

except through a money slot. Open contact always made it easier to push. He had been

unable to figure out if that was a psychological thing or not, and right now it was

immaterial.

'I'm going to give you a five-hundred-dollar bill,' Andy said quietly, 'to take me and my

daughter to Albany. Okay?'

'Jeee-sus, mister — '

Andy stuck the bill into the cabby's hand, and as the cabby looked down at it, Andy

pushed . . . and pushed hard. For a terrible second he was afraid it wasn't going to work,

that there was simply nothing left, that he had scraped the bottom of the barrel when he

had made the driver see the non existent black man in the checkered cap.

Then the feeling came — as always accompanied by that steel dagger of pain. At the

same moment, his stomach seemed to take on weight and his bowels locked in sick,

griping agony. He put an unsteady hand to his face and wondered if he was going to

throw up . . . or die. For that one moment he wanted to die, as he always did when he

overused it — use it, don't abuse it, the sign — off slogan of some long ago disc jockey

echoing sickly in his mind whatever 'it' was. If at that very moment someone had slipped

a gun into his hand —

Then he looked sideways at Charlie, Charlie sleeping, Charlie trusting him to get them

out of this mess as he had all the others, Charlie confident he would be there when she

woke up. Yes, all the messes, except it was all the same mess, the same fucking mess,

and all they were doing was running again. Black despair pressed behind his eyes.

The feeling passed . . . but not the headache. The headache would get worse and worse

until it was a smashing weight, sending red pain through his head and neck with every

pulsebeat. Bright lights would make his eyes water helplessly and send darts of agony

into the flesh just behind his eyes. His sinuses would close and he would have to breathe

through his mouth. Drill bits in his temples. Small noises magnified, ordinary noises as

loud as jackhammers, loud noises insupportable. The headache would worsen until it felt

as if his head were being crushed inside an inquisitor's lovecap. Then it would even off at

that level for six hours, or eight, or, maybe ten. This time he didn't know. He had never

pushed it so far when he was so close to drained. For whatever length of time he was in

the grip of the headache, he would be next to helpless. Charlie would have to take care of

him. God knew she had done it before . . . but they had been lucky. How many times

could you be lucky?

'Gee, mister, I don't know — '

Which meant he thought it was law trouble.

'The deal only goes as long as you don't mention it to my little girl,' Andy said. 'The

last two weeks She's been with me. Has to be back with her mother tomorrow morning.'

'Visitation rights,' the cabby said. 'I know all about it.'

'You see, I was supposed to fly her up.'

'To Albany? Probably Ozark, am I right?'

'Right. Now, the thing is, I'm scared to death of flying. I know how crazy that sounds,

but it's true. Usually I drive her back up, but this time my ex — wife started in on me, and

. . . I don't know.' In truth Andy didn't. He had made up the story on the spur of the

moment and now it seemed to be leaded straight down a blind alley. Most of it was pure

exhaustion.

'So I drop you at the old Albany airport, and as far as Moms knows, you flew, right?'

'Sure.' His head was thudding.

'Also, as far as Moms knows, you're no plucka-plucka-plucka, am I four-oh?'

'Yes.' Plucka-plucka-plucka? What was that supposed to mean? The pain was getting

bad.

'Five hundred bucks to skip a plane ride,' the driver mused.

'It's worth it to me,' Andy said, and gave one last little shove. In a very quiet voice,

speaking almost into the cabby's ear, he added, 'And it ought to be worth it to you.'

'Listen,' the driver said in a dreamy voice. 'I ain't turning down no five hundred dollars.

Don't tell me, I'll tell you.'

'Okay,' Andy said, and settled back. The cab driver was satisfied. He wasn't wondering

about Andy's half — baked story. He wasn't wondering what a seven — year old girl was

doing visiting her father for two weeks in October with school in. He wasn't wondering

about the fact that neither of them had so much as an overnight bag. He wasn't worried

about anything. He had been pushed.

Now Andy would go ahead — and pay the price.

He put a hand on Charlie's leg. She was fast asleep. They had been on the go all

afternoon — ever since Andy got to her school and pulled her out of her second grade

class with some half-remembered excuse . . . grandmother's very ill . . . called home . . .

sorry to have to take her in the middle of the day. And beneath all that a great, swelling

relief. How he had dreaded looking into Mrs. Mishkin's room and seeing Charlie's seat

empty, her books stacked neatly inside her desk. No, Mr. McGee . . . she went with your

friends about two hours ago . . . they had a note from you . . . wasn't that all right?

Memories of Vicky coming back, the sudden terror of the empty house that day. His

crazy chase after Charlie. Because they had had her once before, oh yes.

But Charlie had been there. How close had it been? Had he beaten them by half an

hour? Fifteen minutes? Less? He didn't like to think about it. He had got them a late

lunch at Nathan's and they had spent the rest of the afternoon just going — Andy could

admit to himself now that he had been in a state of blind panic — riding subways, buses,

but mostly just walking. And now she was worn out.

He spared her a long, loving look. Her hair was shoulder length, perfect blond, and in

her sleep she had a calm beauty. She looked so much like Vicky hat it hurt. He closed his

own eyes.

In the front seat, the cab driver looked wonderingly at the five-hundred-dollar bill the

guy had handed him. He tucked it away in the special belt pocket where he kept all of his

tips. He didn't think it was strange that this fellow in the back had been walking around

New York with a little girl and a five-hundred-dollar bill in his pocket. He didn't wonder

how he was going to square this with his dispatcher. All he thought of was how excited

his girlfriend, Glyn, was going to be. Glynis kept tell telling him that driving a taxi was a

dismal, unexciting job. Well, wait until she saw his dismal, unexciting five-hundred-

dollar bill.

In the back seat, Andy sat with his head back and his eyes closed. The headache was

coming, coming, as inexorable as a riderless black horse in a funeral cortege. He could

hear the hoof beats of that horse in his temples: thud . . . thud . . . thud.

On the run. He and Charlie. He was thirty-four years old and until last year he had

been an instructor of English at Harrison State College in Ohio. Harrison was a sleepy

little college town. Good old Harrison, the very heart of mid-America. Good old Andrew

McGee, fine, upstanding young man. Remember the riddle? Why is a farmer the pillar of

his community? Because he's always outstanding in his field.

Thud, thud thud riderless black horse with red eyes coming down the halls of his mind,

ironshod hooves digging up soft gray clods of brain tissue, leaving hoofprints to fill up

with mystic crescents of blood.

The cabby had been a pushover. Sure. An outstanding cab driver.

He dozed and saw Charlie's face. And Charlie's face became Vicky's face.

Andy McGee and his wife, pretty Vicky. They had pulled her fingernails out, one by

one. They had pulled out four of them and then she had talked. That, at least, was his

deduction. Thumb, index, second, ring. Then: Stop. I'll talk. I'll tell you anything you

want to know. Just stop the hurting. Please. So she had told. And then . . . perhaps it had

been an accident . . . then his wife had died. Well, some things are bigger than both of us,

and other things are bigger than all of us.

Things like the Shop, for instance.

Thud, thud thud riderless black horse coming on, coming on, and coming on: behold, a

black horse.

Andy slept.

And remembered.

The man in charge of the experiment was Dr. Wanless. He was fat and balding and had at

least one rather bizarre habit.

'We're going to give each of you twelve young ladies and gentlemen an injection,' he

said, shredding a cigarette into the ashtray in front of him. His small pink fingers plucked

at the thin cigarette paper, spilling out neat little cones of golden-brown tobacco. 'Six of

these injections will be water. Six of them will be water mixed with a tiny amount of a

chemical compound which we call Lot Six. The exact nature of this compound is

classified, but it is essentially an hypnotic and mild hallucinogenic. Thus you understand

that the compound will be administered by the double-blind method . . . which is to say,

neither you nor we will know who has gotten a clear dose and who has not until later.

The dozen of you will be under close supervision for forty-eight hours following the

injection. Questions?'

There were several, most having to do with the exact composition of Lot Six — that

word classified was like putting bloodhounds on a convict's trail. Wanless slipped these

questions quite adroitly. No one had asked the question twenty-two-year-old Andy

McGee was most interested in. He considered raising his hand in the hiatus that fell upon

the nearly deserted lecture hall in Harrison's combined Psychology/Sociology building

and asking, Say, why are you ripping up perfectly good cigarettes like that? Better not to.

Better to let the imagination run on a free rein while this boredom went on. He was trying

to give up smoking. The oral retentive smokes them; the anal retentive shreds them. (This

brought a slight grin to Andy's lips, which he covered with a hand.) Wanless's brother had

died of lung cancer and the doctor was symbolically venting his aggressions on the

cigarette industry. Or maybe it was just one of those flamboyant tics that college

professors felt compelled to flaunt rather than suppress. Andy had one English teacher his

sophomore year at Harrison (the man was now mercifully retired) who sniffed his tie

constantly while lecturing on William Dean Howells and the rise of realism.

'If there are no more questions, I'll ask you to fill out these forms and will expect to see

you promptly at nine next Tuesday.'

Two grad assistants passed out photocopies with twenty-five ridiculous questions to

answer yes or no. Have you ever undergone psychiatric counselling? — No.8. Do you

believe you have ever had an authentic psychic experience? — No.14. Have you ever

used hallucinogenic drugs? — No.18. After a slight pause, Andy checked 'no' to that one,

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摘要：

StephenKINGFIRESTARTERWarnerBooks'Itwasapleasuretoburn.'—RayBradbury,FAHRENHEIT451AWarnerBookFirstpublishedinGreatBritainin1980byMacdonald&CoPublishedbyFuturaPublicationsin1981Reprinted1981,1982,1983,1984(twice),1985,1986(twice),1987,1988,1989,1990,1991(twice)ThiseditionpublishedbyWarnerBooksin1992R...

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Stephen King - Firestarter (1980)

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