I picked up the souvenir pillow and tottered the rest of the way down the stairs. I emerged into an overcast day that seemed as bright as a Sahara afternoon. I felt for my keys. They weren’t there. What I found where they should have been was a good-sized hole in my right front pants pocket. It hadn’t been there the night before, I was almost sure of that. I turned around in small, jerky steps. The keys were lying on the stoop in a litter of spilled change. I bent down, wincing as a lead weight slid forward inside my head. I picked up the keys and made my way to the Sunliner. And when I tried the ignition, my previously reliable Ford refused to start. There was a click from the solenoid. That was all.
I had prepared for this eventuality; what I hadn’t prepared for was having to drag my poisoned head up the stairs again. Never in my life had I wished so fervently for my Nokia. With it, I could have called from behind the wheel, then just sat quietly with my eyes closed until Randy Baker came.
Somehow, I got back up the stairs, past the broken banister and the light fixture that dangled against the torn plaster like a dead head on a broken neck. There was no answer at the service station-it was early and it was Sunday-so I tried Baker’s home number.
He’s probably dead, I thought. Had a heart attack in the middle of the night. Killed by the obdurate past, with Jake Epping as the unindicted co-conspirator.
My mechanic wasn’t dead. He answered on the second ring, voice sleepy, and when I told him my car wouldn’t start, he asked the logical question: “How’d you know yesterday?”
“I’m a good guesser,” I said. “Get here as soon as you can, okay? There’ll be another twenty in it for you, if you can get it going.”
When Baker replaced the battery cable that had mysteriously come loose in the night (maybe at the same moment that hole was appearing in the pocket of my slacks) and the Sunliner still wouldn’t start, he checked the plugs and found two that were badly corroded. He had extras in his large green toolkit, and when they were in place, my chariot roared to life.
“It’s probably not my business, but the only place you should be going is back to bed. Or to a doctor. You’re as pale as a ghost.”
“It’s just a migraine. I’ll be okay. Let’s look in the trunk. I want to check the spare.”
We checked the spare. Flat.
I followed him to the Texaco through what had become a light, steady drizzle. The cars we passed had their headlights on, and even with the sunglasses, each pair seemed to bore holes through my brain. Baker unlocked the service bay and tried to blow up my spare. No go. It hissed air from half a dozen cracks almost as fine as pores in human skin.
“Huh,” he said. “Never seen that before. Tire must be defective.”
“Put another one on the rim,” I said.
I went around to the back of the station while he did it. I couldn’t stand the sound of the compressor. I leaned against the cinderblock and turned my face up, letting cold mist fall on my hot skin. One step at a time, I told myself. One step at a time.
When I tried to pay Randy Baker for the tire, he shook his head. “You already give me half a week’s pay. I’d be a dog to take more. I’m just worried you’ll run off the road, or something. Is it really that important?”
“Sick relative.”
“You’re sick yourself, man.”
I couldn’t deny it.
I drove out of town on Route 7, slowing to look both ways at every intersection whether I had the right of way or not. This turned out to be an excellent idea, because a fully loaded gravel truck blew through a red at the intersection of 7 and the Old Derry Road. If I hadn’t come to an almost complete stop in spite of a green light, my Ford would have been demolished. With me turned to hamburger inside it. I laid on my horn in spite of the pain in my head, but the driver paid no attention. He looked like a zombie behind the wheel.
I’ll never be able to do this, I thought. But if I couldn’t stop Frank Dunning, how could I even hope to stop Oswald? Why go to Texas at all?
That wasn’t what kept me moving, though. It was the thought of Tugga that did that. Not to mention the other three kids. I had saved them once. If I didn’t save them again, how could I escape the sure knowledge that I had participated in murdering them, just by triggering another reset?
