Firestarter (18 page)

“What is it she can do?” Irv asked.

Through the kitchen window they could see Norma and Charlie coming out of the barn. The white sweater flopped and swung around Charlie's body, the hem coming down to her calves. There was high color in her cheeks, and she was talking to Norma, who was smiling and nodding.

Andy said softly, “She can light fires.”

“Well, so can I,” Irv said. He sat down again and was looking at Andy in a peculiar, cautious way. The way you look at people you suspect of madness.

“She can do it simply by thinking about it,” Andy said. “The technical name for it is pyrokinesis. It's a psi talent, like telepathy, telekinesis, or precognition—Charlie has a dash of some of those as well, by the way—but pyrokinesis is much rarer … and much more dangerous. She's very much afraid of it, and she's right to be. She can't always control it. She could burn up your house, your barn, or your front yard if she set her mind to it. Or she could light your pipe.” Andy smiled wanly. “Except that while she was lighting your pipe, she might also burn up your house, your barn, and your front yard.”

Irv finished his beer and said, “I think you ought to call the police and turn yourself in, Frank. You need help.”

“I guess it sounds pretty nutty, doesn't it?”

“Yes,” Irv said gravely. “It sounds nutty as anything I ever heard.” He was sitting lightly, slightly tense on his chair, and
Andy thought,
He's expecting me to do something loony the first chance I get.

“I suppose it doesn't matter much anyway,” Andy said. “They'll be here soon enough. I think the police would actually be better. At least you don't turn into an unperson as soon as the police get their hands on you.”

Irv started to reply, and then the door opened. Norma and Charlie came in. Charlie's face was bright, her eyes sparkling. “Daddy!” she said. “Daddy, I fed the—”

She broke off. Some of the color left her cheeks, and she looked narrowly from Irv Manders to her father and back to Irv again. Pleasure faded from her face and was replaced with a look of harried misery.
The way she looked last night,
Andy thought.
The way she looked yesterday when I grabbed her out of school. It goes on and on, and where's the happy ending for her?

“You told,” she said. “Oh Daddy, why did you tell?”

Norma stepped forward and put a protective arm around Charlie's shoulders. “Irv, what's going on here?”

“I don't know,” Irv said. “What do you mean he told, Bobbi?”

“That's not my name,” she said. Tears had appeared in her eyes. “You know that's not my name.”

“Charlie,” Andy said. “Mr. Manders knew something was wrong. I told him, but he didn't believe me. When you think about it, you'll understand why.”

“I don't understand anyth—” Charlie began, her voice rising stridently. Then she was quiet. Her head cocked sideways in a peculiar listening gesture, although as far as any of the others could tell there was nothing to listen to. As they watched, Charlie's face simply drained of color; it was like watching rich liquid poured out of a pitcher.

“What's the matter, honey?” Norma asked, and cast a worried glance at Irv.

“They're coming, Daddy,” Charlie whispered. Her eyes were wide circles of fear. “They're coming for us.”

They had rendezvoused at the corner of Highway 40 and the unnumbered blacktop road Irv had turned down—on the Hastings Glen town maps it was marked as the Old Baillings
Road. Al Steinowitz had finally caught up with the rest of his men and had taken over quickly and decisively. There were sixteen of them in five cars. Heading up the road toward Irv Manders's place, they looked like a fast-moving funeral procession.

Norville Bates had handed over the reins—and the responsibility—of the operation to Al with genuine relief and with a question about the local and state police who had been rung in on the operation.

“We're keeping this one dark for now,” Al said. “If we get them, we'll tell them they can fold their roadblocks. If we don't, we'll tell them to start moving in toward the center of the circle. But between you and me, if we can't handle them with sixteen men, we can't handle them, Norv.”

Norv sensed the mild rebuke and said no more. He knew it would be best to take the two of them with no outside interference, because Andrew McGee was going to have an unfortunate accident as soon as they got him. A fatal accident. With no bluesuits hanging around, it could happen that much sooner.

Ahead of him and Al, the brakelights of OJ's car flashed briefly, and then the car turned onto a dirt road. The others followed.

“I don't understand any of this,” Norma said. “Bobbi … Charlie … can't you calm down?”

“You don't understand,” Charlie said. Her voice was high and strangled. Looking at her made Irv jumpy. Her face was like that of a rabbit caught in a snare. She pulled free of Norma's arm and ran to her father, who put his hands on her shoulders.

“I think they're going to kill you, Daddy,” she said.

“What?”

“Kill you,” she repeated. Her eyes were staring and glazed with panic. Her mouth worked frantically. “We have to run. We have to—”

Hot. Too hot in here
.

He glanced to his left. Mounted on the wall between the stove and the sink was an indoor thermometer, the kind that can be purchased from any mail-order catalogue. At the
bottom of this one, a plastic red devil with a pitchfork was grinning and mopping his brow. The motto beneath his cloven hooves read:
HOT ENOUGH FOR YA
?

The mercury in the thermometer was slowly rising, an accusing red finger.

“Yes, that's what they want to do,” she said. “Kill you, kill you like they did Mommy, take me away, I won't, I won't let it happen,
I won't let it—
”

Her voice was rising. Rising like a column of mercury.

“Charlie!
Watch what you're doing!”

Her eyes cleared a little. Irv and his wife had drawn together.

“Irv … what—?”

But Irv had seen Andy's glance at the thermometer, and suddenly he believed. It was hot in here now. Hot enough to sweat. The mercury in the thermometer stood just above ninety degrees.

“Holy Jesus Christ,” he said hoarsely. “Did she do that, Frank?”

Andy ignored him. His hands were still on Charlie's shoulders. He looked into her eyes. “Charlie—do you think it's too late? How does it feel to you?”

“Yes,” she said. All the color was gone from her face. “They're coming up the dirt road now. Oh Daddy, I'm scared.”

“You can stop them, Charlie,” he said quietly.

She looked at him.

“Yes,” he said.

“But—Daddy—it's bad. I know it is. I could kill them.”

“Yes,” he said. “Maybe now it's kill or be killed. Maybe it's come down to that.”

“It's not bad?” Her voice was almost inaudible.

“Yes,” Andy said. “It is. Never kid yourself that it isn't. And don't do it if you can't handle it, Charlie. Not even for me.”

They looked at each other, eye to eye, Andy's eyes tired and bloodshot and frightened, Charlie's eyes wide, nearly hypnotized.

She said: “If I do … something … will you still love me?”

The question hung between them, lazily revolving.

“Charlie,” he said, “I'll always love you. No matter what.”

Irv had been at the window and now he crossed the room to them. “I think I got some tall apologizing to do,” he said.
“There's a whole line of cars coming up the road. I'll stand with you, if you want I got my deer gun.” But he looked suddenly frightened, almost sick.

Charlie said: “You don't need your gun.”

She slipped out from under her father's hands and walked across to the screen door, in Norma Manders's knitted white sweater looking even smaller than she was. She let herself out.

After a moment, Andy found his feet and went after her. His stomach felt frozen, as if he'd just gobbled a huge Dairy Queen cone in three bites. The Manderses stayed behind. Andy caught one last look at the man's baffled, frightened face, and a random thought—
that'll teach you to pick up hitchhikers
—darted across his consciousness.

Then he and Charlie were on the porch, watching the first of the cars turn up the long driveway. The hens squawked and fluttered. In the barn, Bossy mooed again for someone to come and milk her. And thin October sunshine lay over the wooded ridges and autumn-brown fields of this small upstate-New York town. It had been almost a year of running, and Andy was surprised to find an odd sense of relief mixed in with his sharp terror. He had heard that in its extremity, even a rabbit will sometimes turn and face the dogs, driven back to some earlier, less meek nature at the instant before it must be torn apart.

At any rate, it was good not to be running. He stood with Charlie, the sunshine mellow on her blond hair.

“Oh Daddy,” she moaned. “I can't hardly stand up.”

He put his arm around her shoulders and pulled her more tightly against his side.

The first car stopped at the head of the dooryard and two men got out.

“Hi, Andy,” Al Steinowitz said, and smiled. “Hi, Charlie.” His hands were empty, but his coat was open. Behind him the other man stood alertly by the car, hands at his sides. The second car stopped behind the first and four more men spilled out. All the cars were stopping, all the men getting out. Andy counted a dozen and then stopped counting.

“Go away,” Charlie said. Her voice was thin and high in the cool early afternoon.

“You've led us a merry chase,” Al said to Andy. He looked at Charlie. “Honey, you don't have to—”

“Go away!”
she screamed.

Al shrugged and smiled disarmingly. “Fraid I can't do that, honey. I have my orders. No one wants to hurt you or your daddy.”

“You liar! You're s'posed to kill him! I know it!”

Andy spoke and was a little surprised to find that his voice was completely steady. “I advise you to do as my daughter says. You've surely been briefed enough to know why she's wanted. You know about the soldier at the airport.”

OJ and Norville Bates exchanged a sudden uneasy look.

“If you'll just get in the car, we can discuss all of this,” Al said. “Honest to gosh, there's nothing going on here except—”

“We know what's going on,” Andy said.

The men who had been in the last two or three cars were beginning to fan out and stroll, almost casually, toward the porch.

“Please,” Charlie said to the man with the strangely yellow face. “Don't make me do anything.”

“It's no good, Charlie,” Andy said.

Irv Manders came out onto the porch. “You men are trespassing,” he said. “I want you to get the hell off my property.”

Three of the Shop men had come up the front steps of the porch and were now standing less than ten yards away from Andy and Charlie, to their left Charlie threw them a warning, desperate glance and they stopped—for the moment.

“We're government agents, sir,” Al Steinowitz said to Irv in a low courteous voice. “These two folks are wanted for questioning. Nothing more.”

“I don't care if they're wanted for assassinating the President,” Irv said. His voice was high, cracking. “Show me your warrant or get the Christ off my property.”

“We don't need a warrant,” Al said. His voice was edged with steel now.

“You do unless I woke up in Russia this morning,” Irv said. “I'm telling you to get off, and you better get high-steppin, mister. That's my last word on it.”

“Irv, come inside!” Norma cried.

Andy could fed something building in the air, building up
around Charlie like an electric charge. The hair on his arms suddenly began to stir and move, like kelp in an invisible tide. He looked down at her and saw her face, so small, now so strange.

It's coming,
he thought helplessly.
It's coming, oh my God it really is.

“Get out!” he shouted at Al. “Don't you understand what she's going to do? Can't you feel it? Don't be a fool, man!”

“Please,” Al said. He looked at the three men standing at the far end of the porch and nodded to them imperceptibly. He looked back at Andy. “If we can only discuss this—”

“Watch it, Frank!” Irv Manders screamed.

The three men at the end of the porch suddenly charged at them, pulling their guns as they came. “Hold it, hold it!” one of them yelled. “Just stand still! Hands over your—”

Charlie turned toward them. As she did so, half a dozen other men, John Mayo and Ray Knowles among them, broke for the porch's back steps with their guns drawn.

Charlie's eyes widened a little, and Andy felt something hot pass by him in a warm puff of air.

The three men at the front end of the porch had got halfway toward them when their hair caught on fire.

A gun boomed, deafeningly loud, and a splinter of wood perhaps eight inches long jumped from one of the porch's supporting posts. Norma Manders screamed, and Andy flinched. But Charlie seemed not to notice. Her face was dreamy and thoughtful. A small Mona Lisa smile had touched the corners of her mouth.

She's enjoying this,
Andy thought with something like horror.
Is that why she's so afraid of it? Because she
likes
it?

Charlie was turning back toward Al Steinowitz again. The three men he had sent running down toward Andy and Charlie from the front end of the porch had forgotten their duty to God, country, and the Shop. They were beating at the flames on their heads and yelling. The pungent smell of fried hair suddenly filled the afternoon.