Thad does that, he does it just that way, oh my God he does It JUST THAT SAME WAY —
Wendy now appeared to be totally calm. She gazed up into Stark's face, studying him with close attention, her cool gray eyes on Stark's muddy blue ones. With the skin fallen away beneath them, his eyes looked as if they might fall out at any moment and dangle on his cheeks by their stalks.
And Wendy waved back.
Hand open; hand closed; hand open.
A Wendy-wave.
Liz felt movement in her arms, looked down, and saw that William was looking at George Stark with the same rapt blue-gray gaze. He was smiling.
William's hand opened; closed; opened.
A William-wave.
'No,' she moaned, almost too low to hear. 'Oh God, no, please don't let this be happening.'
'You see?' Stark said, looking up at her. He was grinning his frozen Sardonicus grin at her, and the most horrible thing about it was her understanding that he was trying to be gentle . . . and could not be. 'You see? They like me, Beth. They like me.'
8
Stark carried Wendy out to the driveway after putting his dark glasses on again. Liz ran to the window and looked after them anxiously. Part of her was positive he intended to hop into the police cruiser and drive away with her baby on the seat beside him and the two dead state troopers in the back.
But for a moment he did nothing — simply stood there in hazy sunshine by the driver's door, head down, the baby cradled in his arms. He remained in that motionless position for some time, as if speaking seriously to Wendy, or perhaps praying. Later, when she had more information, she decided he had been trying to get in touch with Thad again, perhaps to read his thoughts and divine whether he intended to do what Stark wanted him to do, or if he had plans of his own.
After about thirty seconds of this, Stark lifted his head, shook it briskly, as if to clear it, then got into the cruiser and started it up. The keys were in the ignition, she thought dully. He didn't even have to hot-wire it, or whatever they do. That man has got the luck of the devil.
Stark drove the cruiser into the garage and cut the motor. Then she heard the car door slam and he came back out, pausing long enough to hit the button that sent the door rumbling down on its tracks.
A few moments later he was in the house again and handing Wendy back to her.
'You see?' he asked. 'She's fine. Now tell me about the people next door. The Clarks.'
'The Clarks?' she asked, feeling extraordinarily stupid. 'Why do you want to know about them? They're in Europe this summer.'
He smiled. It was, in a way, the most hideous thing yet, because under more ordinary circumstances it would have been a smile of genuine pleasure . . . and quite a winning one, she suspected. And didn't she feel just an instant of attraction? A freakish flicker? It was insane, of course, but did that mean she could deny it? Liz didn't think so, and she even understood why it might be. After all, she had married this man's closest relative.
'Wonderful!' he said. 'Couldn't be better! And do they have a car?'
Wendy began to cry. Liz looked down and saw her daughter looking at the man with the rotten face and the bulging marble eyes, holding her small and pleasantly chubby arms out. She was not crying because she was afraid of him; she was crying because she wanted to go back to him.
'Isn't that sweet!' Stark said. 'She wants to come back to Daddy. '
'Shut up, you monster!' she spat at him.
Foxy George Stark threw his head back and laughed.
9
He gave her five minutes to pack a few more things for herself and the twins. She told him it would be impossible to get together half of what they'd need in that length of time, and he told her to do the best she could.
'You're lucky I'm giving you any more time at all, Beth, under the circumstances — there are two dead cops in your garage and your husband knows what's going on. If you want to take the five minutes debating the point with me, that's your choice. You're already down to . . . ' He glanced at his watch, then smiled at her. 'Four-and-a-half.'
So she did what she could, pausing once while tossing jars of baby food into a shopping bag to look at her children. They were sitting side by side on the floor, playing an idle sort of pat-a-cake with each other and looking at Stark. She was dreadfully afraid she knew what they were thinking about.
Isn't that sweet.
No. She wouldn't think about it. She wouldn't think about it but it was all she could think about: Wendy, crying and holding out her pudgy little arms. Holding them out to the murderous stranger.
They want to go back to Daddy.
He was standing in the kitchen doorway, watching her, smiling, and she wanted to use the scissors right then. She had never in her life wanted anything so badly. 'Can't you give me a hand?' she cried angrily at him, gesturing at the two bags and the cooler she had filled.
'Of course, Beth,' he said. He took one of the bags for her. His other hand, the left, he kept free.
10
They crossed the side yard, passed through the little greenbelt between properties, and then walked across the Clarks' yard to their driveway. Stark insisted that she move fast, and she was panting by the time they stopped in front of the closed garage door. He had offered to take one of the twins, but she'd refused.
He set down the cooler, took his wallet from his back pocket, removed a narrow strip of metal which tapered to a point, and slipped it into the lock of the garage door. He turned it first to the right and then back to the left, one car cocked. There was a click and he smiled.
'Good,' he said. 'Even Mickey Mouse locks on garage doors can be a pain in the ass. Big springs. Hard to tip them over. This one's as tired as an old whore's twat at daybreak, though. Lucky for us.' He turned the handle and shoved. The door rumbled up on its tracks.
The garage was hot as a haymow, and the Clarks' Volvo wagon was even hotter inside. Stark bent beneath the dashboard, exposing the back of his neck to her as she sat in the passenger seat. Her fingers twitched. It would only take a second to rip the scissors free, but that could still be too long. She had seen how quickly he reacted to the unexpected. It did not really surprise her that his reflexes were as fast as those of a wild animal, since that was what he was.
He raked down a bunch of wires from behind the dash, then produced a bloody straight-razor from his front pocket. She shivered a little and had to swallow twice, fast, to stifle a gag-reflex. He unfolded the blade, bent down again, stripped insulation from two of the wires, and touched the bare copper cores together. There was a sliver of blue spark, and then the engine began to turn over. A moment later the car was running. 'Well, all right!' George Stark crowed. 'Let's roll, what do you say?'