He wasn't aware of breaking the paralysis1 which held him. At one moment he was standing2 frozen in the hall by the telephone table, looking out at good old Bump, who seemed to have grown a screwdriver3 handle in the middle of his chest, where there was a ruff of white fur - what Amy had liked to call Bump's bib. At the next he was standing in the middle of the porch with the chilly4 night air biting through his thin shirt, trying to look six different ways at once.
He forced himself to stop. Shooter was gone, of course. That's why he had left the note. Nor did Shooter seem like the kind of nut who would enjoy watching Mort's obvious fear and horror. He was a nut, all right, but one which had fallen from a different tree. He had simply used Bump, used him on Mort the way a farmer might use a crowbar on a stubborn rock in his north forty. There was nothing personal in it; it was just a job that had to be done.
Then he thought of how Shooter's eyes had looked that afternoon and shivered violently. No, it was personal, all right. It was all kinds of personal.
'He believes I did it,' Mort whispered to the cold western Maine night, and the words came out in ragged5 chunks6, bitten off by his chattering7 teeth. 'The crazy son of a bitch really believes I did it.'
He approached the garbage cabinet and his stomach rolled over like a dog doing a trick. Cold sweat broke out on his forehead, and he wasn't sure he could take care of what needed taking care of. Bump's head was cocked far to the left, giving him a grotesque8 questioning look. His teeth, small, neat, and needle-sharp, were bared. There was a little blood around the blade of the screwdriver at the point where it was driven into his
(bib)
ruff, but not very much. Bump was a friendly cat; if Shooter had approached him, Bump would not have shied away. And that was what Shooter must have done, Mort thought, and wiped the sick sweat off his forehead. He had picked the cat up, snapped its neck between his fingers like a Popsicle stick, and then nailed it to the slanting9 roof of the garbage cabinet, all while Mort Rainey slept, if not the sleep of the just, that of the unheeding.
Mort crumpled10 up the sheet of paper, stuffed it in his back pocket, then put his hand on Bump's chest. The body, not stiff and not even entirely11 cold, shifted under his hand. His stomach rolled again, but he forced his other hand to close around the screwdriver's yellow plastic handle and pull it free.
He tossed the screwdriver onto the porch and held poor old Bump in his right hand like a bundle of rags. Now his stomach was in free fall, simply rolling and rolling and rolling. He lifted one of the two lids on top of the garbage cabinet, and secured it with the hook-and-eyelet that kept the heavy lid from crashing down on the arms or head of whoever was depositing trash inside. Three cans were lined up within. Mort lifted the lid from the center one and deposited Bump's body gently inside. It lay draped over the top of an olive-green Hefty bag like a fur stole.
He was suddenly furious with Shooter. If the man had appeared in the driveway at that second, Mort would have charged him without a second thought - driven him to the ground and choked him if he could.
Easy - it really is catching12.
Maybe it was. And maybe he didn't care. It wasn't just that Shooter had killed his only companion in this lonely October house by the lake; it was that he had done it while Mort was asleep, and in such a way that good old Bump had become an object of revulsion, something it was hard not to puke over.
Most of all it was the fact that he had been forced to put his good cat in a garbage can like a piece of worthless trash.
I'll bury him tomorrow. Right over in that soft patch to the left of the house. In sight of the lake.
Yes, but tonight Bump would lie in undignified state on top of a Hefty bag in the garbage cabinet because some man - some crazy son of a bitch - could be out there, and the man had a grudge13 over a story Mort Rainey hadn't even thought of for the last five years or so. The man was crazy, and consequently Mort was afraid to bury Bump tonight, because, note or no note, Shooter might be out there.
I want to kill him. And if the crazy bastard14 pushes me much more, I might just try to do it.
He went inside, slammed the door, and locked it. Then he walked deliberately15 through the house, locking all the doors and windows. When that was done, he went back to the window by the porch door and stared pensively16 out into the darkness. He could see the screwdriver lying on the boards, and the dark round hole the blade had made when Shooter plunged17 it into the right-hand lid of the garbage cabinet.
All at once he remembered he had been about to try Amy again.
He plugged the jack18 into the wall. He dialled rapidly, fingers tapping the old familiar keys which added up to home, and wondered if he would tell Amy about Bump.
There was an unnaturally19 long pause after the preliminary clicks. He was about to hang up when there was one final click - so loud it was almost a thud - followed by a robot voice telling him that the number he had dialled was out of service.
'Wonderful,' he muttered. 'What the hell did you do, Amy? Use it until it broke?'
He pushed the disconnect button down, thinking he would have to call Isabelle Fortin after all, and while he was conning20 his memory for her number, the telephone rang in his hand.
He hadn't realized how keyed up he was until that happened. He gave a screaky little cry and skipped backward, dropping the telephone handset on the floor and then almost tripping over the goddam bench Amy had bought and put by the telephone table, the bench absolutely no one, including Amy herself, ever used.
He pawed out with one hand, grabbed the bookcase, and kept himself from falling. Then he snatched up the phone and said, 'Hello? Is that you, Shooter?' For in that moment, when it seemed that the whole world was slowly but surely turning topsy-turvy, he couldn't imagine who else it could be.
'Mort?' It was Amy, and she was nearly screaming. He knew the tone very well from the last two years of their marriage. It was either frustration21 or fury, more likely the latter. 'Mort, is that you? Is it you, for God's sake? Mort? '
'Yes, it's me,' he said. He suddenly felt weary.
'Where in the hell have you been? I've been trying to get you for the last three hours!'
'Asleep,' he said.
'You pulled the jack.' She spoke22 in the tired but accusatory tone of one who had been down this road before. 'Well, you picked a great time to do it this time, champ.'
'I tried to call you around five -'
'I was at Ted's.'
'Well, somebody was there,' he said. 'Maybe
'What do you mean, someone was there?' she asked, whiplash quick. 'Who was there?'
'How the hell would I know, Amy? You're the one in Derry, remember? You Derry, me Tashmore. All I know is that the line was busy when I tried to call you. If you were over at Ted's, then I assume Isabelle - '
'I'm still at Ted's,' she said, and now her voice was queerly flat. 'I guess I'll be at Ted's for quite awhile to come, like it or not. Someone burned our house down, Mort. Someone burned it right to the ground.' And suddenly Amy began to cry.
收听单词发音 |
1
paralysis
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| n.麻痹(症)；瘫痪(症) | |
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standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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3
screwdriver
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| n.螺丝起子；伏特加橙汁鸡尾酒 | |
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chilly
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| adj.凉快的，寒冷的 | |
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5
ragged
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| adj.衣衫褴褛的，粗糙的，刺耳的 | |
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chunks
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| 厚厚的一块( chunk的名词复数 )； （某物）相当大的数量或部分 | |
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7
chattering
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| n. （机器振动发出的）咔嗒声，(鸟等)鸣，啁啾 adj. 喋喋不休的，啾啾声的 动词chatter的现在分词形式 | |
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8
grotesque
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| adj.怪诞的，丑陋的；n.怪诞的图案，怪人（物） | |
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9
slanting
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| 倾斜的，歪斜的 | |
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crumpled
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| adj. 弯扭的, 变皱的 动词crumple的过去式和过去分词形式 | |
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entirely
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| ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地 | |
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catching
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| adj.易传染的，有魅力的，迷人的，接住 | |
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13
grudge
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| n.不满，怨恨，妒嫉；vt.勉强给，不情愿做 | |
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14
bastard
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| n.坏蛋，混蛋；私生子 | |
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deliberately
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| adv.审慎地；蓄意地；故意地 | |
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pensively
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| adv.沉思地，焦虑地 | |
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17
plunged
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| v.颠簸( plunge的过去式和过去分词 )；暴跌；骤降；突降 | |
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18
jack
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| n.插座，千斤顶，男人；v.抬起，提醒，扛举；n.（Jake）杰克 | |
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unnaturally
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| adv.违反习俗地；不自然地；勉强地；不近人情地 | |
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conning
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| v.诈骗，哄骗( con的现在分词 )；指挥操舵( conn的现在分词 ) | |
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21
frustration
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| n.挫折，失败，失效，落空 | |
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22
spoke
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| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
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