Stationary Bike: A Short Story by Stephen King

Author:Stephen King [King, Stephen]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2014-09-25T04:00:00+00:00

V. The Screwdriver Would Do for a Start

Over the next five or six days, the time Sifkitz spent on the stationary bike (and his childhood three-​speed) was both wonderful and terrible. Wonderful because he had never felt better; his body was operating at absolute peak performance levels for a man his age, and he knew it. He supposed that there were pro athletes in better shape than he was, but by thirty-​eight they would be approaching the end of their careers, and whatever joy they were able to take in the tuned condition of their bodies would necessarily be tainted by that knowledge. Sifkitz, on the other hand, might go on creating commercial art for another forty years, if he chose to. Hell, another fifty. Five full generations of foot ball players and four of baseball players would come and go while he stood peacefully at his easel, painting book covers, automotive products, and Five New Logos for Pepsi-​Cola.

Except... Except that wasnt the ending folks familiar with this sort of story would expect, was it? Nor the sort of ending he expected himself. The sense of being followed grew stronger with every ride, especially after he took down the last of the New York State plat maps and put up the first of the Canadian ones. Using a blue pen (the same one hed used to create MAN WITH SHOTGUN), he drew an extension of the Herkimer Road on the previously roadless plat, adding lots of squiggles. By now he was pedaling faster, looking over his shoulder often, and finishing his rides covered with sweat, at first too out of breath to dismount the bike and turn off the braying alarm. That looking-​back-​over-​the-​shoulder thing, nowthat was interesting. At first when he did it hed catch a glimpse of the basement alcove, and the doorway leading to the basements larger rooms with its mazy arrangement of storage stalls. Hed see the Pomona Oranges crate by the door with the Brookstone desk alarm on it, marking off the minutes between four and six. Then a kind of red blur wiped across everything, and when it drained away he was looking at the road behind him, the autumn-​bright trees on both sides (only not so bright now, not with twilight starting to thicken), and the darkening red sky overhead. Later, he didnt see the basement at all when he looked back, not even a flash of it. Just the road leading back to Herkimer, and eventually to Poughkeepsie. He knew perfectly well what he was looking back over his shoulder for: headlights. The headlights of Freddys Dodge Ram, if you wanted to get specific about it. Because for Berkowitz and his crew, bewildered resentment had given way to anger. Carloss suicide was what had tipped them over the edge. They blamed him and they were after him. And when they caught him, theyd What? Theyd what? Kill me, he thought, pedaling grimly on into the twilight. No need to be coy about it. They catch up, theyll kill me.

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