The Regulators by Stephen King

Author:Stephen King
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub, azw3, pdf
Publisher: Penguin USA, Inc.
Published: 2011-01-06T05:00:00+00:00

4

On Poplar Street, the sun was starting to go down. It was too early for it to be going down, but it was, just the same. It glared above the horizon in the west like a baleful red eye, turning the puddles in the street and the driveways and on the stoops to fire. It turned the broken glass which littered the block into embers. It turned the eyes of the faux-buzzard into red pits as it lifted off from the body of Mary Jackson on its improbable wings and flew across the street to the Carver lawn. Here it alit, looking from David Carver’s body to that of Susi Geller’s friend. It seemed unsure upon which to start. So much to eat, so little time. At last it chose Ellen and Ralphie’s father, approaching the dead man in a series of clumsy hops. One of its yellow claw-feet sported five talons, the other only two.

Across the street, in the Wyler house—in the smell of dirt, old hamburger, and tomato soup—the TV blared on. It was the first saloon scene of The Regulators.

“You’re a right purty lady,” Rory Calhoun was saying. That knowing leer in his voice, the one that said Babydoll, I’m going to eat you like ice cream before this shitty little oat-opera is over, and both of us know it. “Why don’t you sit down n have a drink? Bring me some luck?”

“I don’t drink with trash,” Karen Steele responded coldly, and all of Rory Calhoun’s men—the ones not currently hiding outside of town, that was—guffawed.

“Well ain’t you a little spitfire?” Rory Calhoun said, relaxed, and his men guffawed some more.

“Want some Doritos, Pete?” Tak said. Now it spoke in the voice of Lucas McCain, who rode the cable-TV range in The Rifleman.

Peter Jackson, seated in the La-Z-Boy in front of the TV, didn’t reply. He was grinning broadly. Moving shadows played across his face, occasionally making the grin look like a silent scream, but it was a grin, all right.

“He should have some, all right, Paw,” Tak said, now in the almost-adolescent voice of Johnny Crawford, who had played Lucas’s son. “They’re the good ones. Cool Ranch. Come on, Mr. Jackson, over the teeth and over the gums, look out guts, ’cause here they come.”

The boy held chips out in one grimy hand and waved them up and down in front of Peter Jackson’s face. Peter took no notice. He stared at the TV, through the TV, with eyes that bulged out of his head like those of some exotic deep-dwelling fish that has undergone explosive decompression. And he grinned.

“Don’t appear he’s hongry, Paw.”

“I think he is, son. Hongry as hell. You’re hongry, ain’t you, Pete? Just need a little help, that’s all. So take the damn chips!”

There was a kind of humming in the room. A line of static appeared briefly on the TV, where Rory Calhoun was now trying to kiss Karen Steele. She slapped his face and knocked off his hat. That wiped away his leering, teasing grin.

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