Hearts In Atlantis Anthology by Stephen King

Author:Stephen King
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Horror - General, Stephen - Prose & Criticism, stephen, Fiction, Richard, Suspense, Television game shows, king, Adventure stories, Bachman, Horror, Thrillers, American Horror Fiction, Science Fiction, Horror & Ghost Stories, Fiction - Horror

Dear Janice,

Thanks so much for your call. The note of condolence, too, of course, but you’ll never know how good it was to have your voice in my ear last night—like a drink of cool water on a hot day. Or maybe I mean like a sane voice when you’re stuck in the booby hatch!

Did any of what I said on the phone make sense to you? I can’t remember for sure. I’m off the tranks—“Fuck that shit,” as we used to say back in college—but that’s only been for the last couple of days, and even with Herb pitching in and helping like mad, a lot of the world has been so much scrambled eggs. Things started being that way when Bill’s friend, Joe Calabrese, called and said my brother and his wife and the two older kids had been killed, shotgunned in a drive-by. The man, who I’ve never met in my life, was crying, hard to understand, and much too shaken to be diplomatic. He kept saying he was so ashamed, and I ended up trying to comfort him, and all the time I’m thinking, “There’s got to be a mistake here, Bill can’t be dead, my brother was supposed to be around for as long as I needed him.” I still wake up in the night thinking, “Not Bill, it’s just a goof-up, it can’t be Bill.” The only thing in my whole life I can remember that felt this crazy was when I was a kid and everybody came down with the flu at the same time.

Herb and I flew out to San Jose to collect Seth, then flew back to Toledo on the same plane as the bodies. They store them in the cargo hold, did you know that? Me neither. Nor wanted to.

The funeral was one of the most horrible experiences of my life—probably the most horrible. Those four coffins—my brother, my sister-in-law, my niece, and my nephew—lined up in a row, first in the church and then at the cemetery, where they sat over the holes on those awful chrome rails. Wanna hear something totally nuts? During the whole graveside service I kept thinking of my honeymoon in Jamaica. They have speed-bumps in the road that they call sleeping policemen. And for some reason that’s how I started thinking of the coffins, as sleeping policemen. Well, I told you I’ve been crazy, didn’t I? Ohio’s Valium Queen of 1994, that’s me.

The service at the church was packed—Bill and June had a lot of friends—and everyone was bawling. Except for poor little Seth, of course, who can’t. Or doesn’t. Or who knows? He just sat there between me and Herb with two of his toys on his lap—a pink van he calls “Dweem Fwoatah” and the action figure that goes with it, a sexy little redhead named Cassandra Styles. The toys are from a show called MotoKops 2200, and the names of the damned MotoKops vans (excuse me, the MotoKops Power Wagons, lah-di-dah)

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