Firestarter Read online

  "Here I am," said Andy McGee. "What did you think of that?"

  "I don't know," she said. "My friend said these experiments go on all the time--she was in one last semester with those J. B. Rhine ESP cards and got fifty dollars for it even though she missed almost all of them. So I just thought--" She finished the thought with a shrug and flipped her coppery hair neatly back over her shoulders.

  "Yeah, me too," he said, taking his pen back. "Your friend in the Psych Department?"

  "Yes." she said, "and my boyfriend, too. He's in one of Dr. Wanless's classes, so he couldn't get in. Conflict of interest or something."

  Boyfriend. It stood to reason that a tall, auburn-haired beauty like this had one. That was the way the world turned.

  "What about you?" she asked.

  "Same story. Friend in the Psych Department. I'm Andy, by the way. Andy McGee."

  "I'm Vicky Tomlinson. And a little nervous about this, Andy McGee. What if I go on a bad trip or something?"

  "This sounds like pretty mild stuff to me. And even if it is add, well ... lab acid is different from the stuff you can pick up on the street, or so I've heard. Very smooth, very mellow, and administered under very calm circumstances. They'll probably pipe in Cream or Jefferson Airplane." Andy grinned.

  "Do you know much about LSD?" she asked with a little corner-wise grin that he liked very much.

  "Very little," he admitted. "I tried it twice--once two years ago, once last year. In some ways it made me fed better. It cleaned out my head ... at least, that's what it felt like. Afterward, a lot of the old crud just seemed to be gone. But I wouldn't want to make a steady habit of it. I don't like feeling so out of control of myself. Can I buy you a Coke?"

  "All right," she agreed, and they walked over to the Union building together.

  He ended up buying her two Cokes, and they spent the afternoon together. That evening they had a few been at the local hangout. It turned out that she and the boyfriend had come to a parting of the ways, and she wasn't sure exactly how to handle it. He was beginning to think they were married, she told Andy; had absolutely forbidden her to take part in the Wanless experiment. For that precise reason she had gone ahead and signed the release form and was now determined to go through with it even though she was a little scared.

  "That Wanless really does look like a mad doctor," she said, making rings on the table with her beer glass.

  "How did you like that trick with the cigarettes?"

  Vicky giggled. "Weird way to quit smoking, huh?"

  He asked her if he could pick her up on the morning of the experiment, and she had agreed gratefully.

  "It would be good to go into this with a friend," she said, and looked at him with her direct blue eyes. "I really am a little scared, you know. George was so--I don't know, adamant "

  "Why? What did he say?"

  "That's just it," Vicky said. "He wouldn't really tell me anything, except that he didn't trust Wanless. He said hardly anyone in the department does, but a lot of them sign up for his tests because he's in charge of the graduate program. Besides, they know it's safe, because he just weeds them out again."

  He reached across the table and touched her hand. "We'll both probably get the distilled water, anyway," he said. "Take it easy, kiddo. Everything's fine."

  But as it turned out, nothing was fine. Nothing.

  3

  albany

  albany airport mister

  hey mister, this is it we're here Hand, shaking him. Making his head roll on his neck. Terrible headache--Jesus! Thudding, shooting pains.

  "Hey mister, this is the airport."

  Andy opened his eyes, then shut them against the white light of an overhead sodium lamp. There was a terrible, shrieking whine, building up and up and up, and he winced against it. It felt as if steel darning needles were being jammed into his ears. Plane. Taking off. It began to come to him through the red fog of pain. Ah yes, Doc, it all comes back to me now.

  "Mister?" The cabby sounded worried. "Mister, you okay?"

  "Headache." His voice seemed to come from far away, buried in the jet-engine sound that was, mercifully, beginning to fade off. "What time is it?"

  "Nearly midnight Slow haul getting up here. Don't tell me, I'll tell you. Buses won't be running, if that was your plan. Sure I can't take you home?"

  Andy groped in his mind for the story he had told the cabby. It was important that he remember, monster headache or not. Because of the echo. If he contradicted the earlier story in any way, it could set up a ricochet effect in the cabby's mind. It might die out--in fact, probably would--but it might not. The cabby might seize on one point of it, develop a fixation on it; shortly it would be out of control, it would be all the cabby could think about; shortly after that, it would simply tear his mind apart. It had happened before.

  "My car's in the lot," he said. "Everything is under control."

  "Oh." The cabby smiled. relieved. "Glyn isn't gonna believe this, you know. Hey! Don't tell me, I'll t--"

  "Sure she'll believe it. You do, don't you?"

  The driver grinned widely. "I got the big bill to prove it, mister. Thanks."

  "Thank you," Andy said. Struggle to be polite. Struggle to go on. For Charlie. If he had been alone, he would have killed himself long ago. A man wasn't meant to bear pain like this.

  "You sure you're okay, mister? You look awful white." It "I'm fine, thanks." He began to shake Charlie. "Hey, kid." He was careful not to use her name. It probably didn't matter, but the caution came as naturally as breathing. "Wake up, we're here."

  Charlie muttered and tried to roll away from him.

  "Come on, doll. Wake up, hon."

  Charlie's eyes fluttered open--the direct blue eyes she had got from her mother--and she sat up, rubbing her face. "Daddy? Where are we?"

  "Albany, hon. The airport." And leaning closer, he muttered, "Don't say anything yet."

  "Okay." She smiled at the cab driver, and the cabby smiled back. She slipped out of the cab and Andy followed her, trying not to stagger.

  "Thanks again, man," the cabby called. "Listen, hey. Great fare. Don't tell me, I'll tell you."

  Andy shook the outstretched hand. "Take care."

  "I will Glyn's just not gonna believe this action."

  The cabby got back in and pulled away from the yellow-painted curb. Another jet was taking off, the engine revving and revving until Andy felt as though his head would split in two pieces and fall to the pavement like a hollow gourd. He staggered a little, and Charlie put her hands on his arm.

  "Oh, Daddy," she said, and her voice was far away.

  "Inside. I have to sit down."

  They went in, the little girl in the red pants and the green blouse, the big man with the shaggy black hair and the slumped shoulders. A skycap watched them go and thought it was a pure sin, a big man like that out after midnight, drunk as a lord by the look of him, with his little girl who should have been in bed hours ago leading him around like a Seeing Eye dog. Parents like that ought to be sterilized, the skycap thought.

  Then they went in through the electric-eye-controlled doors and the skycap forgot all about them until some forty minutes later, when the green car pulled up to the curb and the two men got out to talk to him.

  4

  It was ten past midnight. The lobby of the terminal had been given over to the early-morning people: servicemen at the end of their leaves, harried-looking women riding herd on scratchy, up-too-late children, businessmen with pouches of weariness under their eyes, cruising kids in big boots and long hair, some of them with packs on their backs, a couple with cased tennis rackets. The loudspeaker system announced arrivals and departures and paged people like some omnipotent voice in a dream.

  Andy and Charlie sat side by side at desks with TVs bolted to them. The TVs were scratched and dented and painted dead black. To Andy they looked like sinister, futuristic cobras. He plugged his last two quarters into them so they wouldn't be asked to leave the seats. Charlie's w
as showing a rerun of The Rookies and Johnny Carson was yucking it up with Sonny Bono and Buddy Hackett on Andy's.

  "Daddy, do I have to?" Charlie asked for the second time. She was on the verge of tears.

  "Honey, I'm used up," he said. "We have no money. We can't stay here."

  "Those bad men are coming?" she asked, and her voice dropped to a whisper.

  "I don't know." Thud, thud, thud in his brain. Not a riderless black horse anymore; now it was mailsacks filled with sharp scraps of iron being dropped on him from a fifth-story window. "We have to assume they are."

  "How could I get money?"

  He hesitated and then said, "You know."

  The tears began to come and trickled down her cheeks. "It's not right. It's not right to steal."

  "I know it," he said. "But it's not right for them to keep coming at us, either. I explained it to you, Charlie. Or at least I tried."

  "About little bad and big bad?"

  "Yes. Lesser and greater evil."

  "Does your head really hurt?"

  "It's pretty bad," Andy said. There was no use telling her that in an hour, or possibly two, it would be so bad he would no longer be able to think coherently. No use frightening her worse than she already was. No use telling her that he didn't think they were going to get away this time.

  "I'll try," she said, and got out of the chair. "Poor Daddy," she said, and kissed him.

  He closed his eyes. The TV played on in front of him, a faraway babble of sound in the midst of the steadily growing ache in his head. When he opened his eyes again, she was just a distant figure, very small, dressed in red and green, like a Christmas ornament, bobbing away through the scattered people on the concourse.

  Please God, let her be all right, he thought. Don't let anyone mess with her, or scare her worse than she is already. Please and thank you, God. Okay?

  He closed his eyes again.

  5

  Little girl in red stretch pants and a green rayon blouse. Shoulder-length blond hair. Up too late, apparently by herself. She was in one of the few places where a little girl by herself could go unremarked after midnight. She passed people, but no one really saw her. If she had been crying, a security guard might have come over to ask her if she was lost, if she knew which airline her mommy and daddy were ticketed on, what their names were so they could be paged. But she wasn't crying, and she looked as if she knew where she was going.

  She didn't, exactly--but she had a pretty fair idea of what she was looking for. They needed money; that was what Daddy had said. The bad men were coming, and Daddy was hurt. When he got hurt like this, it got hard for him to think. He had to lie down and have as much quiet as he could. He had to sleep until the pain went away. And the bad men might be coming... the men from the Shop, the men who wanted to pick them apart and see what made them work--and to see if they could be used, made to do things.

  She saw a paper shopping bag sticking out of the top of a trash basket and took it. A little way farther down the concourse she came to what she was looking for: a bank of pay phones.

  Charlie stood looking at them, and she was afraid. She was afraid because Daddy had told her again and again that she shouldn't do it ... since earliest childhood it had been the Bad Thing. She couldn't always control the Bad Thing. She might hurt herself, or someone else, or lots of people. The time

  (oh mommy i'm sorry the hurt the bandages the screams she screamed i made my mommy scream and i never will again... never... because it is a Bad Thing) in the kitchen when she was little... but it hurt too much to think of that. It was a Bad Thing because when you let it go, it went... everywhere. And that was scary.

  There were other things. The push, for instance; that's what Daddy called it, the push. Only she could push a lot harder than Daddy, and she never got headaches afterward. But sometimes, afterward... there were fires.

  The word for the Bad Thing clanged in her mind as she stood nervously looking at the telephone booths: pyrokinesis. "Never mind that," Daddy had told her when they were still in Port City and thinking like fools that they were safe. "You're a firestarter, honey. Just one great big Zippo lighter." And then it had seemed funny, she had giggled, but now it didn't seem funny at all.

  The other reason she wasn't supposed to push was because they might find out. The bad men from the Shop. "I don't know how much they know about you now," Daddy had told her, "but I don't want them to find out any more. Your push isn't exactly like mine, honey. You can't make people ... well, change their minds, can you?"

  "No-ooo ..."

  "But you can make things move. And if they ever began to see a pattern, and connect that pattern to you, we'd be in even worse trouble than we are now."

  And it was stealing, and stealing was also a Bad Thing. Never mind. Daddy's head was hurting him and they had to get to a quiet, warm place before it got too bad for him to think at all. Charlie moved forward.

  There were about fifteen phonebooths in all, with circular sliding doors. When you were inside the booth, it was like being inside a great big Contac capsule with a phone inside it. Most of the booths were dark, Charlie saw as she drifted down past them. There was a fat lady in a pantsuit crammed into one of them, talking busily and smiling. And three booths from the end a young man in a service uniform was sitting on the little stool with the door open and his legs poking out. He was talking fast.

  "Sally, look, I understand how you feel, but I can explain everything. Absolutely. I know ... I know ... but if you'll just let me--" He looked up, saw the little girl looking at him, and yanked his legs in and pulled the circular door closed, all in one motion, like a turtle pulling into its shell. Having a fight with his girlfriend, Charlie thought. Probably stood her up. I'd never let a guy stand me up.

  Echoing loudspeaker. Rat of fear in the back of her mind, gnawing. All the faces were strange faces. She felt lonely and very small, grief-sick over her mother even now. This was stealing, but what did that matter? They had stolen her mother's life.

  She slipped into the phonebooth on the end, shopping bag crackling. She took the phone off the hook and pretended she was talking--hello, Grampa, yes, Daddy and I just got in, we're fine--and looked out through the glass to see if anyone was being nosy. No one was. The only person nearby was a black woman getting flight insurance from a machine, and her back was to Charlie.

  Charlie looked at the pay phone and suddenly shoved it.

  A little grunt of effort escaped her, and she bit down on her lower lip, liking the way it squeezed under her teeth. No, there was no pain involved. It felt good to shove things, and that was another thing that scared her. Suppose she got to like this dangerous thing?

  She shoved the pay phone again, very lightly, and suddenly a tide of silver poured out of the coin return. She tried to get her bag under it, but by the time she did, most of the quarters and nickels and dimes had spewed onto the floor. She bent over and swept as much as she could into the bag, glancing again and again out the window.

  With the change picked up, she went on to the next booth. The serviceman was still talking on the next phone up the line. He had opened the door again and was smoking. "Sal, honest to Christ I did! Just ask your brother if you don't believe me! He'll--"

  Charlie slipped the door shut, cutting off the slightly whining sound of his voice. She was only seven, but she knew a snowjob when she heard one. She looked at the phone, and a moment later it gave up its change. This time she had the bag positioned perfectly and the coins cascaded to the bottom with a musical little jingling sound.

  The serviceman was gone when she came out, and Charlie went into his booth. The seat was still warm and the air smelled nastily of cigarette smoke in spite of the fan.

  The money rattled into her bag and she went on.

  6

  Eddie Delgardo sat in a hard plastic contour chair, looking up at the ceiling and smoking. Bitch, he was thinking. She'll think twice about keeping her goddam legs closed next time. Eddie this and Eddie that and Eddie I
never want to see you again and Eddie how could you be so crew-ool. But he had changed her mind about the old I-never-want-to-eee-you-again bit. He was on thirty-day leave and now he was going to New York City, the Big Apple, to see the sights and tour the singles bars. And when he came back, Sally would be like a big ripe apple herself, ripe and ready to fall. None of that don't-you-have-any-respect-for-me stuff went down with Eddie Delgardo of Marathon, Florida. Sally Bradford was going to put out, and if she really believed that crap about him having had a vasectomy, it served her right. And then let her go running to her hick schoolteacher brother if she wanted to. Eddie Delgardo would be driving an army supply truck in West Berlin. He would be--

  Eddie's half-resentful, half-pleasant chain of daydreams was broken by a strange feeling of warmth coming from his feet; it was as if the floor had suddenly heated up ten degrees. And accompanying this was a strange but not completely unfamiliar smell ... not something burning but ... something singeing, maybe?

  He opened his eyes and the first thing he saw was that little girl who had been cruising around by the phonebooths, little girl seven or eight years old, looking really ragged out. Now she was carrying a big paper bag, carrying it by the bottom as if it were full of groceries or something.

  But his feet, that was the thing.

  They were not longer warm. They were hot.

  Eddie Delgardo looked down and screamed, "Godamighty Jeesus!"

  His shoes were on fire.

  Eddie leaped to his feet. Heads turned. Some woman saw what was happening and yelled in alarm. Two security guards who had been noodling with an Allegheny Airlines ticket clerk looked over to see what was going on.

  None of which meant doodly-squat to Eddie Delgardo. Thoughts of Sally Bradford and his revenge of love upon her were the furthest things from his mind. His army-issue shoes were burning merrily. The cuffs of his dress greens were catching. He was sprinting across the concourse, trailing smoke, as if shot from a catapult. The women's room was closer, and Eddie, whose sense of self-preservation was exquisitely defined, hit the door straight-arm and ran inside without a moment's hesitation.

  A young woman was coming out of one of the stalls, her skirt rucked up to her waist, adjusting her Underalls. She saw Eddie, the human torch, and let out a scream that the bathroom's tiled walls magnified enormously. There was a babble of "What was that?" and "What's going on?" from the few other occupied stalls. Eddie caught the pay-toilet door before it could swing back all the way and latch. He grabbed both sides of the stall at the top and hoisted himself feet first into the toilet. There was a hissing sound and a remarkable billow of steam.