Firestarter Read online

  They found Irv and Norma Manders sitting stunned in their kitchen, a note between them. Irv had found it that morning when he arose at five o'clock to milk the cows. It was one line: I think I know what to do now. Love, Charlie.

  She had eluded the Shop again--but wherever she was, she was alone.

  The only consolation was that this time she didn't have so far to hitch.

  11

  The librarian was a young man, twenty-six years old, bearded, long-haired. Standing in front of his desk was a little girl in a green blouse and bluejeans. In one hand she held a paper shopping bag. She was woefully thin, and the young man wondered what the hell her mother and father had been feeding her ... if anything.

  He listened to her question carefully and respectfully. Her daddy, she said, had told her that if you had a really hard question, you had to go to the library to find the answer, because at the library they knew the answers to almost all the questions. Behind them, the great lobby of the New York Public Library echoed dimly; outside, the stone lions kept their endless watch.

  When she was done, the librarian recapitulated, ticking off the salient points on his fingers.

  "Honest."

  She nodded.

  "Big ... that is, nationwide."

  She nodded again.

  "No ties to the government."

  For the third time, the thin girl nodded.

  "Do you mind my asking why?"

  "I"--she paused--"I have to tell them something."

  The young man considered for several moments. He seemed about to speak, then held up a finger and went and conferred with another librarian. He came back to the little girl and spoke two words.

  "Can you give me an address?" she asked.

  He found the address and then printed it carefully on a square of yellow paper.

  "Thank you," the girl said, and turned to go.

  "Listen," he said, "when was the last time you had something to eat, kid? You want a couple of bucks for lunch?"

  She smiled--an amazingly sweet and gentle smile. For a moment, the young librarian was almost in love.

  "I have money," she said, and opened the sack so he could see.

  The paper bag was filled with quarters.

  Before he could say anything else--ask her if she had taken a hammer to her piggybank, or what--she was gone.

  12

  The little girl rode the elevator up to the sixteenth floor of the skyscraper. Several of the men and women who rode with her looked at her curiously--just a small girl in a green blouse and bluejeans, holding a crumpled paper bag in one hand and a Sunkist orange in the other. But they were New Yorkers, and the essence of the New York character is to mind your own business and let other people mind theirs.

  She got off the elevator, read the signs, and turned left. Double glass doors gave on a handsome reception area at the end of the hall. Written below the two words the librarian had spoken to her was this motto: "All the News That Fits."

  Charlie paused outside a moment longer.

  "I'm doing it, Daddy," she whispered. "Oh, I hope I'm doing it right."

  Charlie McGee tugged open one of the glass doors and went into the offices of RollingStone, where the librarian had sent her.

  The receptionist was a young woman with clear gray eyes. She looked at Charlie for several seconds in silence, taking in the crumpled Shop and Save bag, the orange, the slightness of the girl herself; she was slender almost to the point of emaciation, but tall for a child, and her face had a kind of serene, calm glow. She's going to be so beautiful, the receptionist thought.

  "What can I do for you, little sister?" the receptionist asked, and smiled.

  "I need to see someone who writes for your magazine," Charlie said. Her voice was low, but it was clear and firm. "I have a story I want to tell. And something to show."

  "Just like show-and-tell in school, huh?" the receptionist asked.

  Charlie smiled. It was the smile that had so dazzled the librarian. "Yes," she said. "I've been waiting for a long time."

  AFTERWORD

  While Firestarter is just a novel, a made-up tale with which I hope you, reader, have passed a pleasant evening or two, most of the novel's components are based on actual happenings, either unpleasant or inexplicable or simply fascinating. Among the unpleasant ones is the undeniable fact that the U.S. government, or agencies thereof, has indeed administered potentially dangerous drugs to unwitting subjects on more than one occasion. Among those which are simply fascinating--if a little ominous--is the fact that both the United States and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics have programs for isolating the so-called "wild talents" (a term for psionic abilities coined by the science-fiction writer Jack Vance) ... and perhaps putting them to use. Government-funded experiments in this country have centered on influencing the Kirilian aura and proving the existence of telekinesis. Soviet experiments have centered largely on psychic healing and communication by telepathy. Reports filtering out of the U.S.S.R. suggest that the Soviets have achieved some moderate success with the latter, particularly by using identical twins as communicators.

  Two other so-called wild talents that both governments have spent money to investigate are the phenomenon of levitation ... and that of pyrokinesis. A good many real-life incidents of pyrokinesis have been reported (Charles Fort catalogues several in Lo! and The Book of the Damned); these almost always revolve around an act of spontaneous combustion where almost unimaginable temperatures have been generated. I do not say such a talent--or curse--exists, and I do not indicate that you should believe it does. I am only suggesting that some of the cases are both eerie and thought-provoking, and I most certainly do not mean to impute that the train of events in this book is likely or even possible. If I mean to suggest anything, it is only that the world, although well-lighted with fluorescents and incandescent bulbs and neon, is still full of odd dark comers and unsettling nooks and crannies.

  I'd also like to thank Alan Williams, my hardcover editor at Viking; Elaine Koster, my softcover editor at NAL; Russell Dorr, P.A., of Bridgton, Maine, who was kind enough to help me with the book's medical and pharmaceutical aspect; my wife, Tabitha, who offered her usual helpful criticisms and suggestions; and my daughter, Naomi, who brightens up everything and who helped me to understand--as much as any man can, I guess--what it is to be a young, intelligent girl approaching the age of ten. She's not Charlie, but she helped me to help Charlie be herself.

  --Stephen King

  Bangor, Maine