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.He didn't like the feeling.He distrusted it.Itseemed to him that whatever the change was, it was nothing good.It seemed to him that it meant sorrowand bad times.He had gone into the darkness with everything, and now it felt to him that he was comingout of it with nothing at all - except for some secret strangeness.The dream was ending.Whatever it had been, the dream was ending.The room was very real now, veryclose.The voices, the faces -He was going to come into the room.And it suddenly seemed to him thatwhat he wanted to do was turn and run - to go back down that dark hallway forever.The dark hallwaywas not good, but it was better than this new feeling of sadness and impending loss.He turned and looked behind him, and yes, it was there, the place where the room's walls changed todark chrome, a corner beside one of the chairs where, unnoticed by the bright people who came andwent, the room became a passageway into what he now suspected was eternity.The place where thatother voice had gone, the voice of -The cab driver.Yes.That memory was all there now.The cab ride, the driver bemoaning his son's long hair, bemoaningthe fact that his son thought Nixon was a pig.Then the headlights breasting the hill, a pair on each sideof the white line.The crash.No pain, but the knowledge that his thighs had connected with the taximeterhard enough to rip it out of its frame.There had been a sensation of cold wetness and then the darkhallway and now this.Choose, something inside whispered.Choose or they'll choose for you, they'll rip you out of this place,whatever and wherever it is, like doctors ripping a baby out of its mother's womb by cesarian section.And then Sarah's face came to him - she had to be out there someplace, although hers had not been oneof the bright faces bending over his.She had to be out there, worried and scared.She was almost his,now.He felt that.He was going to ask her to marry him.That feeling of unease came back, stronger than ever, and this time it was all mixed up with Sarah.Butwanting her was stronger, and he made his decision.He turned his back on the dark place, and when helooked back over his shoulder later on, it had disappeared; there was nothing beside the chair but thesmooth white wall of the room where he lay.Not long after he began to know where the room must be -it was a hospital room, of course.The dark hallway faded to a dreamy memory, never completelyforgotten.But more important, more immediate, was the fact that he was John Smith, he had a girlnamed Sarah Bracknell, and he had been in a terrible car accident.He suspected that he must be verylucky to be alive, and he could only hope that all his original equipment was still there and stillfunctioning.He might be in Cleaves Mills Community Hospital, but he guessed the EMMC was morelikely.From the way he felt he guessed he had been here for some time - he might have been blackedout for as long as a week or ten days.It was time to get going again.Time to get going again.That was the thought in Johnny's mind when things finally jelled all the wayback together and he opened his eyes.file:///E|/Funny%20&%20Weird%20Shit/75%20-%20Ste.20King%20Books/Stephen%20King%20-%20deadzone.htm (86 of 370)7/28/2005 9:23:00 PMStephen King: The Dead ZoneIt was May 17, 1975.Mr.Starret had long since gone home with standing orders to walk two miles a dayand mend his high cholesterol ways.Across the room was an old man engaged in a weary' fifteenthround with that all-time heavyweight champ, carcinoma.He slept the sleep of morphia, and the roomwas otherwise empty.It was 3 15 P.M.The TV screen was a drawn green shade.'Here I am,' Johnny Smith croaked to no one at all.He was shocked by the 'weakness of his voice.Therewas no calendar in the room, and he had no way of knowing that he had been out of it four-and-a-halfyears.3.The nurse came in some forty minutes later.She went over to the old man in the other bed, changed hisIV feed, went into the bathroom, and came out with a blue plastic pitcher.She watered the old man'sflowers.There were over half a dozen bouquets, and a score of get-well cards standing open on his tableand windowsill.Johnny watched her perform this homey chore, feeling as yet no urge to try his voiceagain.She put the pitcher back and came over to Johnny's bed.Going to turn my pillows, he thought.Theireyes met briefly, but nothing in hers changed.She doesn't know I'm awake.My eyes have been openbefore.It doesn't mean anything to her.She put her hand on the back of his neck.It was cool and comforting and Johnny knew she had threechildren and that the youngest had lost most of the sight of one eye last Fourth of July.A firecrackeraccident.The boy's name was Mark.She lifted his head, flipped his pillow over, and settled him back.She started to turn away, adjusting hernylonuniform at the hips, and then turned back, puzzled.Belatedly thinking that there had been somethingnew in his eyes, maybe.Something that hadn't been there before.She glanced at him thoughtfully, started to turn away again, and he said, 'Hello, Marie.'She froze, and he could hear an ivory dick as her teeth came suddenly and violently together.Her handpressed against her chest just above the swell of her breasts.A small gold crucifix hung there.'0-my-God,' she said.'You're awake.I thought you looked different.How did you know my name?''I suppose I must have heard it.' It was hard to talk, terribly hard [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]