collar of his shirt a flick. All three of them across the way were holding handguns, and because Johnny was up in the gallery, their field of fire was crystal clear—but Johnny doubted if they would have bothered overmuch about innocent bystanders anyway.
One of the trio of old women grabbed Moochie’s arm. She was sobbing, trying to ask something. He flung her away and steadied his gun in both hands. There was a stink of gunpowder in the hall now. It had been about twenty seconds since Johnny had stood up.
“Down! Down, Greg!”
Stillson was still standing at the edge of the dais, crouching slightly, looking up. Johnny brought the rifle down, and for an instant Stillson was dead-bang in front sight. Then a pistol-slug grooved his neck, knocking him backward, and his own shot went wild into the air. The window across the way dissolved in a tinkling rain of glass. Thin screams drifted up from below. Blood poured down and across his shoulder and chest.
Oh, you’re doing a great job of killing him, he thought hysterically, and pushed back to the railing again. He levered another cartridge into the breech and threw it to his shoulder again. Now Stillson was on the move. He darted down the steps to floor-level and then glanced up at Johnny again.
Another bullet whizzed by his temple. I’m bleeding like a stuck pig, he thought. Come on. Come on and get this over.
The bottleneck at the entryway broke, and now people began to pour out. A puff of smoke rose from the barrel of one of the pistols across the way, there was a bang, and the invisible finger that had flicked his collar a few seconds ago now drew a line of fire across the side of Johnny’s head. It didn’t matter. Nothing mattered except taking Stillson. He brought the rifle down again.
Make this one count—
Stillson moved with good speed for such a big man. The dark-haired young woman Johnny had noticed earlier was about halfway up the center aisle, holding her crying son in her arms, still trying to shield him with her body. And what Stillson did then so dumbfounded Johnny that he almost dropped the rifle altogether. He snatched the boy from his mother’s arms, whirled toward the gallery, holding the boy’s body in front of him. It was no longer Greg Stillson in the front sight but a small squirming figure in
(the filter blue filter yellow stripes tiger stripes)
a dark blue snowmobile suit with bright yellow piping.
Johnny’s mouth dropped open. It was Stillson, all right. The tiger. But he was behind the filter now.
What does it mean? Johnny screamed, but no sound passed his lips.
The mother screamed shrilly then; but Johnny had heard it all somewhere before. “Matt! Give him to me! MATT! GIVE HIM TO ME, YOU BASTARD!”
Johnny’s head was swelling blackly, expanding like a bladder. Everything was starting to fade. The only brightness left was centered around the notched gunsight, the gunsight now laid directly over the chest of that blue snowmobile suit.
Do it, oh for Christ’s sake you have to do it he’ll get away—
And now—perhaps it was only his blurring eyesight that made it seem so—the blue snowmobile suit began to spread, its color washing out to the light robin’s-egg color of the vision, the dark yellow stretching, striping, until everything began to be lost in it.
(behind the filter, yes, he’s behind the filter, but what does it mean? does it mean it’s safe or just that he’s beyond my reach? what does it)
Warm fire flashed somewhere below and was gone. Some dim part of Johnny’s mind registered it as a flash-pak.
Stillson shoved the woman away and backed toward the door, eyes squeezed into calculating pirate’s slits. He held the squirming boy firmly by the neck and the crotch.
Can’t. Oh dear God forgive me, I can’t.
Two more bullets struck him then, one high in the chest, driving him back against the wall and bouncing him off it, the second into the left side of his midsection, spinning him around into the gallery railing. He was dimly aware that he had lost the rifle. It struck the gallery floor and discharged point-blank into the wall. Then his upper thighs crashed into the balustrade and he was falling. The town hall turned over twice before his eyes and then there was a splintering crash as he struck two of the benches, breaking his back and both legs.
He opened his mouth to scream, but what came out was