"Faster!" Lois shouted at him. "Go faster, Ralph!"
"I can't," he said. His teeth were clamped together, and the wor(-Is came out sounding squeezed. "I've got it matted." Also, he did not add, this is the fastest I've gone in thirty-five years, and I'm scared to death.
The needle quivered a hair's breadth beyond the 80 mark on the speedometer; the woods slid by in a blurred mix of reds and yellows and magentas; under the hood the engine was no longer just clacking but hammering like a platoon of blacksmiths on a hinge. In spite of this, the fresh trio of police cars Ralph saw in his mirror were catching up easily.
The road curved sharply right up ahead. Denying every instinct, Ralph kept his foot away from the brake pedal. He did take it off the gas as they went into the curve... then mashed it back to the mat again as he felt the rear end trying to break loose on the back side.
He was hunched over the wheel now, upper teeth clamped tightly on his lower lip, eyes wide open and bulging beneath the saltand-pepper tangle of his eyebrows. The sedan's rear tires howled, and Lois fell into him, scrabbling at the back of her seat for purchase. Ralph clung to the wheel with sweaty fingers and waited for the car to flip. The Olds was one of the last true Detroit roadmonsters, however, wide and heavy and low. It outlasted the curve, and on the far side Ralph saw a red farmhouse on the left. There were two barns behind it.
"Ralph, there's the turn!"
"I see."
The new batch of police cars had caught up with them and were' swinging out to pass. Ralph got as far over as he could, praying that none of them would rear-end him at this speed. None did; they zipped by in close bumper-to-bumper formation, swung left, and started up the long hill which led to High Bridge.
"Hang on, Lois."
"Oh, I am, I am," she said.
The Olds slid almost sideways as Ralph made the left onto what he and Carolyn had always called the Orchard Road. If the narrox, country lane had been tarred, the big car probably would have rolled over like a stunt vehicle in a thrill-show. It wasn't, however, and instead of going door-over-roof the Olds just skidded extravagantly, sending up dry billows of dust. Lois gave a thin, out-of-breath shriek, and Ralph snatched a quick look at her.
"Go on!" She flapped an impatient hand at the road ahead, and in that moment she looked so eerily like Carolyn that Ralph almost felt he was seeing a ghost. He wondered what Carol, who had nearly made a career out of telling him to go faster during the last five years of her life, would have made of this little spin in the country. "Never mind me, just watch the road!"
More police cars were making the turn onto Orchard Road now.
How many was that in all? Ralph didn't know; he'd lost count.
Maybe a dozen in all. He steered the Oldsmobile over until the right two wheels were running on the edge of a nasty-looking ditch, and the reinforcements-three with DERRY POLICE printed in gold on the sides and two State Police cruisers-blew past, throwing up fresh showers of dirt and gravel. For just a moment Ralph saw a uniformed policeman leaning out of one of the Derry police-cars, waving at him, and then the Olds was buried in a yellow cloud of dust. Ralph smothered a new and even stronger urge to climb on the brake by thinking of Helen and Nat. A moment later he could see again-sort of, anyway. The newest batch of police-cars was already coming up the hill.
"That cop was waving you off, wasn't he?" Lois asked.
"You bet."
"They're not even going to let us get close." She was looking at the black smudge on top of the hill with wide, dismayed eyes.
"We'll get as close as we need to." Ralph checked the rear-view for more traffic and saw nothing but hanging road-dust.
"Ralph?"
"What?"
"Are you up? Do you see the colors?"
He took a quick look at her. She still looked beautiful to him, and marvelously young, but there was no sign of her aura. "No," he said. "Do you?"
"I don't know. I still see that." She pointed through the windshield at the dark smudge on top of the hill. "What is it? If it's not a deathbag, what is it?"