miniature. Paul puzzled over this, dozed a little, woke, looked again, and thought: Of course. I should have known from the first. It is a death-machine. And if anyone on Earth’s a Martian, it’s Annie-fucking-Wilkes. It’s her barbecue pot. It’s the crematorium where she made me burn Fast Cars.
He shifted a little because his ass was going to sleep, and moaned. Pain in his legs—particularly in the bunched remains of his left knee—and pain in his pelvis as well. That probably meant he was in for a really bad night, because his pelvis had gotten pretty quiet over the last two months.
He felt for the hypo, picked it up, then put it back. A very light dose, she had said. Best to save it for later, then.
He heard a light shuffle-scuffle and looked quickly in the comer, expecting to see the trooper crawling toward him, one brown eye peering from the hash of his face. If not for you I could be home watching TV now with my hand on my wife’s leg.
No cop. A dim shape which was maybe just imagination but was more likely a rat. Paul willed himself to relax. Oh what a long night this was going to be.
22
He dozed a little and woke up slumped far over to the left with his head hung down like a drunk in an alley. He straightened up and his legs cursed him roundly. He used the bedpan and it hurt to piss and he realized with some dismay that a urinary infection was probably setting in. He was so vulnerable now. So fucking vulnerable to everything. He put the urinal aside and picked up the hypo again.
A light dose of scopolamine, she said—well, maybe so. Or maybe she loaded it with a hot shot of something. The sort of stuff she used on folks like Ernie Gonyar and “Queenie” Beaulifant.
Then he smiled a little. Would that really be so bad? The answer was a resounding HELL, NO! It would be good. The pilings would disappear forever. No more low tide. Forever.
With that thought in mind he found the pulse in his left thigh, and though he had never injected himself in his life, he did it efficiently now, even eagerly.
23
He did not die and he did not sleep. The pain went away and he drifted, feeling almost untethered from his body, a balloon of thought drifting at the end of a long string.
You were also Scheherazade to yourself, he thought, and looked at the barbecue pot. He thought of Martian death-rays, burning London in fire.
He thought suddenly of a song, a disco tune, something by a group called the Trammps: Burn, baby, burn, burn the mother down . . ..
Something flickered.
Some idea.
Burn the mother down....
Paul Sheldon slept.
24
When he woke up the cellar was filled with the ashy light of dawn. A very large rat sat on the tray Annie had left him, nibbling cheese with its tail neatly curled around its body.
Paul screamed, jerked, then screamed again as pain flowed up his legs. The rat fled.
She had left him some capsules. He knew that the Novril wouldn’t take care of the pain, but it was better than nothing.
Besides, pain or no pain, it’s time for the old morning fix, right, Paul?
He washed two of the caps down with Pepsi and then leaned back, feeling the dull throb in his kidneys. He was growing something down there, all right. Great.
Martians, he thought. Martian death-machines.
He looked toward the barbecue pot, expecting it to look like a barbecue pot in the morning light: a barbecue pot and nothing else. He was surprised to find it still looked to him like one of Welles’s striding machines of destruction.
You had an idea—what was it?
The song came back, the one by the Trammps:
Burn, baby, burn, burn the mother down!
Yeah? And just what mother is that? She wouldn’t even leave you a candle. You couldn’t light a fart.
Up came a message from the boys in the sweatshop.
You don’t need to burn anything now. Or here.
What the fuck are we talking about, guys? Could you let me in on—
Then it came, it came at once, the way all the really good ideas came, rounded and smooth and utterly persuasive in its baleful perfection.
Burn the mother down....
He looked at the barbecue pot, expecting the pain of what he had done—what she had made him do—to return. It did, but it was dull and faint; the pain in his kidneys was worse. What had she said yesterday? All