and Beach nodded. lt was them, all right. They were coming along fast now. He'd have time, but only if he hustled.
Beach drove another quarter of a mile up the road, rounded a curve, and saw the last long stretch of Route 3 between here and Derry. He turned his pickup sideways, blocking the road. Then he removed the tarp from the rifle-thing in back, fingers plucking nervously at hayrope knots as their voices grew stronger, stronger, stronger in his head.
When their lights splashed the trees on this side of the curve, Beach got his head down. He reached for the train transformers, six of them, that had been nailed to a board (and the board had been bolted to the truck-bed so it wouldn't slide around) and turned them on, one after another. He heard the hum as they powered up ... then that sound, every sound, was lost in the shriek of brakes and tires. Now light that was flashbulb-white and shot through with strobing blue flashes filled the bed of the pickup truck and Beach pressed himself against the bottom, hands laced over his head, thinking he had blown it, parked too close to a blind turn and they were going to crash into his truck, and they might only be injured but he would be killed, and they would find the ruins of his 'rifle' and say Well now, what's this? And ... and ...
You fucked up, Beach, they saved your life and you fucked up ... oh, damn you ... damn you ... damn you ...
Then the shrieking tires stopped. The smell of cooked rubber was strong and sickening, but the crash for which he had been braced hadn't come. Blue lights strobed. A microphone crackled static.
Dimly he heard the hoarse-voiced cop say, 'What's this shit?'
Shakily, Beach did a girly-pushup and peered over the edge of the truck-bed with just his eyes. He saw their cruiser halted at the end of a long pair of black skid-marks. Even by starlight those marks were clearly visible. The cruiser was sitting at a cockeyed angle not nine feet away. If they had been going just five miles an hour faster ...
Yeah, but they weren't.
Sounds. The double-clunk of their doors closing as they got out of their car. The faint, dull hum of the transformers which powered his gadget - a gadget that was not all that different from the ones Ruth had planted in the bellies of her dolls. And a low buzzing sound. Flies. They smelled the blood under the plastic sheet but couldn't get at the deer's carcass.
You'll get your chance soon enough, Beach thought, and grinned. Too bad you won't get a taste of those old boys out there.
'I saw that truck back in Haven, Bent,' the hoarse-voiced one said. 'Parked in front of the restaurant.'
Beach swiveled the culvert pipe slightly in its cradle. Looking through it, he could see them both. And if one of them moved out of the actual power-axis of the gadget, that was okay; there was a slight flare effect.
Get away from the car, boys, Beach thought, picking up the doorbell from Western Auto and settling a thumb on it. His grin showed pink gums. Don't want to get none of the car. Move away, all right?
'Who's there?' the other cop shouted.
Tommyknockers here, knocking at your door, you meddling shithead, he thought, and began to giggle. He couldn't help it. He tried to stifle it as best he could.
'If someone's in that truck, you better speak up!'
He began to giggle louder; just couldn't help it. And maybe that was just as well, because they took a look at each other and then began to move toward the truck, unholstering their guns. Toward the truck and away from their cruiser.
Beach waited until he was sure the cruiser wouldn't be touched by the flare - they had told him not to harm the police car, and he intended not to take so much as a strip of chrome off the bumper. When the cops were clear, Beach pushed the doorbell. Avon calling, shitheads, he thought, and this time he didn't just giggle; he whooped. A thick branch of green fire shot out in the dark, catching both of the policemen and enveloping them. Beach saw several bright yellow sparks inside that green glare, and understood that one of the cops was triggering his pistol off again and again.
Beach could smell the thick aroma of cooking train transformers. There was a sudden