Just After Sunset

Just After Sunset by Stephen King Page B

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Authors: Stephen King
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study setup, with its big (and unfortunately shuttered) window and expensive computer, she had a feeling this desk had been used. That Pickering sat there writing longhand, hunched over like a child in a country schoolroom. Writing what she did not like to think.
    The window in here was also big. And unlike the windows in the study and the guest room, it wasn’t shuttered. Before Em could look out and see what lay beyond, her attention was drawn to a photograph on the wall by the bed. Not hung and certainly not framed, only tacked there with a pushpin. There were other tiny holes on the wall around it, as if other pictures had been pinned there over the years. This one was a color shot with 4-19-07 printed digitally in the right corner. Taken by an old-fashioned camera rather than a digital one, by the look of the paper, and not by anyone with much flair for photography. On the other hand, perhaps the photographer had been excited. The way hyenas might get excited, she supposed, when sundown comes and there’s fresh prey in the offing. It was blurry, as if taken with a telephoto lens, and the subject wasn’t centered. The subject was a long-legged young woman wearing denim shorts and a cropped top that said BEER O’CLOCK BAR. She had a tray balanced on the fingers of her left hand, like a waitress in a jolly old Norman Rockwell painting. She was laughing. Her hair was blond. Em couldn’t be sure it was Nicole, not from this blurred photo and those few shocked instants when she had been looking down at the dead girl in the trunk of the Mercedes…but she was sure. Her heart was sure.
    Rusty: “It doesn’t matter, sweetie. You have to get out of here. You have to get yourself some running room.”
    As if to prove it, the door between the kitchen and the dining room banged open—almost hard enough to tear it from the hinges, it sounded like.
    No, she thought. All the sensation went out of her middle. She didn’t think she wet herself again, but wouldn’t have been able to tell if she had. No, it can’t be.
    “Want to play rough?” Pickering called. His voice sounded dazed and cheerful. “Okay, I can play rough. Sure. Not a problem. You want it? You bet. Daddy’s gonna bring it.”
    Coming. Crossing the dining room. She heard a thump followed by a rough clatter as he stumbled into one of the other chairs (perhaps the one at the “father” end of the table) and shoved it aside. The world swam away from her, growing gray even though this room was relatively bright now that the storm was unraveling.
    She bit down on her split lip. This sent a fresh stream of blood down her chin, but it also brought color and reality back into the world. She slammed the door and grabbed for the lock. There was no lock. She looked around and spied the humble wooden chair sitting before the humble wooden desk. As Pickering broke into a shambling run past his laundry room and study—and did he have the butcher knife clutched in one hand? Of course he did—she snatched the chair, placed it under the knob, and tilted it. Only an instant later, he hit the door with both hands.
    She thought that if this floor had also been oak planking, the chair would have skidded away like a shuffleboard weight. Perhaps she would have grabbed it and stood him off with it: Em the Fearless Lion Tamer. She didn’t think so. In any case, there was that carpet. Cheap nylon pile, but deep—it had that going for it, at least. The tilted legs of the chair dug in and held, although she saw a ripple go through the carpet.
    Pickering roared and began to beat on the door with his fists. She hoped he was still holding on to the knife as he did it; maybe he would inadvertently cut his own throat.
    “Open this door!” he shouted. “Open it! You’re only making it worse for yourself!”
    Like I could, Emily thought, backing away. And looking around. What now? The window? What else? There was only the one door, so it had to be the window.
    “You’re making me

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