Aunt Trudy's initial reaction to the painting had been to advise
Kinnell that he should throw it into the Saco River. Auntie had
been right. The Saco was now almost twenty miles behind him,
but...
'This'll do,' he said. 'I think this'll do just fine.'
He raised the picture over his head like a guy holding up some
kind of sports trophy for the postgame photographers and then
heaved it down the slope. It flipped over twice, the frame caching
winks of hazy late-day sun, then struck a tree. The glass facing
shattered. The picture fell to the ground and then slid down the dry,
needle-carpeted slope, as if down a chute. It landed in the bog, one
comer of the frame protruding from a thick stand of reeds.
Otherwise, there was nothing visible but the strew of broken glass,
and Kinnell thought that went very well with the rest of the litter.
He turned and went back to his car, already picking up his mental
trowel. He would wall this incident off in its own special niche, he
thought ... and it occurred to him that that was probably what most
people did when they ran into stuff like this. Liars and wannabees
(or maybe in this case they were wannasees) wrote up their
fantasies for publications like Survivors and called them truth;
those who blundered into authentic occult phenomena kept their
mouths shut and used those trowels. Because when cracks like this
appeared in your life, you had to do something about them; if you
didn't, they were apt to widen and sooner or later everything would
fall in.
Kinnell glanced up and saw the pretty young thing watching him
apprehensively from what she probably hoped was a safe distance.
When she saw him looking at her, she turned around and started
toward the restaurant building, once more dragging the cocker
spaniel behind her and trying to keep as much sway Out of her hips
as possible.
You think I'm crazy, don't you pretty girl? Kinnell thought. He saw
he had left his trunk lid up. It gaped like a mouth. He slammed it
shut. You and half the fiction-reading population of America, I
guess. But I'm not crazy. Absolutely not. I just made a little
mistake, that's all. Stopped at a yard sale I should have passed up.
Anyone could have done it. You could have done it. And that
picture
' What picture?' Rich Kinnell asked the hot summer evening, and
tried on a smile. 'I don't see any picture.'
He slid behind the wheel of his Audi and started the engine. He
looked at the fuel gauge and saw it had dropped under a half. He
was going to need gas before he got home, but he thought he'd fill
the tank a little further up the line. Right now all he wanted to do
was to put a belt of miles - as thick a one as possible - between him
and the discarded painting.
Once outside the city limits of Derry, Kansas Street becomes
Kansas Road. As it approaches the incorporated town limits (an
area that is actually open countryside), it becomes Kansas Lane.
Not long after,, Kansas Lane passes between two fieldstone posts.
