'It won't,' he said, putting the poker back and returning to the TV.
'I'm sure it won't.'
But every time the news scroll started to recycle, he got up to
check. The picture was just ashes on the hearth ... and there was no
word of elderly women being murdered in the Wells-Saco-
Kennebunk area of the state. Kinnell kept watching, almost
expecting to see A GRAND AM MOVING AT HIGH SPEED
CRASHED INTO A KENNEBUNK MOVIE THEATER
TONIGHT, KILLING AT LEAST TEN, but nothing of the sort
showed up.
At a quarter of eleven the telephone rang. Kinnell snatched it up.
'Hello?'
'It's Trudy, dear. Are you all right?'
'Yes, fine.'
'You don't sound fine,' she said. 'Your voice sounds trembly and
funny. What's wrong? What is it?' And then, chilling him but not
really surprising him: 'It's that picture you were so pleased with,
isn't it? That goddamned picture!'
It calmed him somehow, that she should guess so much ... and, of
course, there was the relief of knowing she was safe.
'Well, maybe,' he said. 'I had the heebie-jeebies all the way back
here, so I burned it. In the fireplace.'
She's going to find out about Judy Diment, you know, a voice
inside warned. She doesn't have a twenty-thousand-dollar satellite
hookup, but she does subscribe to the Union-Leader and this'll be
on the front page. She'll put two and two together. She's far from
stupid.
Yes, that was undoubtedly true, but further explanations could wait
until the morning, when he might be a little less freaked ... when he
might've found a way to think about the Road Virus without losing
his mind ... and when he'd begun to be sure it was really over.
'Good!' she said emphatically. 'You ought to scatter the ashes,
too!' She paused, and when she spoke again, her voice was lower.
'You were worried about me, weren't you? Because you showed it
to me.
'A little, yes.'
'But you feel better now?'
He leaned back and closed his eyes. It was true, he did. 'Uh-huh.
How was the movie?'
'Good. Harrison Ford looks wonderful in a uniform. Now, if he'd
just get rid of that little bump on his chin . . .'
'Good night, Aunt Trudy. We'll talk tomorrow.'
'Will we?'
'Yes,' he said. 'I think so.'
He hung up, went over to the fireplace again, and stirred the ashes
with the poker. He could see a scrap of fender and a ragged little
flap of road, but that was it. Fire was what it had needed all along,
apparently. Wasn't that how you usually killed supernatural
emissaries of evil? Of course it was. He'd used it a few times
