Christine by Stephen King Read Free Book Online Page A

Arnie," I said. "It's not going to fire up."
    He didn't even raise his head. He turned the key off and then turned it on again. The motor cranked with painful, dragging slowness.
    I walked over to LeBay. "You couldn't even leave it running long enough to build up a charge, could you?" I asked.
    LeBay glanced at me from his yellowing, rheumy eyes, said nothing, and then began checking the sky for rain again.
    "Or maybe it never started at all. Maybe you just got a couple of friends to come over and help you push it into the garage. If an old shit like you has any friends."
    He looked down at me. "Son," he said. "You don't know everything. You ain't even dry behind the ears yet. When you've slogged your way through a couple of wars, like I have—"
    I said deliberately, Fuck your couple of wars," and walked toward the garage where Arnie was still trying to start his car, Might as well try to drink the Atlantic dry with a straw or ride a hot-air balloon to Mars, I thought.
    Rurr…….. . rurr……... rurr.
    Pretty soon the last ohm and erg would be sucked out of that old corroded Sears battery, and then there would be nothing but that most dismal of all automotive sounds, most commonly heard on rainy back roads and deserted highways: the dull, sterile click of the solenoid, followed by an awful sound like a death-rattle.
    I opened the driver's side door. "I'll get my cables," I said.
    He looked up. "I think she'll start for me," he said.
    I felt my lips stretch in a large, unconvincing grin. "Well, I'll get them, just in case."
    "Sure, if you want," he said absently, and then in a voice almost too low to hear he said, "Come on, Christine. What do you say?"
    In the same instant, that voice awoke in my head and spoke again— Let's go for a ride, big guy… let's cruise and I shuddered.
    He turned the key again. What I expected was that dull solenoid click and death-rattle. What I heard was the slow crank of the engine suddenly speeding up. The engine caught, ran briefly, then quit. Arnie turned the key again. The engine cranked over faster. There was a backfire that sounded as loud as a cherry-bomb in the closed space of the garage. I jumped. Arnie didn't. He was lost in his own world.
    At this point I would have cursed it a couple of times, just to help it along: Come on, you whore is always a good one; Let's go, cocksucker has its merits, and sometimes just a good, hearty shit-FIRE! will turn the trick. Most guys I know would do the same; I think it's just one of the things you pick up from your father.
    What your mother leaves you is mostly good hardheaded practical advice—if you cut your toenails twice a month you won't get so many holes in your socks; put that down, you don't know where it's been; eat your carrots, they're good for you—but it's from your father that you get the magic, the talismans, the words of power. If the car won't start, curse it… and be sure you curse it female. If you went seven generations back, you'd probably find one of your forebears cursing the goddam bitch of a donkey that stopped in the middle of the toll-bridge somewhere in Sussex or Prague.
    But Arnie didn't swear at it. He murmured under his breath, "Come on, doll, what do you say?"
    He turned the key. The engine kicked twice, backfired again, and then started up. It sounded horrible, as if maybe four of the eight pistons had taken the day off, but he had it running. I could hardly believe it, but I didn't want to stand around and discuss it with him. The garage was rapidly filling up with blue smoke and fumes. I went outside.
    "That turned out all right, after all, didn't it?" LeBay said. "And you don't have to risk your own precious battery." He spat.
    I couldn't think of anything to say. To tell you the truth, I felt a little embarrassed.
    The car came slowly out of the garage, looking so absurdly long that it made you want to laugh or cry or do something. I couldn't believe how long it looked. It was like an optical illusion. And