Shivers 7 by Stephen King, Clive Barker, Bill Pronzini, Graham Masterton, Rio Youers, Ed Gorman, Rick Hautala, Norman Partridge, Norman Prentiss Read Free Book Online

kid said. “Jazz is my thing, though. None of that country stuff.”
    “Leave it off, Jack,” Breakbone said.
    I didn’t argue with him. I wanted to, it was my car, dammit, but I didn’t.
    There was something about the way he was sitting there, so damn big and Sphinx silent, those massive hands bulked together in his lap.
    The miles piled up, fifteen or so. Dusk had settled; I switched the headlights on. How many more miles to L.A. and Karen? Only about eight-fifty now. And maybe another hundred closer before I called it a day. I could be with her sometime tomorrow night if I got an early start in the morning and drove straight through. I was even more eager to see her now. And it wasn’t just sex. It was her—her smile, her voice, the way she laughed, everything about her. I’d been in love before, but never the way I was in love with Karen….
    Twilight was rapidly fading into darkness, the shadows long and clotted on the empty desert landscape. Night came down fast out here. It’d be full dark in another few minutes.
    Another mile clicked off on the odometer. And then Breakbone put an end to the silence. “That exit up there, Jack,” he said. “Take it.”
    I peered ahead. The exit, according to the sign, was to a secondary road that led to a couple of far-off towns I’d never heard of. There were no services there, just the off-ramp and sign and a crossroad stretching both ways across the desert flats.
    “What for?”
    “Take it.”
    “Now listen—”
    His big hairy paw dropped on my knee again, the stone-hard fingers digging in. Not with any pressure, not yet. “Take it.”
    I slowed and took it.
    “What’s going on?” Rob said from the back seat. He sounded sleepy; he must have been dozing.
    “Turn right,” Breakbone said.
    Don’t do it, I thought. But I didn’t even hesitate at the stop sign, just swung onto the secondary road heading east. “Where is it you want to go?”
    “Keep driving.”
    A mile, two miles. Full dark now, no moon, the black sky pricked with stars that seemed paler and more remote than usual. Up ahead, the headlights picked out the opening to a side road that branched off to the left. We’d almost reached it when Breakbone said, “Turn in that road.”
    I still couldn’t make myself defy him. We rattled over a cattle guard. The narrow track was unpaved, dusty, rutted—some sort of backcountry ranch road. We bounced along at less than twenty through a grove of yucca trees. I didn’t dare go any faster.
    “Hey,” Rob said, “what’s the idea?” He sounded scared, as scared as I was now. “You guys thinking of robbing me or what? You won’t get much, I’m only carrying a few dollars….”
    “Shut up.”
    The kid shut up.
    Pretty soon Breakbone said, “Far enough, Jack. Stop the car.”
    I stopped.
    “Shut off the engine.”
    As soon as I did that, he reached over and yanked the keys out of the ignition.
    “Now the headlights.”
    Everything went black when I clicked the switch, the yucca trees blotting out all but a faint glimmer of starshine. It gave me a sudden feeling of suffocation, as if I’d been trapped inside a box. I heard Rob making moaning noises and fumbling at the door handle, trying to get away. Then the dome light came on, but not because the kid had gotten his door open; it was Breakbone climbing out through the passenger door. He yanked the back one open, hauled the kid out with one of his huge paws. Rob fought him, yelling, but he couldn’t break loose. It was like a small animal trying to fight a behemoth.
    Breakbone picked him up under one arm as if he weighed nothing at all, grabbed the backpack with his other hand. “Stay here, Jack,” he said to me. “Don’t go nowhere.” Then he kicked both doors shut, closing me into the black box again, and went stomping off into the darkness outside.
    I just sat there, numb. I couldn’t wrap my mind around what was going on.
    Things like this didn’t happen in my world, they just didn’t