Christine by Steven King Page A

start over again. Tomorrow we’ll start over. Well get some perspective on this.
    And so finally I went to sleep. And dreamed.
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    The whining spin of a starter in darkness.
    Silence.
    The starter, whining again.
    The engine fired, missed, then caught.
    An engine running in darkness.
    Then headlights came on, high beams, old-fashioned twin beams, spearing me like a bug on glass.
    I was standing in the open doorway of Roland D. LeBay’s garage, and Christine sat inside—a new Christine with not a dent or a speck of rust on her. The clean, unblemished windshield darkened to a polarized blue strip at the top. From the radio came the hard rhythmic sounds of Dale Hawkins doing “Susie-Q”—a voice from a dead age, full of somehow frightening vitality.
    The motor muttering words of power through dual glass-pack mufflers. And somehow I knew there was a Hurst shifter inside, and Feully headers; the Quaker State oil had just been changed—it was a clean amber color, automotive lifeblood.
    The wipers suddenly start up, and that’s strange because there’s no one behind the wheel, the car is empty.
    â€”Come on, big guy. Let’s go for a ride. Let’s cruise.
    I shake my head. I don’t want to get in there. I’m scared to get in there. I don’ t want to cruise. And suddenly the engine begins to rev and fall off, rev and fall off; it’s a hungry sound, frightening, and each time the engine revs Christine seems to lunge forward a bit, like a mean dog on a weak leash . . . and I want to move . . . but my feet seem nailed to the cracked pavement of the driveway.
    â€”Last chance, big guy.
    And before I can answer—or even think of an answer—there is the terrible scream of rubber kissing off concrete and Christine lunges out at me, her grille snarling like an open mouth full of chrome teeth, her headlights glaring—
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    I screamed myself awake in the dead darkness of two in the morning, the sound of my own voice scaring me, the hurried, running thud of bare feet coming down the hall scaring me even worse. I had double handfuls of sheet in both hands. I’d pulled the sheet right out; it was all wadded up in the middle of the bed. My body was sweat-slippery.
    Down the hall, Ellie cried out “What was that?” in her own terror.
    My light flooded on and there was my mom in a shorty nightgown that showed more than she would have allowed except in the direst of emergencies, and right behind her, my dad, belting his bathrobe closed over nothing at all.
    â€œHoney, what is it?” my mom asked me. Her eyes were wide and scared. I couldn’t remember the last time she had called me “honey” like that—when I was fourteen? twelve? ten, maybe? I don’t know.
    â€œDennis?” Dad asked.
    Then Elaine was standing behind and between them, shivering.
    â€œGo back to bed,” I said. “It was a dream, that’s all. Nothing.”
    â€œWow,” Elaine said, shocked into respect by the hour and the occasion. “Must have been a real horror-movie. What was it, Dennis?”
    â€œI dreamed that you married Milton Dodd and then came to live with me,” I said.
    â€œDon’t tease your sister,” Mom said. “What was it, Dennis?”
    â€œI don’t remember,” I said.
    I was suddenly aware that the sheet was a mess, and there was a dark tuft of pubic hair poking out. I rearranged things in a hurry, with guilty thoughts of masturbation, wet dreams, God knows what else shooting through my head. Total dislocation. For the first spinning moment or two, I hadn’t even been sure if I was big or little—there was only that dark, terrifying, and overmastering image of the car lunging forward a little each time the engine revved, dropping back, lunging forward again, the hood vibrating over the engine-bucket, the grille like steel