Firestarter by Stephen King Page B

carnival of dreams where every ride was free.
    One of the grad assistants came over and said, “How you feeling, Andy?”
    Andy looked at him. This was the same guy that had injected him—when? A year ago? He rubbed a palm over his cheek and heard the rasp of beard stubble. “I feel like Rip van Winkle,” he said.
    The GA smiled. “It’s only been forty-eight hours, not twenty years. How do you feel, really?”
    â€œFine.”
    â€œNormal?”
    â€œWhatever that word means, yes. Normal. Where’s Ralph?”
    â€œRalph?” The GA raised his eyebrows.
    â€œYes, Ralph Baxter. About thirty-five. Big guy. Sandy hair.”
    The grad assistant smiled. “You dreamed him up,” he said.
    Andy looked at the GA uncertainly. “I did what?”
    â€œDreamed him up. Hallucinated him. The only Ralph I know who’s involved in all the Lot Six tests in any way is a Dartan Pharmaceutical rep named Ralph Steinham. And he’s fifty-five or so.”
    Andy looked at the GA for a long time without saying anything. Ralph an illusion? Well, maybe so. It had all the paranoid elements of a dope dream, certainly; Andy seemed to remember thinking Ralph was some sort of secret agent who had wasted all sorts of people. He smiled a little. The GA smiled back … a little too readily, Andy thought. Or was that paranoia, too? Surely it was.
    The guy who had been sitting up and talking when Andy woke up was now being escorted from the room, drinking from a paper cup of orange juice.
    Cautiously, Andy said: “No one got hurt, did they?”
    â€œHurt?”
    â€œWell—no one had a convulsion, did they? Or—”
    The grad assistant leaned forward, looking concerned. “Say, Andy, I hope you won’t go spreading anything like that around campus. It would play bloody hell with Dr. Wanless’s research program. We have Lots Seven and Eight coming up next semester, and—”
    â€œWas there anything?”
    â€œThere was one boy who had a muscular reaction, minor but quite painful,” the GA said. “It passed in less than fifteen minutes with no harm done. But there’s a witch-hunt atmosphere around here now. End the draft, ban ROTC, ban Dow Chemical job recruiters because they make napalm.… Things get out of proportion, and I happen to think this is pretty important research.”
    â€œWho was the guy?”
    â€œNow you know I can’t tell you that. All I am saying is please remember you were under the influence of a mild hallucinogenic. Don’t go mixing up your drug-induced fantasies with reality and then start spreading the combination around.”
    â€œWould I be allowed to do that?” Andy asked.
    The GA looked puzzled. “I don’t see how we could stop you. Any college experimental program is pretty much at the mercy of its volunteers. For a lousy two hundred bucks we can hardly expect you to sign an oath of allegiance, can we?”
    Andy felt relief. If this guy was lying, he was doing a really superlative job of it. It had all been a series of hallucinations. And on the cot beside his, Vicky was beginning to stir.
    â€œNow what about it?” the GA asked, smiling. “I think I’m supposed to be asking the questions.”
    And he did ask questions. By the time Andy finished answering them, Vicky was fully awake, looking rested and calm and radiant, and smiling at him. The questions were detailed. Many of them were the questions Andy himself would have asked.
    So why did he have the feeling they were all window dressing?
14
    Sitting on a couch in one of the smaller Union lounges that evening, Andy and Vicky compared hallucinations.
    She had no memory of the thing that troubled him the most: that bloody hand waving limply above the knot of white tunics, striking the chart, and then disappearing. Andy had no recollection of the thing that was most vivid to her: a man with long blond hair had set up