Det här låter mycket som Stephen King-historien Nona . Den publicerades i 1978-antologins skuggor och samlades senare i kungens 1985-samling Skelett Crew.
Nona är berättelsen om ett collegeutfall som hitchhikes i Maine en vinternatt. Han möter Nona i en bar och blir förskämd av henne.
Someone tugged at my sleeve. I turned my head and there she was—she’d moved over to the empty stool. Looking at that face close up was almost blinding. I spilled some more of my coffee.
“I’m sorry.” Her voice was low, almost atonal.
“My fault. I can’t feel what I’m doing yet.”
“I—” She stopped, seemingly at a loss. I suddenly realized that she was scared. I felt my first reaction to her swim over me again—to protect her and take care of her, make her not afraid. “I need a ride,” she finished in a rush. “I didn’t dare ask any of them.” She made a barely perceptible gesture toward the truckers in the booth.
How can I make you understand that I would have given anything—anything—to be able to tell her, Sure, finish your coffee, I’m parked right outside. It sounds crazy to say I felt that way after half a dozen words out of her mouth, and the same number out of mine, but I did. Looking at her was like looking at the Mona Lisa or the Venus de Milo come to breathing life. And there was another feeling. It was as if a sudden, powerful light had been turned on in the confused darkness of my mind. It would make it easier if I could say she was a pickup and I was a fast man with the ladies, quick with a funny line and lots of patter, but she wasn’t and I wasn’t. All I knew was I didn’t have what she needed and it tore me up.
“I’m thumbing,” I told her. “A cop kicked me off the interstate and I only came here to get out of the cold. I’m sorry.”
“Are you from the university?”
“I was. I quit before they could fire me.”
“Are you going home?”
“No home to go to. I was a state ward. I got to school on a scholarship. I blew it. Now I don’t know where I’m going.” My life story in five sentences. I guess it made me feel depressed.
She laughed—the sound made me run hot and cold. “We’re cats out of the same bag, I guess.”
En av truckersna börjar trakassera utloppet, men han går i full makt och dödar nästan trucken.
I straddled him, grabbed double handfuls of his greasy hair, and began to rub his face into the gravel. In the flat glare of the sodium light his blood seemed black, like beetle’s blood.
“Jesus, stop it!” somebody yelled. Hands grabbed my shoulders and pulled me off. I saw whirling faces and I struck at them. The trucker was trying to creep away. His face was a staring mask of blood from which his dazed eyes peered. I began to kick him, dodging away from the others, grunting with satisfaction each time I connected on him. He was beyond fighting back. All he knew was to try to get away. Each time I kicked him his eyes would squeeze closed, like the eyes of a tortoise, and he would halt. Then he would start to crawl again. He looked stupid. I decided I was going to kill him. I was going to kick him to death. Then I would kill the rest of them—all but Nona. I kicked him again and he flopped over on his back and looked up at me dazedly.
“Uncle,” he croaked. “I cry Uncle. Please. Please—”
I knelt down beside him, feeling the gravel bite into my knees through my thin jeans. “Here you are, handsome,” I whispered. “Here’s your uncle.” I hooked my hands onto his throat.
Three of them jumped me all at once and knocked me off him. I got up, still grinning, and started toward them. They backed away, three big men, all of them scared green. And it clicked off.
Just like that it clicked off and it was just me, standing in the parking lot of Joe’s Good Eats, breathing hard and feeling sick and horrified.
De flyger ut i baren och lyckas få en hiss med en man som heter Norman Blanchette. Utsläppen blir irriterad med Norman för att inte ha någon anledning och Nona uppmanar honom att döda Norman genom att ge honom en nagelfil.
I got out. Nona slid across the seat, giving Norman Blanchette a final smile. I wasn’t worried. She was quarterbacking the play. Blanchette was smiling an infuriating porky smile, relieved at being rid of us.
“Well, good ni—”
“Oh my purse! Don’t drive off with my purse!”
“I’ll get it,” I told her.
I leaned back into the car. Blanchette saw what I had in my hand, and the porky smile on his face froze solid. Now lights showed on the hill, but it was too late to stop. Nothing could have stopped me. I picked up Nona’s purse with my left hand. With my right I plunged the steel nail file into Blanchette’s throat. He bleated once.
De fortsätter hitchhiking och dödar de flesta människor de stöter på, inklusive polisen. Till slut når de till destinationen Nona påstår att hon var på väg till, vilket visar sig vara en kyrkogård. Nona leder honom till en av gravarna och inuti finner han Nona död kropp, förminskad och full av råttor. Dropout och Nona omfamnar och hon förvandlas till en råtta-varelse.
I went to Nona. I went to my life. Her arms reached around my neck and I pulled her against me. That was when she began to change, to ripple and run like wax. The great dark eyes became small and beady. The hair coarsened, went brown. The nose shortened, the nostrils dilated. Her body lumped and hunched against me. I was being embraced by a rat.
“Do you love?” it squealed. “Do you love, do you love?”
Her lipless mouth stretched upward for mine. I didn’t scream. There were no screams left. I doubt if I will ever scream again.