Cell

by Stephen King

The event that came to be known as The Pulse began at 3:03 p.m., eastern standard time, on the afternoon of October 1.

At three o’clock on that day, a young man of no particular importance to history came walking—almost bouncing—east along Boylston Street in Boston. His name was Clayton Riddell.

It was parked across from the Four Seasons Hotel (which was even grander than the Copley Square) and next to the Boston Common, which ran along Boylston for two or three blocks on this side of the street.

who wants to go to the 4 seasons orlando?

The peppermint-colored phone played the opening notes of that Crazy Frog tune that Johnny loved—was it called “Axel F”?

And so, standing there in front of a shop window filled with old books surrounding a Royal typewriter hailing from long before the era of cellular communications, Clay did. He cried for Power Suit Woman, for Pixie Light and Pixie Dark, and he cried for himself, because Boston was not his home, and home had never seemed so far.

Open it, you sonofabitch,” he told the desk clerk, “or I’ll cut your throat.”

And then, because it was the only thing he could think of: “I fucked your mama, and she was one dry hump!”

This is how a man looks when he’s deciding that the risk of death is better than the risk of change.

“Don’t worry,” she said, unsmiling. “I saw all those movies, too. We’ve got Cinemax.”

The lions are out of their cages, and you may well find that they’ll eat the mouthy Christians first. Somebody canceled your right of free speech around three o’clock this afternoon.

Now we hear the cat, Clay thought. Rafe. And sure enough, there was the cat that had been Tom McCourt’s salvation, waowing a greeting from inside.

They both wore belts with large-caliber handguns in the holsters, and these were automatics.