Free Lisey’s Story by Stephen King

and pull, raking the goddam underwear out of the crack of her goddam ass, there, at least one thing about this wrong and broken day is now mended.
    A coed in the kind of shell top where the straps tie at the shoulders in big floppy bows threatens to block her narrowing path to Scott, but Lisey ducks beneath her and hits the hottop. She won’t be aware of her scraped and blistered knees until much later—until the hospital, in fact, where a kindly paramedic will notice and put lotion on them, something so cool and soothing it will make her cry with relief. But that is for later. Now it might as well be just her and Scott alone on the edge of this hot parking lot, this terrible black-and-yellow ballroom floor which must be a hundred and thirty degrees at least, maybe a hundred and fifty. Her mind tries to present her with the image of an egg frying sunnyside up in Good Ma’s old black iron spider and Lisey blocks it out.
    Scott is looking at her.
    He gazes up and now his face is waxy pale except for the sooty smudges forming beneath his hazel eyes and the fat string of blood which has begun to flow from the right side of his mouth and down along hisjaw. “Lisey!” That thin, whooping high-altitude-chamber voice. “Did that guy really shoot me?”
    â€œDon’t try to talk.” She puts a hand on his chest. His shirt, oh dear God, is soaked with blood, and beneath it she can feel his heart running along so fast and light; it is not the heartbeat of a human being but of a bird. Pigeon-pulse, she thinks, and that’s when the girl with the floppy bows tied on her shoulders falls on top of her. She would land on Scott but Lisey instinctively shields him, taking the brunt of the girl’s weight ( “Hey! Shit! FUCK!” the startled girl cries out) with her back; that weight is there for only a second, and then gone. Lisey sees the girl shoot her hands out to break her fall— oh, the divine reflexes of the young, she thinks, as though she herself were ancient instead of just thirty-one—and the girl is successful, but then she is yipping “Ow, ow, OW! ” as the asphalt heats her skin.
    â€œLisey,” Scott whispers, and oh Christ how his breath screams when he pulls it in, like wind in a chimney.
    â€œWho pushed me?” the girl with the bows on her shoulders is demanding. She’s a-hunker, hair from a busted ponytail in her eyes, crying in shock, pain, and embarrassment.
    Lisey leans close to Scott. The heat of him terrifies her and fills her with pity deeper than any she thought it was possible to feel. He is actually shivering in the heat. Awkwardly, using only one arm, she strips off her jacket. “Yes, you’ve been shot. So just be quiet and don’t try to—”
    â€œI’m so hot,” he says, and begins to shiver harder. What comes next, convulsions? His hazel eyes stare up into her blue ones. Blood runs from the corner of his mouth. She can smell it. Even the collar of his shirt is soaking in red. His tea-cure wouldn’t be any good here, she thinks, not even sure what it is she’s thinking about. Too much blood this time. Too smucking much. “I’m so hot, Lisey, please give me ice.”
    â€œI will,” she says, and puts her jacket under his head. “I will, Scott.” Thank God he’s wearing his sportcoat, she thinks, and then has an idea. She grabs the hunkering, crying girl by the arm. “What’s your name?”
    The girl stares as if she were mad, but answers the question. “Lisa Lemke.”
    Another Lisa, small world, Lisey thinks but does not say. What she saysis, “My husband’s been shot, Lisa. Can you go over there to . . .” She cannot remember the name of the building, only its function. “ . . . to the English Department and call an ambulance? Dial 911—”
    â€œMa’am? Mrs. Landon?” This is the campus security cop with the