（外文电子版资料）King, Stephen - Riding The Bullet.doc

Stephen King Riding The Bullet, 2000 This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the authors imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. Ive never told anyone this story, and never thought I would - not because I was afraid of being disbelieved, exactly, but because I was ashamed . . . and because it was mine. Ive always felt that telling it would cheapen both me and the story itself, make it smaller and more mundane, no more than a camp counselors ghost story told before lights-out. I think I was also afraid that if I told it, heard it with my own ears, I might start to disbelieve it myself. But since my mother died I havent been able to sleep very well. I doze off and then snap back again, wide awake and shivering. Leaving the bedside lamp on helps, but not as much as you might think. There are so many more shadows at night, have you ever noticed that? Even with a light on there are so many shadows. The long ones could be the shadows of anything, you think. Anything at all. I was a junior at the University of Maine when Mrs. McCurdy called about ma. My father died when I was too young to remember him and I was an only child, so it was just Alan and Jean Parker against the world. Mrs. McCurdy, who lived just up the road, called at the apartment I shared with three other guys. She had gotten the number off the magnetic minder-board ma kept on her fridge. Twas a stroke, she said in that long and drawling Yankee accent of hers. Happened at the restaurant. But dont you go flyin off all half-cocked. Doctor says it waant too bad. Shes awake and shes talkin. Yeah, but is she making sense? I asked. I was trying to sound calm, even amused, but my heart was beating fast and the living room suddenly felt too warm. I had the apartment all to myself; it was Wednesday, and both my roomies had classes all day. Oh, ayuh. First thin