The Dark Half Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  I - Fool's Stuffing

  One - PEOPLE WILL TALK

  Two - BREAKING UP HOUSEKEEPING

  Three - GRAVEYARD BLUES

  Four - DEATH IN A SMALL TOWN

  Five - 96529Q

  Six - DEATH IN THE BIG CITY

  Seven - POLICE BUSINESS

  Eight - PANGBORN PAYS A VISIT

  Nine - THE INVASION OF THE CREEPAZOID

  Ten - LATER THAT NIGHT

  Eleven - ENDSVILLE

  Twelve - SIS

  Thirteen - SHEER PANIC

  Fourteen - FOOL'S STUFFING

  II - Stark Takes Charge

  Fifteen - STARK DISBELIEF

  Sixteen - GEORGE STARK CALLING

  Seventeen - WENDY TAKES A FALL

  Eighteen - AUTOMATIC WRITING

  Nineteen - STARK MAKES A PURCHASE

  Twenty - OVER THE DEADLINE

  Twenty - one - STARK TAKES CHARGE

  III - The Coming of the Psychopomps

  Twenty - two - THAD ON THE RUN

  Twenty - three - TWO CALLS FOR SHERIFF PANGBORN

  Twenty - four - THE COMING OF THE SPARROWS

  Twenty - five - STEEL MACHINE

  Twenty - six - THE SPARROWS ARE FLYING

  Epilogue

  Afterword

  Teaser chapter

  About the Author

  How Do You Kill Something

  That Was Never Born . . .

  THE DARK HALF

  Thad Beaumont would like to say he is innocent.

  He'd like to say he has nothing to do with the series of monstrous murders that keep coming closer to his home.

  He'd like to say he has nothing to do with the twisted imagination that produced his bestselling novels.

  He'd like to say he has nothing to do with the voice on the phone uttering its obscene threats and demanding total surrender.

  But how can Thad disown the ultimate embodiment of evil that goes by the name he gave it--and signs its crimes with Thad's bloody fingerprints?

  "A chiller."

  --New York Times Book Review

  AMERICA LOVES

  THE BACHMAN BOOKS

  "Fascinating."

  --Philadelphia Inquirer

  CARRIE

  "Horrifying."

  --Chicago Tribune

  CHRISTINE

  "Riveting."

  --Playboy

  CUJO

  "Gut-wrenching."

  --Newport News Daily Press

  THE DARK HALF

  "Scary."

  --Kirkus Reviews

  THE DARK TOWER: THE GUNSLINGER

  "Brilliant."

  --Booklist

  THE DARK TOWER II: THE DRAWING OF THE THREE

  "Superb."

  --Chicago Herald-Wheaton

  THE DARK TOWER III: THE WASTE LANDS

  "Gripping."

  --Chicago Sun-Times

  THE DEAD ZONE

  "Frightening."

  --Cosmopolitan

  DIFFERENT SEASONS

  "Hypnotic."

  --New York Times Book Review

  DOLORES CLAIBORNE

  "Unforgettable."

  --San Francisco Chronicle

  THE EYES OF THE DRAGON

  "Masterful."

  --Cincinnati Post

  FIRESTARTER

  "Terrifying."

  --Miami Herald

  STEPHEN KING

  FOUR PAST MIDNIGHT

  "Chilling."

  --Milwaukee Journal

  GERALD'S GAME

  "Terrific."

  --USA Today

  IT

  "Mesmerizing."

  --Washington Post Book World

  MISERY

  "Wonderful."

  --Houston Chronicle

  NEEDFUL THINGS

  "Demonic."

  --Kirkus Reviews

  NIGHT SHIFT

  "Macabre,"

  --Dallas Times-Herald

  PET SEMATARY

  "Unrelenting."

  --Pittsburgh Press

  'SALEM'S LOT

  "Tremendous."

  --Kirkus Reviews

  THE SHINING

  "Spellbinding."

  --Pittsburgh Press

  SKELETON CREW

  "Diabolical."

  --Associated Press

  THE STAND

  "Great."

  --New York Times Book Review

  THINNER

  "Extraordinary."

  --Booklist

  THE TOMMYKNOCKERS

  "Marvelous."

  --Boston Globe

  WORKS BY STEPHEN KING

  NOVELS

  Carrie

  'Salem's Lot

  The Shining

  The Stand

  The Dead Zone

  Firestarter

  Cujo

  THE DARK TOWER I:

  The Gunslinger

  Christine

  Pet Sematary

  Cycle of the Werewolf

  The Talisman

  (with Peter Straub)

  It

  The Eyes of the Dragon

  Misery

  The Tommyknockers

  THE DARK TOWER II:

  The Drawing

  of the Three

  THE DARK TOWER III:

  The Waste Lands

  The Dark Half

  Needful Things

  Gerald's Game

  Dolores Claiborne

  Insomnia

  Rose Madder

  Desperation

  The Green Mile

  THE DARK TOWER IV:

  Wizard and Glass

  Bag of Bones

  The Girl Who Loved Tom

  Gordon

  Dreamcatcher

  Black House

  (with Peter Straub)

  From a Buick 8

  THE DARK TOWER V:

  Wolves of the Calla

  THE DARK TOWER VI:

  Song of Susannah

  THE DARK TOWER VII:

  The Dark Tower

  AS RICHARD BACHMAN

  Rage

  The Long Walk

  Roadwork

  The Running Man

  Thinner

  The Regulators

  COLLECTIONS

  Night Shift

  Different Seasons

  Skeleton Crew

  Four Past Midnight

  Nightmares and

  Dreamscapes

  Hearts in Atlantis

  Everything's Eventual

  NONFICTION

  Danse Macabre

  On Writing

  SCREENPLAYS

  Creepshow

  Cat's Eye

  Silver Bullet

  Maximum Overdrive

  Pet Sematary

  Golden Years

  Sleepwalkers

  The Stand

  The Shining

  Rose Red

  Storm of the Century

  SIGNET

  Published by New American Library, a division of

  Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street,

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  Published by Signet, an imprint of New American Library, a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc. Previously published in a Viking edition.

  First Signet Printing, October 1990

  Copyright (c) Stephen King, 1989

  Illustrations copyright (c) Viking, a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 1989 All rights reserved

  The excerpt from Gerald's Game by Stephen King appears in a Viking edition, copyright (c) Stephen King, 1992. Grateful acknowledgment is made for permission to reprint an excerpt from "John Wesley Harding" by Bob Dylan. Copyright (c) Dwarf Music, 1968. All rights reserved. International copyright secured.

  REGISTERED TRADEMARK--MARCA REGISTRADA

  Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

  PUBLISHER'S NOTE

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party Web sites or their content.

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  eISBN : 978-1-10113802-1

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  This book is for Shirley Sonderegger.

  who helps me mind my business,

  and for her husband. Peter.

  Author's Note

  I'm indebted to the late Richard Bachman for his help and inspiration. This novel could not have been written without him.

  S.K.

  Prologue

  "Cut him," Machine said. "Cut him while I stand here and watch. I want to see the blood flow. Don't make me tell you twice. "

  --Machine's Way

  by George Stark

  People's lives--their real lives, as opposed to their simple physical existences--begin at different times. The real life of Thad Beaumont, a young boy who was born and raised in the Ridgeway section of Bergenfield, New Jersey, began in 1960. Two things happened to him that year. The first shaped his life; the second almost ended it. That was the year Thad Beaumont was eleven.

  In January he submitted a short story to a writing contest sponsored by American Teen magazine. In June, he received a letter from the magazine's editors telling him that he had been awarded an Honorable Mention in the contest's Fiction category. The letter went on to say that the judges would have awarded him Second Prize had his application not revealed that he was still two years away from becoming a bona fide "American Teen." Still, the editors said, his story, "Outside Marty's House," was an extraordinarily mature work, and he was to be congratulated.

  Two weeks later, a Certificate of Merit arrived from American Teen. It came registered mail, insured. The certificate had his name on it in letters so convolutedly Old English that he could barely read them, and a gold seal at the bottom, embossed with the American Teen logo--the silhouettes of a crewcut boy and a pony-tailed girl jitterbugging.

  His mother swept Thad, a quiet, earnest boy who could never seem to hold onto things and often tripped over his own large feet, into her arms and smothered him with kisses.

  His father was unimpressed.

  "If it was so goddam good, why didn't they give him some money?" he grunted from the depths of his easy-chair.

  "Glen--"

  "Never mind. Maybe Ernest Hemingway there could run me in a beer when you get done maulin him. "

  His mother said no more . . . but she had the original letter and the certificate which followed it framed, paying for the job out of her pin-money, and hung it in his room, over the bed. When relatives or other visitors came, she took them in to see it. Thad, she told her company, was going to be a great writer someday. She had always felt he was destined for greatness, and here was the first proof. This embarrassed Thad, but he loved his mother far too much to say so.

  Embarrassed or not, Thad decided his mother was at least partly right. He didn't know if he had it in him to be a great writer or not, but he was going to be some kind of a writer no matter what. Why not? He was good at it. More important, he got off on doing it. When the words came right, he got off on it in a big way. And they wouldn't always be able to withhold the money from him on a technicality. He wouldn't be eleven forever.

  The second important thing to happen to him in 1960 began in August. That was when he began to have headaches. They weren't bad at first, but by the time school let in again in early September, the mild, lurking pains in his temples and behind his forehead had progressed to sick and monstrous marathons of agony. He could do nothing when these headaches held him in their grip but lie in his darkened room, waiting to die. By the end of September, he hoped he would die. And by the middle of October, the pain had progressed to the point where he began to fear he would not.

  The onset of these terrible headaches was usually marked by a phantom sound which only he could hear--it sounded like the distant cheeping of a thousand small birds. Sometimes he fancied he could almost see these birds, which he thought were sparrows, clustering on telephone lines and rooftops by the dozens, the way they did in the spring and the fall.

  His mother took him to see Dr. Seward.

  Dr. Seward peeked into his eyes with an ophthalmoscope, and shook his head. Then, drawing the curtains closed and turning off the overhead light, he instructed Thad to look at a white space of wall in the examination room. Using a flashlight, he flicked a bright circle of light on and off rapidly while Thad looked at it.

  "Does that make you feel funny, son?"

  Thad shook his head.

  "You don't feel woozy? Like you might faint?"

  Thad shook his head again.

  "Do you smell anything? Like rotten fruit or burning rags?"

  "No. "

  "What about your birds? Did you hear them while you were looking at the flashing light?"

  "No," Thad said, mystified.

  "It's nerves," his father said later, when Thad had been dismissed to the outer waiting room. "The goddam kid's a bundle of nerves. "

  "I think it's migraine," Dr. Seward told them. "Unusual in one so young, but not unheard of. And he seems very . . . intense. "

  "He is," Shayla Beaumont said, not without some approval.

  "Well, there may be a cure someday. For now, I'm afraid he'll just have to suffer through them. "

  "Yeah, and us with him," Glen Beaumont said.

  But it was not nerves, and it was not migraine, and it was not over.

  Four days before Halloween, Shayla Beaumont heard one of the kids with whom Thad waited for the schoolbus each morning begin to holler. She looked out the kitchen window and saw her son lying in the driveway, convulsing. His lunchbox lay beside him, its freight of fruit and sandwiches spilled onto the driveway's hot-top surface. She ran out, shooed the other children away, and then just stood over him helplessly, afraid to touch him.

  If the big yellow bus with Mr. Reed at the wheel had pulled up any later, Tha
d might have died right there at the foot of the driveway. But Mr. Reed had been a medic in Korea. He was able to get the boy's head back and open an airway before Thad choked to death on his own tongue. He was taken to Bergenfield County Hospital by ambulance and a doctor named Hugh Pritchard just happened to be in the E. R., drinking coffee and swapping golf-lies with a friend, when the boy was wheeled in. And Hugh Pritchard also just happened to be the best neurologist in the State of New Jersey.

  Pritchard ordered the X-rays and read them. He showed them to the Beaumonts, asking them to look with particular care at a vague shadow he had circled with a yellow wax pencil.

  "This," he said. "What's this?"

  "How the hell should we know?" Glen Beaumont asked. "You're the goddam doctor. "

  "Right," Pritchard said dryly.

  "The wife said it looked like he pitched a fit," Glen said.

  Dr. Pritchard said, "If you mean he had a seizure, yes, he did. If you mean he had an epileptic seizure, I'm pretty sure he didn't. A seizure as serious as your son's would surely have been grand mal, and Thad showed no reaction whatever to the Litton Light Test. In fact, if Thad had grand mal epilepsy, you wouldn't need a doctor to point the fact out to you. He'd be doing the Watusi on the living room rug every time the picture on your TV set decided to roll. "

  "Then what is it?" Shayla asked timidly.

  Pritchard turned back to the X-ray mounted on the front of the light-box. "What is that?" he responded, and tapped the circled area again. "The sudden onset of headaches coupled with any lack of previous seizures suggests to me that your son has a brain tumor, probably still small and hopefully benign. "

  Glen Beaumont stared at the doctor stonily while his wife stood beside him and wept into her handkerchief. She wept without making a sound. This silent weeping was the result of years of spousal training. Glen's fists were fast and hurtful and almost never left marks, and after twelve years of silent sorrow, she probably could not have cried out loud even if she had wanted to.

  "Does all this mean you want to cut his brains?" Glen asked with his usual tact and delicacy.

  "I wouldn't put it quite that way, Mr. Beaumont, but I believe exploratory surgery is called for, yes." And he thought: If there really is a God, and if He really made us in His Own image, I don't like to think about why there are so damned many men like this one walking around with the fates of so many others in their hands.

  Glen was silent for several long moments, his head down, his brow furrowed in thought. At last he raised his head and asked the question which troubled him most of all.

  "Tell me the truth, Doc--how much is all this gonna cost?"

  The assisting O. R. nurse saw it first.

  Her scream was shrill and shocking in the operating room, where the only sounds for the last fifteen minutes had been Dr. Pritchard's murmured commands, the hiss of the bulky life-support machinery, and the brief, high whine of the Negli saw.