Needful Things Read online

  "You bet I am!" Frank snarled.

  "Just shoot me down like a dog, huh?"

  "Why not? It's what you deserve!"

  To Frank's amazement, George T. Nelson was smiling and nodding. "Ayup," he said, "and that's what I'd expect from a chickenshit bastard who'd break into a friend's house and kill a defenseless little birdie. Exactly what I'd expect. So go ahead, you yellowbelly four-eyes fuck. Shoot me and get it over with."

  Thunder bellowed overhead, but Frank didn't hear it. The bank blew up ten seconds later and he barely heard that. He was too busy struggling with his fury ... and his amazement. Amazement at the gall, the bold, bare-ass gall of Monsieur George T. Motherfucker Nelson.

  At last Frank managed to break the lock on his tongue. "Killed your bird, right! Shit on that stupid picture of your mom, right again! And what did you do? What did you do, George, besides make sure that I'll lose my job and never teach again? God, I'll be lucky not to end up in jail!" He saw the total injustice of this in a sudden black flash of comprehension; it was like rubbing vinegar into a raw scrape. "Why didn't you just come and ask me for money, if you needed it? Why didn't you just come and ask? We could have worked something out, you dumb bastard!"

  "I don't know what you're talking about!" George T. Nelson shouted back. "All I know is that you're brave enough to kill teeny-tiny parakeets but you don't have balls enough to take me on in a fair fight!"

  "Don't know what ... don't know what I'm talking about?" Frank sputtered. The muzzle of the Llama wavered wildly back and forth. He could not believe the gall of the man below him on the sidewalk; simply could not believe it. To be standing there with one foot on the pavement and the other practically in eternity and to simply go on lying ...

  "No! I don't! Not the slightest idea!"

  In the extremity of his rage, Frank Jewett regressed to the childhood response to such outrageous, baldface denial: "Liar, liar, pants on fire!"

  "Coward!" George T. Nelson smartly returned. "Baby-coward! Parakeet-killer!"

  "Blackmailer!"

  "Loony! Put the gun away, loony! Fight me fair!"

  Frank grinned down at him. "Fair? Fight you fair? What do you know about fair?"

  George T. Nelson held up his empty hands and waggled the fingers at Frank. "More than you, it looks like."

  Frank opened his mouth to reply, but nothing came out. He was temporarily silenced by George T. Nelson's empty hands.

  "Go on," George T. Nelson said. "Put it away. Let's do it like they do in the Westerns, George. If you've got the sack for it, that is. Fastest man wins."

  Frank thought: Well, why not? Just why the hell not?

  He hadn't much else to live for, one way or the other, and if he did nothing else, he could show his old "friend" he wasn't a coward.

  "Okay," he said, and shoved the Llama into the waistband of his own pants. He held his hands out in front of him, hovering just above the butt of the gun. "How do you want to do it, Georgie-Porgie?"

  George T. Nelson was grinning. "You start down the steps," he said. "I start up. Next time the thunder goes overhead--"

  "All right," Frank said. "Fine. Let's do it."

  He started down the stairs. And George T. Nelson started up.

  7

  Polly had just spotted the green awning of Needful Things up ahead when the funeral parlor and the barber shop went up. The glare of light and the roar of sound were enormous. She saw debris burst out of the heart of the explosion like asteroids in a science fiction movie and ducked instinctively. It was well that she did; several chunks of wood and the stainless-steel lever from the side of Chair #2--Henry Gendron's chair--smashed through the windshield of her Toyota. The lever made a weird, hungry humming sound as it flew through the car and exited by way of the rear window. Broken glass whispered through the air in a widening shotgun cloud.

  The Toyota, with no driver to steer it, bumped up over the curb, struck a fire hydrant, and stalled.

  Polly sat up, blinking, and stared out through the hole in the windshield. She saw someone coming out of Needful Things and heading toward one of the three cars parked in front of the store. In the bright light of the fire across the street, she recognized Alan easily.

  "Alan!" She yelled it, but Alan didn't turn. He moved with single-minded purpose, like a robot.

  Polly shoved open the door of her car and ran toward him, screaming his name over and over. From down the street came the rapid rattle of gunfire. Alan did not turn in that direction, nor did he look at the conflagration which, only moments ago, had been the funeral parlor and the barber shop. He seemed to be locked entirely on his own interior course of action, and Polly suddenly realized that she was too late. Leland Gaunt had gotten to him. He had bought something after all, and if she didn't make it to his car before he embarked on whatever wild-goose chase it was that Gaunt was sending him on, he would simply leave ... and God only knew what might happen then.

  She ran faster.

  8

  "Help me," Norris said to Seaton Thomas, and slung an arm around Seat's neck. He staggered to his feet.

  "I think I winged him," Seaton said. He was puffing, but his color had come back.

  "Good," Norris said. His shoulder hurt like fire ... and the pain seemed to be sinking deeper into his flesh all the time, as if seeking his heart. "Now just help me."

  "You'll be all right," Seaton said. In his distress over Norris, Seat had forgotten his fear that he was, in his words, coming down with a heart attack. "Soon as I get you inside--"

  "No," Norris gasped. "Cruiser."

  "What?"

  Norris turned his head and glared at Thomas with frantic, pain-filled eyes. "Get me in my cruiser! I have to go to Needful Things!"

  Yes. The moment the words were out of his mouth, everything seemed to fall into place. Needful Things was where he had bought the Bazun fishing rod. It was the direction in which the man who had shot him had gone running. Needful Things was the place where everything had started; Needful Things was where it all must end.

  Galaxia blew up, flooding Main Street with fresh glare. A Double Dragon machine rose out of the ruins, turned over twice, and landed upside down in the street with a crunch.

  "Norris, you been shot--"

  "Of course I've been shot!" Norris screamed. Bloody froth flew from his lips. "Now get me in the cruiser!"

  "It's a bad idea, Norris--"

  "No it's not," Norris said grimly. He turned his head and spat blood. "It's the only idea. Now come on. Help me."

  Seat Thomas began to walk him toward Unit 2.

  9

  If Alan hadn't glanced into his rearview mirror before backing out into the street, he would have run Polly down, completing the evening by crushing the woman he loved under the rear wheels of his old station wagon. He did not recognize her; she was only a shape behind his car, a woman-shape outlined against the cauldron of flames on the other side of the street. He jammed on the brakes, and a moment later she was hammering at his window.

  Ignoring her, Alan began to back up again. He had no time for the town's problems tonight; he had his own. Let them slaughter each other like stupid animals, if that was what they wanted to do. He was going to Mechanic Falls. He was going to get the man who had killed his wife and son in revenge for a piddling four years in the Shank.

  Polly grabbed his doorhandle and was half-pulled, half-dragged, out into the debris-strewn street. She punched down on the button below the handle, her hand shrieking with pain, and the door flew open with her clinging desperately to it and her feet dragging as Alan made his reverse turn. The nose of the station wagon was pointing down Main Street. In his grief and fury, Alan had totally forgotten that there was no bridge to cross down that way anymore.

  "Alan!" she screamed. "Alan, stop!"

  It got through. Somehow it got through in spite of the rain, the thunder, the wind, and the heavy, hungry crackle of the fire. In spite of his compulsion.

  He looked at her, and Polly's heart broke at t
he expression in his eyes. Alan wore the look of a man floating in the gut of a nightmare. "Polly?" he asked distantly.

  "Alan, you have to stop!"

  She wanted to let go of the doorhandle--her hands were agony--but she was afraid that if she did, he would simply drive away and leave her there in the middle of Main Street.

  No ... she knew he would.

  "Polly, I have to go. I'm sorry you're mad at me--that you think I did something--but we'll sort it out. Only I have to g--"

  "I'm not mad at you anymore, Alan. I know it wasn't you. It was him, playing us off against each other, like he has just about everyone else in Castle Rock. Because that's what he does. Do you understand, Alan? Are you hearing me? Because that is what he does! Now stop! Turn off the goddamned engine and listen to me!"

  "I have to go, Polly," he said. His own voice seemed to be coming to him from far away. On the radio, perhaps. "But I'll be ba--"

  "No you won't!" she cried. Suddenly she was furious with him--furious at all of them, all the greedy, frightened, angry, acquisitive people in this town, herself included. "No you won't, because if you leave now, there won't be a goddam thing to come back TO!"

  The video-game parlor blew up. Debris stormed around Alan's car, parked in the middle of Main Street. Alan's talented right hand stole over, picked up the Tastee-Munch can, as if for comfort, and held it on his lap.

  Polly took no notice of the explosion; she stared at Alan with her dark, pain-filled eyes.

  "Polly--"

  "Look!" she shouted suddenly, and tore open the front of her blouse. Rainwater struck the swells of her breasts and gleamed in the hollow of her throat. "Look, I took it off--the charm! It's gone! Now take yours off, Alan! If you're a man, take yours off!"

  He was having trouble understanding her from the depths of whatever nightmare it was which held him, the nightmare Mr. Gaunt had spun around him like a poisonous cocoon ... and in a sudden flash of insight she understood what that nightmare was. What it must be.

  "Did he tell you what happened to Annie and Todd?" she asked softly.

  His head rocked back as if she had slapped him, and Polly knew she had hit the mark.

  "Of course he did. What's the one thing in all the world, the one useless thing, that you want so badly that you get it mixed up with needing it? That's your charm, Alan--that's what he's put around your neck."

  She let go of the doorhandle and thrust both of her arms into the car. The glow from the domelight fell on them. The flesh was a dark, liverish red. Her arms were so badly swollen that her elbows were becoming puffy dimples.

  "There was a spider inside of mine," she said softly. " 'Hinky-pinky-spider, crawling up the spout. Down came the rain and washed the spider out.' Just a little spider. But it grew. It ate my pain and it grew. This is what it did before I killed it and took my pain back. I wanted so badly for the pain to be gone, Alan. That was what I wanted, but I don't need it to be gone. I can love you and I can love life and bear the pain all at the same time. I think the pain might even make the rest better, the way a good setting can make a diamond look better."

  "Polly--"

  "Of course it has poisoned me," she continued thoughtfully, "and I think the poison may kill me if something isn't done. But why not? It's fair. Hard, but fair. I bought the poison when I bought the charm. He has sold a lot of charms in his nasty little shop this last week. The bastard works fast, I'll give him that much. Hinky-pinky-spider, crawling up the spout. That's what was in mine. What's inside yours? Annie and Todd, isn't it? Isn't it?"

  "Polly, Ace Merrill killed my wife! He killed Todd! He--"

  "No!" she screamed, and seized his face in her throbbing hands. "Listen to me! Understand me! Alan, it's not just your life, can't you see? He makes you buy back your own sickness, and he makes you pay double! Don't you understand that yet? Don't you get it?"

  He stared at her, mouth agape ... and then, slowly, his mouth closed. A sudden look of puzzled surprise settled on his face. "Wait," he said. "Something was wrong. Something was wrong in the tape he left me. I can't quite ..."

  "You can, Alan! Whatever the bastard sold you, it was wrong! Just like the name on the letter he left me was wrong."

  He was really hearing her for the first time. "What letter?"

  "It's not important now--if there's a later, I'll tell you then. The point is, he oversteps. I think he always oversteps. He's so stuffed with pride it's a wonder he doesn't explode. Alan, please try to understand: Annie is dead, Todd is dead, and if you go out chasing Ace Merrill while the town is burning down around your ears--"

  A hand appeared over Polly's shoulder. A forearm encircled her neck and jerked her roughly backward. Suddenly Ace Merrill was standing behind her, holding her, pointing a gun at her, and grinning over her shoulder at Alan.

  "Speak of the devil, lady," Ace said, and overhead--

  10

  --thunder cracked across the sky.

  Frank Jewett and his good old "friend" George T. Nelson had been facing each other on the courthouse steps like a pair of strange bespectacled gunslingers for almost four minutes now, their nerves twanging like violin strings tuned into the ultimate octave.

  "Yig!" said Frank. His hand grabbed for the automatic pistol stuck in the waistband of his pants.

  "Awk!" said George T. Nelson, and grabbed for his own.

  They drew with identical feverish grins--grins that looked like big, soundless screams--and threw down. Their fingers pressed the triggers. The two reports overlapped so perfectly that they sounded like one. Lightning flashed as the two bullets flew ... and nicked each other in mid-flight, deflecting just enough to miss what should have been a pair of point-blank targets.

  Frank Jewett felt a puff of air beside his left temple.

  George T. Nelson felt a sting on the right side of his neck.

  They stared at each other unbelievingly over the smoking guns.

  "Huh?" said George T. Nelson.

  "Wha?" said Frank Jewett.

  They began to grin identical, unbelieving grins. George T. Nelson took a hesitant step up toward Frank; Frank took a hesitant step down toward George. In another moment or two they might have been embracing, their quarrel dwarfed by those two small puffs of eternity ... but then the Municipal Building blew up with a roar that seemed to split the world in two, vaporizing them both where they stood.

  11

  That final explosion dwarfed all the others. Ace and Buster had planted forty sticks of dynamite in two clusters of twenty at the Municipal Building. One of these bombs had been left sitting on the judge's chair in the courtroom. Buster had insisted that they place the other on Amanda Williams's desk in the Selectmen's Wing.

  "Women have no business in politics, anyway," Buster explained to Ace.

  The sound of the explosion was shattering, and for a moment every window of the town's biggest building was filled with supernatural violet-orange light. Then the fire lashed out through the windows, through the doors, through the vents and grilles, like merciless, muscular arms. The slate roof lifted off intact like some strange gabled spaceship, rose on a cushion of fire, then shattered into a hundred thousand jagged fragments.

  In the next instant the building itself blew outward in every direction, turning Lower Main Street into a hail of brick and glass where no living thing bigger than a cockroach could survive. Nineteen men and women were killed in the blast, five of them newspeople who had come to cover the escalating weirdness in Castle Rock and became part of the story instead.

  State Police cars and news vehicles were thrown end over end through the air like Corgi toys. The yellow van which Mr. Gaunt had provided Ace and Buster cruised serenely up Main Street nine feet above the ground, wheels spinning, rear doors hanging by their mangled hinges, tools and timers spilling out the back. It banked to the left on a hot hurricane thermal and crash-landed in the front office of the Dostie Insurance Agency, snowplowing typewriters and file-cabinets before its mangled grille.

  A shud
der like an earthquake blundered through the ground. Windows shattered all over town. Weathervanes, which had been pointing steadily northeast in the prevailing wind of the thunderstorm (which was now beginning to abate, as if embarrassed by the entrance of this avatar), began to whirl crazily. Several flew right off their spindles, and the next day one would be found buried deeply in the door of the Baptist Church, like a marauding Indian's arrow.

  On Castle Avenue, where the tide of battle was turning decisively in favor of the Catholics, the fighting stopped. Henry Payton stood by his cruiser, his drawn gun dangling by his right knee, and stared toward the fireball in the south. Blood trickled down his cheeks like tears. Rev. William Rose sat up, saw the monstrous glow on the horizon, and began to suspect that the end of the world had come, and that what he was looking at was Star Wormwood. Father John Brigham wandered down to him in drunken loops and staggers. His nose was bent severely to the left and his mouth was a mass of blood. He considered punting Rev. Rose's head like a football and helped him to his feet instead.

  On Castle View, Andy Clutterbuck did not even look up. He sat on the front step of the Potter house, weeping and cradling his dead wife in his arms. He was still two years from the drunken plunge through the ice of Castle Lake which would kill him, but he was at the end of the last sober day of his life.

  On Dell's Lane, Sally Ratcliffe was in her bedroom closet with a small, squirming Conga-line of insects descending the side-seam of her dress. She had heard what had happened to Lester, understood that she had somehow been to blame (or believed she understood, and in the end it came to the same thing), and had hanged herself with the tie of her terrycloth bathrobe. One of her hands was thrust deep into the pocket of her dress. Clasped in this hand was a splinter of wood. It was black with age and spongy with rot. The woodlice with which it had been infested were leaving in search of a new and more stable home. They reached the hem of Sally's dress and began marching down one dangling leg toward the floor.

  Bricks whistled through the air, turning the buildings some distance away from ground-zero into what looked like the aftermath of an artillery barrage. Those closer looked like cheese-graters, or collapsed entirely.