A video-cassette recorder/player sat there, next to a Sony portable TV--one of the sporty models, round instead of square, with a case as red as a fire-engine. A cord was looped around the television. And there was something on top of the VCR. In this light it looked like a book, but Alan didn't think that was what it was.
He walked over and trained his light first on the TV. It was as thickly coated with dust as the floor and the glass cases. The cord looped around it was a short length of coaxial cable with a connector at either end. Alan moved his light to the thing on top of the VCR, the thing which wasn't a book but a video cassette in an unmarked black plastic case.
A dusty white business envelope lay beside it. Written on the front of the envelope was the message
ATTENTION SHERIFF ALAN PANGBORN.
He set his gun and his flashlight down on the glass counter, took the envelope, opened it, and pulled out the single sheet of paper inside. Then he picked up the flashlight again and trained its powerful circle of light on the short typed message.
Dear Sheriff Pangborn,
By now you will have discovered that I am a rather special sort of businessman--the rare sort who actually does try to stock "something for everyone." I regret that we never were able to meet face-to-face, but I hope you'll understand that such a meeting would have been very unwise--from my standpoint, at least. Ha-ha! In any event, I have left you a little something which I believe will interest you very much. This is not a gift--I am not the Santa Claus type at all, as I think you will agree--but everyone in town has assured me that you are an honorable man, and I believe you will pay the price I require. That price includes a little service ... a service which is, in your case, more good deed than prank. I believe you will agree with me, sir.
I know you have wondered long and deeply about what happened during the last few moments of your wife and younger son's lives. I believe that all these questions will be answered shortly.
Please believe that I wish you only the best, and that I remain
Your faithful and obedient servant
Leland Gaunt
Alan put the paper down slowly. "Bastard!" he muttered.
He shone the light around again, and saw the VCR's cord trailing down the far side of the case and ending in a plug which lay on the floor several feet from the nearest electric socket. Which was no problem, since the power was out, anyway.
But you know what? Alan thought. I don't think that matters. I don't think it matters one little bit. I think that once I hook the appliances up and plug them in and feed that cassette to the tape-player, everything is going to work just fine. Because there's no way he could have caused the things he's caused, or know the things he knows ... not if he's human. The devil's voice is sweet to hear, Alan, and whatever you do, you must not look at what he's left for you.
Nevertheless, he put the flashlight down again and picked up the coaxial cable. He examined it for a moment, then bent to plug it into the proper receptacle on the back of the TV. The Tastee-Munch can tried to slip out of his shirt as he did so. He caught it with one of his nimble hands before it could fall to the floor, and set it on the glass case next to the VCR.
9
Norris Ridgewick was halfway to Needful Things when he suddenly decided he would be crazy--much crazier than he had been already, and that was really going some--to tackle Leland Gaunt alone.
He pulled the microphone off its prongs. "Unit Two to Base," he said. "This is Norris, come back?"
He released the button. There was nothing but a horrid squeal of static. The heart of the storm was directly over The Rock now.
"Fuck it," he said, and turned toward the Municipal Building. Alan might be there; if not, someone would tell him where Alan was. Alan would know what to do ... and even if he didn't, Alan would have to hear his confession: he had slashed Hugh Priest's tires and sent the man to his death simply because he, Norris Ridgewick, had wanted to own a Bazun fishing rod like his good old dad's.
He arrived at the Municipal Building while the timer under the bridge stood at 5, and parked directly behind a bright yellow van. A TV newsvan, from the look.
Norris got out in the pouring rain and ran into the Sheriff's Office to try to find Alan.
10
Polly swung the cup end of the bathroom plunger at the obscenely rearing spider, and this time it did not flinch away. Its bristly front legs clasped the shaft, and Polly's hands cried out in agony as it hauled its quivering weight onto the rubber cup. Her grip wavered, the plunger dropped, and suddenly the spider was scrabbling up the handle like a fat man on a tightrope.
She drew in breath to scream and then its front legs dropped onto her shoulders like the arms of some scabrous dime-a-dance Lothario. Its listless ruby eyes stared into her own. Its fanged mouth dropped open and she could smell its breath--a stink of bitter spices and rotting meat.
She opened her mouth to scream. One of its legs pawed into her mouth. Rough, gruesome bristles caressed her teeth and tongue. The spider mewled eagerly.
Polly resisted her first instinct to spit the horrid, pulsing thing out. She released the plunger and grabbed the spider's leg. At the same time she bit down, using all the strength in her jaws. Something crunched like a mouthful of Life Savers, and a cold bitter taste like ancient tea filled her mouth. The spider uttered a cry of pain and tried to draw back. Bristles slid harshly through Polly's fists, but she clamped her howling hands tight around the thing's leg again before it could completely escape ... and twisted it, like a woman trying to twist a drumstick off a turkey. There was a tough, gristly ripping noise. The spider uttered another slobbering cry of pain.
It tried to lunge away. Spitting out the bitter dark fluid which had filled her mouth, knowing it would be a long, long time before she was entirely rid of that taste, Polly yanked it back again. Some distant part of her was astounded at this exhibition of strength, but there was another part of her which understood it perfectly. She was afraid, she was revolted ... but more than anything else, she was angry.
I was used, she thought incoherently. I sold Alan's life for this! For this monster!
The spider tried to gnash at her with its fangs, but its rear legs lost their tenuous grip on the shaft of the plunger and it would have fallen ... if Polly had allowed it to fall.
She did not. She gripped its hot, bulging body between her forearms and squeezed. She lifted it up so it squirmed above her, its legs twitching and pawing at her upturned face. Juice and black blood began to run from its body and trickle up her arms in burning streamlets.
"NO MORE!" shrieked Polly. "NO MORE, NO MORE, NO MORE!"
She threw it. It struck the tiled wall behind the tub and splattered open in a clot of ichor. It hung up for a moment, pasted in place by its own innards, and then fell into the tub with a gooey thump.
Polly grabbed the bathroom plunger again and sprang at it. She began beating it as a woman might beat at a mouse with a broom, but that wasn't working. The spider only shuddered and tried to crawl away, its legs scrabbling at the rubber shower-mat with its pattern of yellow daisies. Polly pulled the plunger back, reversed it, and then rammed forward with all of her strength, using the shaft like a lance.
She caught the wretched, freakish thing dead center and impaled it. There was a grotesque punching sound, and then the spider's guts ruptured and ran out onto the shower-mat in a stinking flood. It wriggled frantically, curling its legs fruitlessly around the stake she had put in its heart ... and then, at last, it became still.
Polly stepped back, closed her eyes, and felt the world waver. She had actually begun to faint when Alan's name exploded in her mind like a Roman candle. She curled her hands into fists and brought them together, hard, knuckles to knuckles. The pain was bright, sudden, and immense. The world came back in a cold flash.
She opened her eyes, advanced to the tub, and looked in. At first she thought there was nothing there at all. Then, beside the plunger's rubber cup, she saw the spider. It was no bigger than the na
il on her pinky finger, and it was very dead.
The rest never happened at all. It was your imagination.
"The bloody fuck it was," Polly said in a thin, shaking voice.
But the spider wasn't the important thing. Alan was the important thing--Alan was in terrible danger, and she was the reason why. She had to find him, and do it before it was too late.
If it wasn't too late already.
She would go to the Sheriff's Office. Someone there would know where--
No, Aunt Evvie's voice spoke up in her mind. Not there. If you go there, it really will be too late. You know where to go. You know where he is.
Yes.
Yes, of course she did.
Polly ran for the door, and one confused thought beat at her mind like moth-wings: Please God, don't let him buy anything. Oh God, please, please, please don't let him buy anything.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
1
The timer under Castle Stream Bridge, which had been known as the Tin Bridge to residents of The Rock since time out of mind, reached 0 at 7:38 p.m. on the night of Tuesday, October 15th, in the year of Our Lord 1991. The tiny burst of electricity which was intended to ring the bell licked across the bare wires Ace had wrapped around the terminals of the nine-volt battery which ran the gadget. The bell actually did begin to ring, but it--and the rest of the timer--was swallowed a split second later in a flash of light as the electricity triggered the blasting cap and the cap in turn triggered the dynamite.
Only a few people in Castle Rock mistook the dynamite blast for thunder. The thunder was heavy artillery in the sky; this was a gigantic rifleshot blast. The south end of the old bridge, which was built not of tin but of old rusty iron, lifted off the bank on a squat ball of fire. It rose perhaps ten feet into the air, becoming a gently inclined ramp, and then fell back in a bitter crunch of popping cement and the clatter-clang of flying metal. The north end of the bridge twisted loose and the whole contraption fell askew into Castle Stream, which was now in full spate. The south end came to rest on the lightning-downed elm.
On Castle Avenue, where the Catholics and the Baptists--along with nearly a dozen State Policemen--were still locked in strenuous debate, the fighting paused. All the combatants stared toward the fire-rose at the Castle Stream end of town. Albert Gendron and Phil Burgmeyer, who had been duking it out with great ferocity seconds before, now stood side by side, looking into the glare. Blood was running down the left side of Albert's face from a temple wound, and Phil's shirt was mostly torn off.
Nearby, Nan Roberts squatted atop Father Brigham like a very large (and, in her rayon waitress's uniform, very white) vulture. She had been using his hair to raise the good Father's head and slam it repeatedly into the pavement. Rev. Rose lay close by, unconscious as a result of Father Brigham's ministrations.
Henry Payton, who had lost a tooth since his arrival (not to mention any illusions he might once have held about religious harmony in America), froze in the act of pulling Tony Mislaburski off Baptist Deacon Fred Mellon.
They all froze, like children playing Statues.
"Jesus Christ, that was the bridge," Don Hemphill muttered.
Henry Payton decided to take advantage of the lull. He tossed Tony Mislaburski aside, cupped his hands around his wounded mouth, and bawled: "All right, every body! This is the police! I'm ordering you--"
Then Nan Roberts raised her voice in a shout. She had spent many long years bawling orders into the kitchen of her diner, and she was used to being heard no matter how stiff the racket was. It was no contest; her voice overtopped Payton's easily.
"THE GODDAM CATHOLICS ARE USING DYNAMITE!" she bugled.
There were fewer participants now, but what they lacked in numbers they made up for in angry enthusiasm.
Seconds after Nan's cry, the rumble was on again, now spreading into a dozen skirmishes along a fifty-yard stretch of the rain-swept avenue.
2
Norris Ridgewick burst into the Sheriff's Office moments before the bridge went, yelling at the top of his lungs. "Where's Sheriff Pangborn? I've got to find Sheriff P--"
He stopped. Except for Seaton Thomas and a State cop who didn't look old enough to drink beer yet, the office was deserted.
Where the hell was everybody? There were, it seemed, about six thousand State Police units and other assorted vehicles parked helter-skelter outside. One of them was his own VW, which would easily have won the blue ribbon for helter-skelter, had ribbons been awarded. It was still lying on its side where Buster had tipped it.
"Jesus!" Norris cried. "Where is everybody?"
The State cop who didn't look old enough to drink beer yet took in Norris's uniform and then said, "There's a brawl going on upstreet somewhere--the Christians against the cannibals, or some damn thing. I'm supposed to be monitoring in dispatch, but with this storm I can't transmit or receive doodlysquat." He added morosely: "Who are you?"
"Deputy Sheriff Ridgewick."
"Well, I'm Joe Price. What kind of town have you got here anyhow, Deputy? Everyone in it has gone stone crazy."
Norris ignored him and went to Seaton Thomas. Seat's complexion was dirty gray, and he was breathing with great difficulty. One of his wrinkled hands was pressed squarely in the middle of his chest.
"Seat, where's Alan?"
"Dunno," Seat said, and looked at Norris with dull, frightened eyes. "Something bad's happening, Norris. Really bad. All over town. The phones are out, and that shouldn't be, because most of the lines are underground now. But do you know something? I'm glad they're out. I'm glad because I don't want to know."
"You should be in the hospital," Norris said, looking at the old man with concern.
"I should be in Kansas," Seat said drearily. "Meantime, I'm just gonna sit here and wait for it to be over. I ain't--"
The bridge blew up then, cutting him off--that great rifleshot noise ripped the night like a claw.
"Jesus!" Norris and Joe Price cried in unison.
"Yep," Seat Thomas said in his weary, frightened, nagging, unsurprised voice, "they're going to blow up the town, I guess. I guess that comes next."
Suddenly, shockingly, the old man began to weep.
"Where's Henry Payton?" Norris shouted at Trooper Price. Price ignored him. He was running for the door to see what had blown up.
Norris spared a glance at Seaton Thomas, but Seat was staring gloomily out into space, tears rolling down his face and his hand still planted squarely in the center of his chest. Norris followed Trooper Joe Price and found him in the Municipal Building parking lot, where Norris had ticketed Buster Keeton's red Cadillac about a thousand years ago. A pillar of dying fire stood out clearly in the rainy night, and in its glow both of them could see that Castle Stream Bridge was gone. The traffic light at the far end of town had been knocked into the street.
"Mother of God," Trooper Price said in a reverent voice. "I'm sure glad this isn't my town." The firelight had put roses on his cheeks and embers in his eyes.
Norris's urge to locate Alan had deepened. He decided he had better get back in his cruiser and try to find Henry Payton first--if there was some sort of big brawl going on, that shouldn't be too difficult. Alan might be there, too.
He was almost across the sidewalk when a stroke of lightning showed him two figures trotting around the corner of the courthouse next to the Municipal Building. They appeared to be heading for the bright yellow newsvan. One of them he was not sure of, but the other figure--portly and a little bow-legged--was impossible to mistake. It was Danforth Keeton.
Norris Ridgewick took two steps to the right and planted his back against the brick wall at the mouth of the alley. He drew his service revolver. He raised it to shoulder level, its muzzle pointing up into the rainy sky, and screamed "HALT!" at the top of his lungs.
3
Polly backed her car down the driveway, switched on the windshield wipers, and made a left turn. The pain in her hands had been joined by a deep, heavy burning in her arms, where t
he spider's muck had fallen on her skin. It had poisoned her somehow, and the poison seemed to be working its way steadily into her. But there was no time to worry about it now.
She was approaching the stop-sign at Laurel and Main when the bridge went up. She winced away from that massive rifleshot and stared for a moment, amazed, at the bright gout of flame which rose up from Castle Stream. For a moment she saw the gantry-like silhouette of the bridge itself, all black angles against the strenuous light, and then it was swallowed in flame.
She turned left again onto Main, in the direction of Needful Things.
4
At one time, Alan Pangborn had been a dedicated maker of home movies--he had no idea how many people he had bored to tears with jumpy films, projected on a sheet tacked to the living-room wall, of his diapered children toddling their uncertain way around the living room, of Annie giving them baths, of birthday parties, of family outings. In all these films, people waved and mugged at the camera. It was as though there were some sort of unspoken law: When someone points a movie camera at you, you must wave, or mug, or both. If you do not, you may be arrested on a charge of Second-Degree indifference, which carries a penalty of up to ten years, said time to be spent watching endless reels of jumpy home movies.
Five years ago he had switched to a video camera, which was both cheaper and easier ... and instead of boring people to tears for ten or fifteen minutes, which was the length of time three or four rolls of eight-millimeter film ran when spliced together, you could bore them for hours, all without even plugging in a fresh cassette.
He took this cassette out of its box and looked at it. There was no label. Okay, he thought. That's perfectly okay. I'll just have to find out what's on it for myself, won't I? His hand moved to the VCR's ON button ... and there it hesitated.