Rose had dubbed The Baptist Anti-Gambling Christian Soldiers of Castle Rock. This was a great turnout; attendance had fallen off sharply at the last meeting, but rumors of the obscene card dropped through the parsonage mail-slot had pumped it up again. The showing relieved Rev. Rose, but he was both disappointed and puzzled to realize that Don Hemphill wasn’t in attendance. Don had promised he would be here, and Don was his strong right arm.
Rose glanced at his watch and saw it was already five after seven-no time to call the market and see if Don had forgotten.
Everyone who was coming was here, and he wanted to catch them while their indignation and curiosity were at flood-tide. He gave Hemphill one more minute, then mounted the pulpit and raised his skinny arms in a gesture of welcome. His congregation@ressed tonight in their working clothes, for the most part-filed into the pews and sat down on the plain wooden benches.
“Let us begin this endeavor as all great-uh endeavors are begun,” Rev. Rose said quietly. “Let us bow our heads-uh in prayer.”
They dropped their heads, and that was when the vestibule door banged open behind them with gunshot force. A few of the women screamed and several men leaped to their feet.
It was Don. He was his own head butcher, and he still wore his bloodstained white apron. His face was as red as a beefsteak tomato.
His wild eyes were streaming water. Runners of snot were drying on his nose, his upper lip, and the creases which brack@ted his mouth.
Also, he stank.
Don smelled like a pack of skunks which had been first run through a vat of sulphur, then sprayed with fresh cowshit, and finally let loose to rant and racket their panicky way through a closed room. The smell preceded him; the smell followed him; but mostly the smell hung around him in a pestilential cloud. Women shrank away from the aisle and groped for their handkerchiefs as he stumbled past them with his apron flapping in front and his untucked white shirt flapping behind.
The few children in attendance began to cry. Men roared out cries of mingled disgust and bewilderment.
“Don!” Rev. Rose cried in a prissy, surprised voice. His arms were still raised, but as Don Hemphill neared the pulpit, Rose lowered them and involuntarily clapped one hand over his nose and mouth. He thought he might vomit. It was the most incredible nose-buster of a stink he had ever encountered. “What… what has happened?”
“Happened?” Don Hemphill roared. “Happened? I’ll tell you what happened! I’ll tell you all what happened!”
He wheeled on the congregation, and in spite of the stink which both clung to him and spread out from him, they grew still as his furious, maddened eyes fell upon them.
“The sons of bitches stink-bombed my store, that’s what happened!
There weren’t more than half a dozen people there because I put up a sign saying I was closing early, and thank God for that, but the stock is ruined! All of it! Forty thousand dollars’ worth!
Ruined! I don’t know what the bastards used, but it’s going to stink for days!”
“Who?” Rev. Rose asked in a timorous voice. “Who did it, Don?”
Don Hemphill reached into the pocket of his apron. He brought out a curved black band with a white notch in it and a stack of leaflets.
The band was a Roman collar. He held it up for them all to see.
“WHO THE HELL DO YOU THINK?” he screamed. “My store!
My stock! All shot to hell, and who do you think?”
He threw the leaflets at the stunned members of The Baptist Anti-Gambling Christian Soldiers. They separated in the air and fluttered down like confetti. Some of those present reached out and grabbed ’ at them. Each one was the same; each showed a crowd of laughing men and women standing around a roulette table.
it said over the picture. And, below it:
TO BENEFIT THE CATHOLIC BUILDERS’ FUND “Where did you find these pamphlets, Don?” Len Milliken asked in a rumbling, ominous voice.
“And this collar?”
“Somebody put them inside the main doors,” Don said, “just before everything went to he-” The vestibule door boomed again, making them all jump, only this time it was not opening but closing.
“Hope you like the smell, you Baptist faggots!” someone shouted.
This was followed by a burst of shrill, nasty laughter.
The congregation stared at Rev. William Rose with frightened eyes. He stared back at them with eyes which were equally frightened.
And that was when the box hidden ill the choir suddenly began to hiss.
Like the box placed in the Daughters of Isabella Hall by the late Myrtle Keeton, this one (planted by Sonny jackett, now also late) contained a timer which had ticked all afternoon.
Clouds of incredibly potent stink began to pour out of the grilles set into the sides of the box.
At The United Baptist Church of Castle Rock, the fun had just begun.
3
Babs Miller skulked along the side of the Daughters of Isabella Hall, freezing in place each time a blue-white flash of lightning smoked across the sky. She had a crowbar in one hand and one of Mr.
Gaunt’s automatic pistols in the other. The music box she had bought at Needful Things was tucked into one pocket of the man’s overcoat she wore, and if anyone tried to steal it, that person was going to eat an ounce or so of lead.
Who would want to do such a low, nasty, mean thing? Who would want to steal the music box before Babs could even find out what tune it played?
Well, she thought, let’s just put it this way-I hope Cyndi Rose Martin doesn’t show her face in front of mine tonight. If she does, she isn’t ever going to show her face again anywhere-not on this side of hell, anyway. What does she think I am… stupid?
Meanwhile, she had a little trick to perform. A prank. At Mr.
Gaunt’s request, of course.
Do you know Betsy Vigue? Mr. Gaunt had asked. You do, don’t you?
Of course she did. She had known Betsy ever since grade school, when they were often hall-monitors together and inseparable comrades.
Good. Watch through the window. She will sit down. She will pick up a piece of paper, and see something beneath it.
What? Babs had asked, curious.
Never mind what. If you ever expect to find the key that unlocks the music box, you had better just shut your mouth and open your ears-do you understand, dear?
She had understood. She understood something else, as well.
Mr. Gaunt was a scary man sometimes. A very scary man.
She’ll pick up the thing she’s found. She’ll examine it. She’ll begin to open i’t. By then you should be by the door to the building.
Walt until e eryone looks around toward the left rear of the hall.
Babs had wanted to ask why they would all do that, but decided it would be safer not to ask.
When they turn to look, you will slip the crowbar’s split end under the doorknob. Prop the other end against the ground. Wedge it firmly.
When do I shout? Babs had asked.
You’ll know. They’ll all look like somebody stuck Flit-guns full of red pepper up thef’r butts, Do you remember what you’re supposed to shout, Babs?
She had. It seemed like sort of a mean trick to pull on Betsy Vigue, with whom she had skipped hand-in-hand to school, but it also seemed harmless (well… fairly harmless), and they were not children anymore, she and the little girl she had for some reason always called Betty La-La; all of that had been a long time ago. And, as Mr. Gaunt had pointed out, no one would ever connect it with her. Why should they? Babs and her husband were, after all, Seventh-Day Adventists, and as far as she was concerned, the Catholics and the Baptists deserved just what they got-Betty La -La included.