And ... mewing.
CHAPTER EIGHT
We ran up to the lab door and threw it open. It was empty. The
screams and the terrible mewing sounds came from the garage. I
ran through, and ever since have been glad that Vicki stayed in the
lab and was spared the sight that had wakened me from a thousand
awful nightmares.
The lab was darkened and all that I could make out was a huge
shadow moving sluggishly. And the screams! Screams of terror,
the screams of a man faced with a monster from the pits of hell. It
mewed horribly and seemed to pant in delight.
My hand moved around for a light switch. There, I found it! Light
flooded the room, illuminating a tableau of horror that was the
result of the grave thing I had performed, I and the dead uncle.
A huge, white maggot twisted on the garage floor, holding
Weinbaum with long suckers, raising him towards its dripping,
pink mouth from which horrid mewing sounds came. Veins, red
and pulsating, showed under its slimy flesh and millions of
squirming tiny maggots - in the blood vessels, in the skin, even
forming a huge eye that stared out at me. A huge maggot, made up
of hundreds of millions of maggots, the feasters on the dead flesh
that Weinbaum had used so freely.
In a half-world of terror I fired the revolver again and again. It
mewed and twitched.
Weinbaum screamed something as he was dragged inexorably
toward the waiting mouth. Incredibly, I made it out over the
hideous sound that the creature was making.
"Fire it! In the name of heaven, fire it!"
Then I saw the sticky pools of green liquid which had trickled over
the floor from the laboratory. I fumbled for my lighter, got it and
frantically thumbed it. Suddenly I remembered that I had forgotten
to put a flint in. I reached for matches, got one and fired the others.
I threw the pack just as Weinbaum screamed his last. I saw his
body through the translucent skin of the creature, still twitching as
thousands of maggots leeched onto it. Retching, I threw the now
flaring matches into the green ooze. It was flammable, just as I had
thought. It burst into bright flames. The creature was twisted into a
horrid ball of pulsing, putrid flesh.
I turned and stumbled out to where Vicki stood, shaking and white
faced.
"Come on!" I said, "Let's get out of here! The whole place is going
to go up!"
We ran out to the car and drove away rapidly.
CHAPTER NINE
There isn't too much left to say. I'm sure that you have all read
about the fire that swept the residential Belwood District of
California, leveling fifteen square miles of woods and residential
homes. I couldn't feel too badly about that fire. I realize that
hundreds might have been killed by the gigantic maggot-things
that Weinbaum and Rankin were breeding. I drove out there after
the fire. The whole place was smoldering ruins. There was no
discernable remains of the horror that we had battled that final
night, and, after some searching, I found a metal cabinet. Inside
there were three ledgers.
Once of them was Weinbaum's diary. I clears up a lot. It revealed
that they were experimenting on dead flesh, exposing it to gamma
rays. One day they observed a strange thing. The few maggots that
had crawled over the flesh were growing, becoming a group.
Eventually they grew together, forming three separate large
maggots. Perhaps the radioactive bomb had speed up the evolution.
I don't know.
Furthermore, I don't want to know.
In a way, I suppose, I assisted in Rankin's death; the flesh of the
body whose grave I had robbed had fed perhaps the very creature
that had killed him.
I live with that thought. But I believe that there can be forgiveness.
I'm working for it. Or, rather, we're working for it.
Vicki and I. Together.
THE END
IN THE KEY CHORD OF
DAWN
STEPHEN KING
first appeared in
Contraband#2 Onan 1971
In the key-chords of dawn
all waters are depthless.
The fish flash recalls
timberline clefts where water
pours between the rocks of frost.
We live the night and wait
for the day dream
(we fished the Mississippi with
Norville as children
catching mostly crawdaddies from
the brown silk water)
when we say "love is responsibility";
our poles are adrift in a sea of compliments.
Now you fish for me and I for you.
The line, the red bobber, the worm on the hook: the fishing more
than the
eating: bones and scales and gutting knife make a loom of
complexity so we are
forced to say "fishing is responsibility"
and put away our poles.
Jhonathan and the Witches
Stephen King
From
First Words 1993, King wrote this 1956
Once upon a time there was a boy named Jhonathan. He was smart,
handsome, and very brave. But, Jhonathan was cobblers son.
One days his father said, "Jhonathan, you must go and seek your
fortune. You are old enough."
Jhonathan, being a smart boy knew he better ask the king for work.
So, he set out.
On the way, he met a rabbit who was a fairy in disguise. The
scared thing was being pursued by hunters and jumped into
Jhonathans arms. When the hunters came up Jhonathan pointed
excitedly and shouts, "That way, that way !"
After the hunters had gone, the rabbit turned into a fairy and said,
"you have helped me. I will give you three wishes. What are they?"
But Jhonathan could not think of anything, so the fairy agreed to
give him when he needed them.
So Jhonathan kept walking until he made the kingdom without
incident.
So he went to the king and asked for work.
But, as luck would have it, the king was in a very bad mood that
day. So he vented his mood on Jhonathan.
"Yes there is something you can do. On yonder Mountain there are
three witches. If you can kill them, I will give you 5,000 crowns. If
you cannot do it I will have your head! You have 20 days." With
this he dismissed Jhonathan.
"Now what am I to do?", thought Jhonathan. Well I shall try.
The he remembered the three wishes granted him and set out door
the mountain.
* * *
Now Jhonathan was at the mountain and was just going to wish for
a knife to kill the witch, when he heard a voice in his ear, "The first
witch cannot be pierced."
The second witch cannot be pierced or smothered.
The third cannot be pierced, smothered and is invisible.
With this knowledge Jhonathan looked about and saw no one.
Then he remembered the fairy, and smile.
He then went in search of the first witch.
At last he found her. She was in a cave near the foot of the
mountain, and was a mean looking hag.
He remembered the fairy words, and before the witch could do
anything but give him an ugly look, he wished she should be
smothered. And Lo! It was done.
Now he went higher in search of the second witch. There was a
second cave higher up. There he found the second witch. He was
about to wish her smothered when he remembered she could not be
smothered. And the before the witch could do anything but give
him an ugly look, he had wished her crushed. And Lo! It was done
Now he had only to kill the third witch and he would have the
5,000 crowns. But on the way up, he was plagued with thoughts of
how?
Then he it upon a wonderful plan.
The, he saw the last cave. He waited outside the entrance until he
heard the witches footsteps. He then picked up a couple of big
rocks and wishes.
He the wished the witch a normal women and Lo! She became