was still up and I could see its reflection way down in the
blackness, like a drowned silver dollar. I went around, but it was a
long time before I could bring myself to grab the thing. In a very
real way, Dex, it was three bodies... the remains of three human
beings. And I started wondering...where did they go? I saw
Wilma's face, but it looked ... God help me, it looked all flat, like a
Halloween mask. How much of them did it eat, Dex? How much
could it eat? And I started to understand what you meant about that
central axle pulling loose."
"It was still whistling. I could hear it, muffled and faint, through
that canvas dropcloth. Then I grabbed it and I heaved... I really
believe it was do it then or do it never. It came sliding out... and I
think maybe it suspected, Dex... because, as the dolly started to tilt
down toward the water it started to growl and yammer again ... and
the canvas started to ripple and bulge ... and I yanked it again. I
gave it all I had ... so much that I almost fell into the damned
quarry myself. And it went in. There was a splash ... and then it
was gone. Except for a few ripples, it was gone. And then the
ripples were gone, too."
He fell silent, looking at his hands.
"And you came here," Dex said.
"First I went back to Amberson Hall. Cleaned under the stairs.
Picked up all of Wilma's things and put them in her purse again.
Picked up the janitor's shoe and his pen and your grad student's
glasses. Wilma's purse is still on the seat. I parked the car in our--
in my--driveway. On the way there I threw the rest of the stuff in
the river."
"And then did what? Walked here?"
"Yes."
"Henry, what if I'd waked up before you got here? Called the
police?"
Henry Northrup said simply: "You didn't."
They stared at each other, Dex from his bed, Henry from the chair
by the window.
Speaking in tones so soft as to be nearly inaudible, Henry said,
"The question is, what happens now? Three people are going to be
reported missing soon. There is no one element to connect all
three. There are no signs of foul play; I saw to that. Badlinger's
crate, the dolly, the painters' dropcloth--those things will be
reported missing too, presumably. There will be a search. But the
weight of the dolly will carry the crate to the bottom of the quarry,
and ... there are really no bodies, are there, Dex?"
"No," Dexter Stanley said. "No, I suppose there aren't."
"But what are you going to do, Dex? What are you going to say?"
"Oh, I could tell a tale," Dex said. "And if I told it, I suspect I'd end
up in the state mental hospital. Perhaps accused of murdering the
janitor and Gereson, if not your wife. No matter how good your
cleanup was, a state police forensic unit could find traces of blood
on the floor and walls of that laboratory. I believe I'll keep my
mouth shut."
"Thank you," Henry said. "Thank you, Dex."
Dex thought of that elusive thing Henry had mentioned
companionship. A little light in the darkness. He thought of
playing chess perhaps twice a week instead of once. Perhaps even
three times a week... and if the game was not finished by ten,
perhaps playing until midnight if neither of them had any early
morning classes, instead of having to put the board away (and, as
likely as not, Wilma would just "accidentally" knock over the
pieces "while dusting," so that the game would have to be started
all over again the following Thursday evening). He thought of his
friend, at last free of that other species of Tasmanian devil that
killed more slowly but just as surely--by heart attack, by stroke, by
ulcer, by high blood pressure, yammering and whistling in the ear
all the while.
Last of all, he thought of the janitor, casually flicking his quarter,
and of the quarter coming down and rolling under the stairs, where
a very old horror sat squat and mute, covered with dust and
cobwebs, waiting... biding its time...
What had Henry said? The whole thing was almost hellishly
perfect.
"No need to thank me, Henry," he said.
Henry stood up. "If you got dressed," he said, "you could run me
down to the campus. I could get my MG and go back home and
report Wilma missing."
Dex thought about it. Henry was inviting him to cross a nearly
invisible line, it seemed, from bystander to accomplice. Did he
want to cross that line?
At last he swung his legs out of bed. "All right, Henry."
"Thank you, Dexter."
Dex smiled slowly. "That's all right," he said. "After all, what are
friends for?"
STEPHEN KING
The Revelations Of 'Becka Paulson
From Rolling Stone Magazine 1984
An excerpt from The Tommyknockers
What happened was simple enough at least, at the start. What
happened was that Rebecca Paulson shot herself in the head with her
husband Joe's .22-caliber pistol. This occurred during her annual
spring cleaning, which took place this year (as it did most years)
around the middle of June. 'Becka had a way of falling behind in
such things.
She was standing on a short stepladder and rummaging through
the accumulated junk on the high shelf in the downstairs hall closet
while the Paulson cat, a big brindle tom named Ozzie Nelson, sat in
the living-room doorway, watching her. From behind Ozzie came the
anxious voices of Another World, blaring out of the Paulsons' big old
Zenith TV which would later become something much more than a
TV.
'Becka pulled stuff down and examined it, hoping for
something that was still good, but not really expecting to find such a
thing. There were four or five knitted winter caps, all moth-eaten and
unraveling. She tossed them behind her onto the hall floor. Here was
a Reader's Digest Condensed Book from the summer of 1954,
featuring Run Silent, Run Deep and Here's Goggle. Water damage
had swelled it to the size of a Manhattan telephone book. She tossed
it behind her. Ah! Here was an umbrella that looked salvageable ...
and a box with something in it.
It was a shoebox. Whatever was inside was heavy. When she
tilted the box, it shifted. She took the lid off, also tossing this behind
her (it almost hit Ozzie Nelson, who decided to split the scene). Inside
the box was a gun with a long barrel and imitation wood-grip
handles.
"Oh," she said. "That." She took it out of the box, not noticing
that it was cocked, and turned it around to look into the small beady
eye of the muzzle, believing that if there was a bullet in there she
would see it.
She remembered the gun. Until five years ago, Joe had been a
member of Derry Elks. Some ten years ago (or maybe it had been
fifteen), Joe had bought fifteen Elks raffle tickets while drunk. 'Becka
had been so mad she had refused to let him put his manthing in her
for two weeks. The first prize had been a Bombardier Skidoo, second
prize an Evinrude motor. This .22 target pistol had been the third
prize.
He had shot it for a while in the backyard, she remembered
plinking away at cans and bottles until 'Becka complained about the
noise. Then he had taken it up to the gravel pit at the dead end of
their road, although she had sensed he was losing interest, even then
he'd just gone on shooting for a while to make sure she didn't think
she had gotten the better of him. Then it had disappeared. She had
thought he had swapped it for something a set of snow tires, maybe,
or a battery but here it was.
She held the muzzle of the gun up to her eye, peering into the
darkness, looking for the bullet. She could see nothing but darkness.