very fat; she was very thin. He shoved the hose of an
aircompressor down her throat and blew her up to dirigible size.
On his way downstairs a booby-trap she had rigged fell on him and
squashed him to a shadow.
Any author who tells you he has never plagiarized is 2 liar. A good
author begins with bad ideas and improbabilities and fashions them
into comments on the human condition.
In a horror story, it is imperative that the grotesque be elevated to
the status of the abnormal.
* * *
The compressor turned on with a whoosh and a chug. The hose
flew out of Mrs. Leighton's mouth. Giggling and gibbering, Gerald
stuffed it back in. Her feet drummed and thumped on the floor. The
flesh of her checks and diaphragm began to swell rhythmically.
Her eyes bulged, and became glass marbles. Her torso began to
expand.
* * *
here it is here it is you lousy louse are you big enough yet are you
big enough
* * *
The compressor wheezed and racketed. Mrs. Leighton swelled like
a beachball. Her lungs became Straining blowfish.
* * *
Fiends! Devils' Dissemble no morel Here! Here! It is the beating of
his hideous heart!
* * *
She seemed to explode all at once.
* * *
Sitting in a boilin hotel room in Bombay, Gerald re-wrote the story
he had begun at the cottage on the other side of the world. The
original title had been "The Hog." After some deliberation he
retitled it "The Blue Air Compressor."
He had resolved it to his own satisfaction. There was a certain lack
of motivation concerning the final scene where the fat old woman
was murdered, but he did not see that as a fault. In "The Tell-Tale
Heart," Edgar A. Poe's finest story, there is no real motivation for
the murder of the old man, and that was as it should be. The motive
is not the point.
* * *
She got very big just before the end: even her legs swelled up to
twice their normal size. At the very end, her tongue popped out of
her mouth like a party-favor.
* * *
After leaving Bombay, Gerald Nately went on to Hong Kong, then
to Kowloon. The ivory guillotine caught his fancy immediately.
* * *
As the author, I can see only one correct omega to this story, and
that is to tell you how Gerald Nately got rid of the body. He tore up
the floor boards of the shed, dismembered Mrs. Leighton, and
buried the sections in the sand beneath.
When he notified the police that she had been rnissing for a week,
the local constable and a State Policeman came at once. Gerald
entertained them quite naturalIy, even offering them coffee. He
heard no beating heart, but then--the interview was conducted in
the big house.
On the following day he flew away, toward Bombay, Hong Kong,
and Kowloon.
The Cat from Hell
By STEPHEN
KING
First appeared in
Cavalier Magazine, 1971
Halston thought the old man in the wheelchair looked sick,
terrified, and ready to die. He had experience in seeing such things.
Death was Halston's business; he had brought it to eighteen men
and six women in his career as an independent hitter. He knew the
death look.
The house - mansion, actually - was cold and quiet. The only
sounds were the low snap of the fire on the big stone hearth and the
low whine of the November wind outside.
"I want you to make a kill," the old man said. His voice was
quavery and high, peevish. "I understand that is what you do."
"Who did you talk to?" Halston asked.
"With a man named Saul Loggia. He says you know him."
Halston nodded. If Loggia was the go-between, it was all right.
And if there was a bug in the room, anything the old man - Drogan
- said was entrapment.
"Who do you want hit?"
Drogan pressed a button on the console built into the arm of his
wheelchair and it buzzed forward. Closeup, Halston could smell
the yellow odors of fear, age, and urine all mixed.
They disgusted him, but he made no sign. His face was still and
smooth. "Your victim is right behind you," Drogan said softly.
Halston moved quickly. His reflexes were his life and they were
always set on a filed pin. He was off the couch, falling to one knee,
turning, hand inside his specially tailored sport coat, gripping the
handle of the short-barreled .45 hybrid that hung below his armpit
in a spring-loaded holster that laid it in his palm at a touch. A
moment later it was out and pointed at ... a cat.
For a moment Halston and the cat stared at each other. It was a
strange moment for Halston, who was an unimaginative man with
no superstitions. For that one moment as he knelt on the floor with
the gun pointed, he felt that he knew this cat, although if he had
ever seen one with such unusual markings he surely would have
remembered.
Its face was an even split: half black, half white. The dividing line
ran from the top of its flat skull and down its nose to its mouth,
straight-arrow. Its eyes were huge in the gloom, and caught in each
nearly circular black pupil was a prism of firelight, like a sullen
coal of hate.
And the thought echoed back to Halston: We know each other, you
and I. Then it passed. He put the gun away and stood up. "I ought
to kill you for that, old man. I don't take a joke."
"And I don't make them," Drogan said. "Sit down. Look in here."
He had taken a fat envelope out from beneath the blanket that
covered his legs.
Halston sat. The cat, which had been crouched on the back of the
sofa, jumped lightly down into his lap. It looked up at Halston for a
moment with those huge dark eyes, the pupils surrounded by thin
green-gold rings, and then it settled down and began to purr.
Halston looked at Drogan questioningly.
"He's very friendly," Drogan said. "At first. Nice friendly pussy
has killed three people in this household. That leaves only me. I am
old, I am sick ... but I prefer to die in my own time."
"I can't believe this," Halston said. "You hired me to hit a cat?"
"Look in the envelope, please."
Halston did. It was filled with hundreds and fifties, all of them old.
"How much is it?"
"Six thousand dollars. There will be another six when you bring
me proof that the cat is dead. Mr. Loggia said twelve thousand was
your usual fee?"
Halston nodded, his hand automatically stroking the cat in his lap.
It was asleep, still purring. Halston liked cats. They were the only
animals he did like, as a matter of fact. They got along on their
own. God - if there was one - had made them into perfect, aloof
killing machines. Cats were the hitters of the animal world, and
Halston gave them his respect.
"I need not explain anything, but I will," Drogan said. "Forewarned
is forearmed, they say, and I would not want you to go into this
lightly. And I seem to need to justify myself. So you'll not think
I'm insane."
Halston nodded again. He had already decided to make this
peculiar hit, and no further talk was needed. But if Drogan wanted
to talk, he would listen. "First of all, you know who I am? Where
the money comes from?"
"Drogan Pharmaceuticals."
"Yes. One of the biggest drug companies in the world. And the
cornerstone of our financial success has been this." From the
pocket of his robe he handed Halston a small, unmarked vial of
pills. "Tri-Dormal-phenobarbin, compound G. Prescribed almost
exclusively for the terminally ill. It's extremely habit-forming, you
see. It's a combination painkiller, tranquilizer, and mild
hallucinogen. It is remarkably helpful in helping the terminally ill