Needful Things

It’s not them; there may be an actress and a young actor inside pretending to be them, but it’s not them. It can’t be.

Yet he knew it was. What else would you see in images transmitted by a VCR to a TV which wasn’t plugged in but worked anyway? What else but the truth?

A lie! Brian Rusk’s voice cried out, but it was distant and easily ignored. A lie, Sheriff, a lie! A LIE!

Now he could see the license plate on the approaching Scout.

24912 V. A

Suddenly, behind the Scout, Alan saw another twinkle of light.

Another car, approaching fast, closing the distance.

Outside, the Tin Bridge blew up with that monstrous riflecrack sound. Alan didn’t look in that direction, didn’t even hear it. Every ounce of his concentration was fixed on the screen of the red Sony TV, where A

The car behind them was doing seventy, maybe eighty miles an hour.

As the Scout approached the cameraman’s position, this second car-of which there had never been any report-approached the Scout. A

The second car was a lime-green Dodge Challenger, jacked in the back so the nose pointed at the road. Through the smokedglass windows, one could dimly make out the roll-bar arching across the roof inside.

The rear end was covered with stickers: HEARST, FUELLY, FRAM, QUAKER STATE… Although the tape was silent, Alan could almost hear the blast and crackle of exhaust through the straight-pipes.

Ace!” he cried out in agonized comprehension. Ace! Ace Merrill!

Revenge! Of course! Why had he never thought of it before?

The Scout passed in front of the camera, which pa

But there was no going back now.

The Challenger bumped the Scout. It wasn’t a hard hit, but A

“NO!” Alan shouted.

The Scout jounced into the ditch and out of it. It rocked up on two wheels, came back down, and smashed into the hole of the pine tree with a soundless crunch. A rag doll with a paisley scarf in its hair flew through the windshield, struck a tree, and bounced into the underbrush.

The lime-green Challenger stopped at the edge of the road.

The driver’s door opened.

Ace Merrill got out.

He was looking toward the wreck of the Scout, now barely visible in the steam escaping its ruptured radiator, and he was laughing.

“NO!” Alan screamed again, and pushed the VCR over the side of the glass case with both hands. It struck the floor but didn’t break and the coaxial cord was just a little too long to pull out. A line of static ran across the TV screen, but that was all. Alan could see Ace getting back into his car, still laughing, and then he grabbed the red TV, lifted it above his head as he executed a half-turn, and threw it against the wall. There was a flash of light, a hollow bang, and then nothing but the hum of the VCR with the tape still ru

Alan dealt it a kick and it fell mercifully silent.

Get him. He lives in Mechanic Falls.

This was a new voce. It was cold and it was insane but it had its own merciless rationality. The voice of Brian Rusk was gone; now there was only this one voice, repeating the same two things over and over.

Get him. He lives in Mechanic Falls. Get him. He lives in Mechanic Falls. Get him. Get him. Get him. ’fleAcross the street there were two more of those monstrous ri shot explosions as the barber shop and The Samuels Funeral Home blew up at almost the same instant, belching glass and fiery debris into the sky and the street. Alan took no notice.

Get him. He lives in Mechanic Falls.

He picked up the Tastee-Munch can without a thought, grabbing it only because it was something he had brought in and thus was something he should take back out. He crossed to the door, scuffing his previous trail of footprints to incomprehensibility, and left Needful Things.

The explosions meant nothing to him. The jagged, burning hole in the line of buildings on the far side of Main Street meant nothing to him.

The rubble of wood and glass and brick in the street meant nothing to him. Castle Rock and all the people who lived there, Polly Chalmers among them, meant nothing to him. He had an errand to do in Mechanic Falls, thirty miles from here. That meant something. In fact, it meant everything.

Alan strode around to the driver’s side of the station wagon.

He tossed his gun, his flashlight, and the joke can of nuts on the seat. In his mind, his hands were already around Ace Merrill’s throat and starting to squeeze.

5

“HALT!” Norris screamed again. “HALT RIGHT WHERE YOU ARE!”

He was thinking it was a most incredibly lucky break. He was less than sixty yards from the holding cell where he intended to store Dan Keeton for safekeeping. As for the other fellow… well, that would depend on what the two of them had been up to, wouldn’t it? They weren’t exactly wearing the expressions of men who have been ministering to the sick and comforting the griefstricken.

Trooper Price looked from Norris to the men standing by the old-fashioned board sign which read CASTLE COUNTY COURTHOUSE. Then he looked back at Norris again. Ace and Zippy’s Dad looked at each other.

Then both of them eased their hands downward, toward the butts of the guns which protruded over the waistbands of their pants.

Norris had pointed the barrel of his revolver skyward, as he had been taught to do in situations like this. Now, still following procedure, he clasped his right wrist in his left fist and levelled the revolver. If the books were right, they would not realize that the muzzle was pointed directly between them; each would believe Norris was aiming at him. “Move your hands away from your weapons, my friends.

Do it now!”

Buster and his companion exchanged another glance and dropped their hands to their sides.

Norris snapped a look at the Trooper. “You,” he said. “Price.

Want to give me a little help here? If you’re not too tired, that is.”

“What are you doing?” Price asked. He sounded worried and unwilling to pitch in. The night’s activities, with the hammering demolition of the bridge to cap them, had reduced him to bystander status. He apparently felt uncomfortable about stepping back into a more active role. Things had gotten too big too fast.

“Arresting these two boogers,” Norris snapped. “What in the hell does it look like?”

“Arrest this, fellow,” Ace said, and flipped Norris the bird.

Buster uttered a high, yodelling laugh.

Price looked at them nervously and then returned his troubled gaze to Norris. “Uh… on what charge?”

Buster’s friend laughed.

Norris directed his full attention back to the two men, and was alarmed to see their positions relative to each other had changed.

When he had thrown down on them, they had been almost shoulder to shoulder. Now they were almost five feet apart, and still sidling.