Four Past Midnight - Stephen King [194]
His name wasn't on the cover.
Well, of course not. He was scarcely known as a writer at all then, and certainly not as a writer of mystery stories; 'Sowing Season' had been a oner. His name would have meant nothing to regular readers of the magazine, so the editors would not have put it on. He turned the cover back.
There was no contents page beneath.
The contents page had been cut out.
He thumbed frantically through the magazine, dropping it once and then picking it up with a little cry. He didn't find the excision the first time, but on the second pass, he realized that pages 83 to 97 were gone.
'You cut it out!' he screamed. He screamed so loudly that his eyeballs bulged from their sockets. He began to bring his fists down on the steering wheel of the Buick, again and again and again. The horn burped and blared. 'You cut it out, you son of a bitch! How did you do that? You cut it out! You cut it out! You cut it out!'
45
He was halfway to the house before the deadly little voice again wondered how Shooter could have done that. The envelope had come Federal Express from Pennsylvania, and Juliet had taken possession of it, so how, how in God's name
He stopped.
Good, Juliet had said. Good, because I saw what you did.
That was it; that explained it. Juliet was in on it. Except -
Except Juliet had been in Tashmore since forever.
Except that hadn't been what she said. That had only been his mind. A little paranoid flatulence.
'He's doing it, though,' Mort said. He went into the house and once he was inside the door, he threw the magazine as hard as he could. It flew like a startled bird, pages riffling, and landed on the floor with a slap. 'Oh yeah, you bet, you bet your fucking ass, he's doing it. But I don't have to wait around for him.! -'
He saw Shooter's hat. Shooter's hat was lying on the floor in front of the door to his study.
Mort stood where he was for a moment, heart thundering in his ears, and then walked over to the stove in great cartoon tippy-toe steps. He pulled the poker from the little clutch of tools, wincing when the poker's tip clanged softly against the ash-shovel. He took the poker and walked carefully back to the closed door again, holding the poker as he had held it before crashing into the bathroom. He had to skirt the magazine he'd thrown on the way.
He reached the door and stood in front of it.
'Shooter?'
There was no answer.
'Shooter, you better come out under your own power! If I have to come in and get you, you'll never walk out of anyplace under your own power again !'
There was still no answer.
He stood a moment longer, nerving himself (but not really sure he had the nerve), and then twisted the knob. He hit the door with his shoulder and barrelled in, screaming, waving the poker
And the room was empty.
But Shooter had been here, all right. Yes. The VDT unit of Mort's word cruncher lay on the floor, its screen a shattered staring eye. Shooter had killed it. On the desk where the VDT had stood was an old Royal typewriter. The steel surfaces of this dinosaur were dull and dusty. Propped on the keyboard was a manuscript. Shooter's manuscript, the one he had left under a rock on the porch a million years ago.
It was 'Secret Window, Secret Garden.'
Mort dropped the poker on the floor. He walked toward the typewriter as if mesmerized and picked up the manuscript. He shuffled slowly through its pages, and came to understand why Mrs Gavin had been so sure it was his ... sure enough to rescue it from the trash. Maybe she hadn't known consciously, but her eye had recognized the irregular typeface. And why not? She had seen manuscripts which looked like 'Secret Window, Secret Garden' for years. The Wang word processor and the System Five laser printer were relative newcomers. For most of his writing career he had used this old Royal.
The years had almost worn it out, and it was a sad case now - when you typed on it, it produced letters as crooked as