Four Past Midnight - Stephen King [396]
'I love you, too,' Kevin said hoarsely, and they went out of the smoke and the stink of old things best left forgotten and into the bright light of day.
EPILOGUE
It was Kevin Delevan's sixteenth birthday, and he got exactly what he wanted: a WordStar 70 PC and word processer. It was a seventeen-hundred-dollar toy, and his parents could never have afforded it in the old days, but in January, about three months after that final confrontation in the Emporium Galorium, Aunt Hilda had died quietly in her sleep. She had indeed Done Something for Kevin and Meg; had, in fact, Done Quite a Lot for the Whole Family. When the will cleared probate in early june, the Delevans found themselves richer by nearly seventy thousand dollars ... and that was after taxes, not before.
'Jeez, it's neat! Thank you!' Kevin cried, and kissed his mother, his father, and even his sister, Meg (who giggled but, being a year older, made no attempt to rub it off; Kevin couldn't decide if this change was a step in the right direction or not). He spent much of the afternoon in his room, fussing over it and trying out the test program.
Around four o'clock, he came downstairs and into his father's den. 'Where's Mom and Meg?' he asked.
'They've gone out to the craft fair at ... Kevin? Kevin, what's wrong?'
'You better come upstairs,' Kevin said hollowly.
At the door to his room, he turned his pale face toward his father's equally pale face. There was something more to pay, Mr Delevan had been thinking as he followed his son up the stairs. Of course there was. And hadn't he also learned that from Reginald Marion 'Pop' Merrill? The debt you incurred was what hurt you.
It was the interest that broke your back.
'Can we get another one of these?' Kevin asked, pointing to the laptop computer which stood open on his desk, glowing a mystic yellow oblong of light onto the blotter.
'I don't know,' Mr Delevan said, approaching the desk. Kevin stood behind him, a pallid watcher. 'I guess, if we had to
He stopped, looking down at the screen.
'I booted up the word-processing program and typed "The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy sleeping dog,"' Kevin said. 'Only that was what came out of the printer.'
Mr Delevan stood, silently reading the hard copy. His hands and forehead felt very cold. The words there read:
The dog is loose again.
It is not sleeping.
It is not lazy.
It's coming for you, Kevin.
The original debt was what hurt you, he thought again; it was the interest that broke your back. The last two lines read:
It's very hungry.
And it's VERY angry.
Table of Contents
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
CHAPTER 6
CHAPTER 7
CHAPTER 8
CHAPTER 9
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
CHAPTER 6
CHAPTER 7
CHAPTER 8
CHAPTER 9
CHAPTER 10
CHAPTER 11
CHAPTER 12
CHAPTER 13
CHAPTER 14
CHAPTER 15
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 12
CHAPTER 13
CHAPTER 14
CHAPTER 15
CHAPTER 16
CHAPTER 17
CHAPTER 18
CHAPTER 19
CHAPTER 21
CHAPTER 22
CHAPTER 23
CHAPTER 24