Needful Things - Stephen King [142]
Prop it open with something, though, or you'll have to go all the way around to the front to get back in. You got matches?"
Alan started down the corridor. "I carry a lighter. Thanks for the smoke."
"I heard it was a double feature in there tonight," the janitor called after him. :'That's right," Alan said without turning around.
'Autopsies are bastards, ain't they?"
"Yes," Alan said.
Behind him, the soft drone of the floor-buffer recommenced.
They were bastards, all right. The autopsies of Nettle Cobb and Wilma jerzyck had been the twenty-third and twenty-fourth of his career, and they had all been bastards, but these two had been the worst by far.
The door the janitor had pointed out was the sort equipped with a panic-bar. Alan looked around for something he could use to prop it open and saw nothing. He pulled the green-gown off, wadded it up, and opened the door. Night air washed in, chilly but incredibly refreshing after the stale alcohol smell of the morgue and adjoining autopsy room.
Alan placed the wadded-up gown against the door-jamb and stepped out.
He carefully let the door swing back, saw that the gown would keep the latch from engaging, and forgot about it. He leaned against the cinderblock wall next to the pencil-line of light escaping through the slightly ajar door and lit his cigarette.
The first puff made his head feel swimmy. He had been trying to quit for almost two years and kept almost making it. Then something would come up. That was both the curse and the blessing of police work; something always came up.
He looked up at the stars, which he usually found calming, and couldn't see many-the high-intensity lights which ringed the hospital dulled them out. He could make out the Big Dipper, Orion, and a faint reddish point that was probably Mars, but that was all.
Mars, he thought. That's it. That's undoubtedly it. The warlords of Mars landed in Castle Rock around noon, and the first people they met were Nettle and the Jerzyck bitch. The warlords bit them and turned them rabid. It's the only thing that fits.
He thought about going in and telling Henry Ryan, the State of Maine's Chief Medical Examiner, It was a case of alien intervention, Doc. Case closed. He doubted if Ryan would be amused. It had been a long night for him, too.
Alan dragged deeply on the cigarette. It tasted absolutely grand, swimmy head or no swimmy head, and he felt he could understand perfectly why smoking was now off-limits in the public areas of every hospital in America. John Calvin had been dead right: nothing that made you feel this way could possibly be good for you. In the meantime, though, hit me wid dat nicotine, boss-it feel so fine.
He thought idly of how nice it would be to buy an entire carton of these selfsame Luckies, rip off both ends, and then light up the whole goddam thing with a blowtorch. He thought how nice it would be to get drunk. This would be a very bad time to get drunk, he supposed.
Another inflexible rule of life-When you really need to get drunk, you can never afford to do it. Alan wondered vaguely if maybe the alcoholics of the world weren't the only ones who really had their priorities straight.
The pencil-line of light by his feet fattened to a bar. Alan looked around and saw Norris Ridgewick. Norris stepped out and leaned against the wall next to Alan. He was still wearing his green cap, but it was askew and the tie-ribbons hung down over the back of his gown.
His complexion matched his gown.
"Jesus, Alan."
"They were your first ones, weren't they?"
"No, I saw an autopsy once when I was in North WyndhamSmoke-inhalation case. But these Jesus, Alan."
"Yeah," he said, and exhaled smoke. "Jesus."
"You got another cigarette?"
"No-sorry. I bummed this one from the janitor." He looked at the Deputy with mild curiosity. "I didn't know you smoked, Norris."
"I don't. I thought I might start."
Alan laughed softly.
"Man, I can't wait to get out fishing tomorrow. Or are off-days on hold while we sort this mess out?"