Needful Things - Stephen King [297]
Over seventy people showed up at the fourth meeting of what Rev.
Rose had dubbed The Baptist Anti-Gambling Christian Soldiers of Castle Rock. This was a great turnout; attendance had fallen off sharply at the last meeting, but rumors of the obscene card dropped through the parsonage mail-slot had pumped it up again. The showing relieved Rev. Rose, but he was both disappointed and puzzled to realize that Don Hemphill wasn't in attendance. Don had promised he would be here, and Don was his strong right arm.
Rose glanced at his watch and saw it was already five after seven-no time to call the market and see if Don had forgotten.
Everyone who was coming was here, and he wanted to catch them while their indignation and curiosity were at flood-tide. He gave Hemphill one more minute, then mounted the pulpit and raised his skinny arms in a gesture of welcome. His congregationeressed tonight in their working clothes, for the most part-filed into the pews and sat down on the plain wooden benches.
"Let us begin this endeavor as all great-uh endeavors are begun,"
Rev. Rose said quietly. "Let us bow our heads-uh in prayer."
They dropped their heads, and that was when the vestibule door banged open behind them with gunshot force. A few of the women screamed and several men leaped to their feet.
It was Don. He was his own head butcher, and he still wore his bloodstained white apron. His face was as red as a beefsteak tomato.
His wild eyes were streaming water. Runners of snot were drying on his nose, his upper lip, and the creases which bracketed his mouth.
Also, he stank.
Don smelled like a pack of skunks which had been first run through a vat of sulphur, then sprayed with fresh cowshit, and finally let loose to rant and racket their panicky way through a closed room. The smell preceded him; the smell followed him; but mostly the smell hung around him in a pestilential cloud. Women shrank away from the aisle and groped for their handkerchiefs as he stumbled past them with his apron flapping in front and his untucked white shirt flapping behind.
The few children in attendance began to cry. Men roared out cries of mingled disgust and bewilderment.
"Don!" Rev. Rose cried in a prissy, surprised voice. His arms were still raised, but as Don Hemphill neared the pulpit, Rose lowered them and involuntarily clapped one hand over his nose and mouth. He thought he might vomit. It was the most incredible nose-buster of a stink he had ever encountered. "What what has happened?"
"Happened?" Don Hemphill roared. "Happened? I'll tell you what happened! I'll tell you all what happened!"
He wheeled on the congregation, and in spite of the stink which both clung to him and spread out from him, they grew still as his furious, maddened eyes fell upon them.
"The sons of bitches stink-bombed my store, that's what happened!
There weren't more than half a dozen people there because I put up a sign saying I was closing early, and thank God for that, but the stock is ruined! All of it! Forty thousand dollars' worth!
Ruined! I don't know what the bastards used, but it's going to stink for days!"
"Who?" Rev. Rose asked in a timorous voice. "Who did it, Don?"
Don Hemphill reached into the pocket of his apron. He brought out a curved black band with a white notch in it and a stack of leaflets.
The band was a Roman collar. He held it up for them all to see.
" WHO THE HELL DO YOU THINK?" he screamed. "My store!
My stock! All shot to hell, and who do you think?"
He threw the leaflets at the stunned members of The Baptist Anti-Gambling Christian Soldiers. They separated in the air and fluttered down like confetti. Some of those present reached out and grabbed ' at them. Each one was the same; each showed a crowd of laughing men and women standing around a roulette table.
JUST FOR FUN!
it said over the picture. And, below it:
JOIN US FOR "CASINO NITE"
AT THE KNIGHTS OF COLUMBUS HALL
OCTOBER 31, 1991
TO BENEFIT THE CATHOLIC BUILDERS' FUND
"Where did you find these pamphlets, Don?" Len Milliken asked in a rumbling, ominous voice.