Needful Things - Stephen King [303]
Chuck Evans wasn't home, but Garfield, Chuck and Myra's Angora cat, was. He came trotting into the kitchen, miaowing, hoping for food, and Cora let him have it. The cat flew backward in a cloud of blood and fur. "Eat that, Garfield," Cora remarked. She strode through the puff of gunsmoke and into the hall. She started up the stairs. She knew where she would find the slut. She would find her in bed. Cora knew that as well as she knew her own name.
"It's bedtime, all right," she said. "You just want to believe it, Myra my dear."
Cora was smiling.
12
Father Brigham and Albert Gendron led a platoon of pissed-off Catholics down Castle Avenue toward Harrington Street. Halfway there, they heard singing. The two men exchanged a glance.
"Do you think we might be able to teach em a different tune, Albert?" Father Brigham asked softly.
"I think so, Father," Albert replied.
"Shall we teach them to sing 'I Ran All the Way Home'?"
"A very good tune, Father. I think maybe even muck like them might be able to learn that one."
Lightning flew across the sky. It illuminated Castle Avenue with momentary brilliance, and showed the two men a small crowd advancing up the hill toward them. Their eyes gleamed white and empty, like the eyes of statues, in the lightning-flash.
"There they are!" someone shouted, and a woman cried: "Get the dirty Mickey Finn sons of bitches!"
"Let's bag some trash," Father John Brigham breathed happily, and charged the Baptists.
"Amen, Father," Albert said, running at his side.
They all began to run then.
As Trooper Morris rounded the corner, a fresh bolt of lightning jigged across the sky, felling one of the old elms by Castle Stream.
In the glare, he saw two mobs of people running toward each other.
One mob was running up the hill, the other mob was running down, and both mobs were screaming for blood. Trooper Morris suddenly found himself wishing he had called in sick that afternoon.
13
Cora opened the door of Chuck and Myra's bedroom and saw exactly what she had expected: the bitch lying naked in a rumpled double bed which looked as if it had seen a hard tour of duty lately.
One of her hands was behind her, tucked under the pillows. The other held a framed picture. The picture was between Myra's meaty thighs. She appeared to be humping it. Her eyes were half-closed in ecstasy.
"Oooh, E!" she moaned. "Ooooh, E! OOOOOOOOHHH, EEEE-EEEEEEE!"
Horrified jealousy flared in Cora's heart and rose up her throat until she could taste its bitter 'nice in her mouth.
"Oh you shithouse mouse," she breathed, and brought up the automatic.
At that moment Myra looked at her, and Myra was smiling. She brought her free hand out from under her pillow. In it she held an automatic pistol of her own.
"Mr. Gaunt said you'd come, Cora," she said, and fired.
Cora felt the bullet beat the air beside her cheek; heard it thud into the plaster on the left side of the door. She fired her own gun.
It struck the picture between Myra's legs, shattering the glass and burying itself in Myra's upper thigh.
It also left a bullet-hole in the center of Elvis Presley's forehead.
"Look what you did!" Myra shrieked. "You shot The King, you stupid cunt!"
She fired three shots at Cora. Two went wild but the third hit Cora in the throat, driving her backward against the wall in a pink spray of blood. As Cora collapsed to her knees, she fired again.
The bullet punched a hole in Myra's kneecap and knocked her out of bed. Then Cora fell face-forward onto the floor, the gun slipping from her hand.
I'm coming to you, Elvis, she tried to say, but something was terribly, terribly wrong. There seemed to be only darkness, and no one in it but her.
14
Castle Rock's Baptists, led by the Rev. William Rose, and Castle Rock's Catholics, led by Father John Brigham, came together near the foot of Castle Hill with an almost audible crunch. There was no polite fist-fighting, no Marquis of Queensberry rules; they had come to gouge out eyes and tear off noses. Quite possibly to kill.
Albert Gendron, the