Needful Things - Stephen King [308]
He walked to the shed door, yanked it open, and stepped out into the pouring rain. Unit 2 was parked in the driveway. He bent his thin Barney Fife body into the wind and walked over to it.
"I dunno what you are," Norris said, "but I'm coming for your lying, conning ass."
He got into the cruiser and backed down the driveway.
Humiliation, misery, and anger were equally at war on his face..
At the foot of the driveway he turned left and began driving toward Needful Things as fast as he dared.
3
Polly Chalmers was dreaming.
In her dream she was walking into Needful Things, but the figure behind the counter was not Leland Gaunt; it was Aunt Evvie Chalmers.
Aunt Evvie was wearing her best blue dress and her blue shawl, the one with the red edging. Gripped between her large and improbably even false teeth was a Herbert Tareyton.
Aunt Evvie! Polly cried in her dream. A vast delight and an even vaster relief-that relief we only know in happy dreams, and in the moment of waking from horrid ones-filled her like light. Aunt Evvie, you're alive!
But Aunt Evvie showed no sign of recognition. Buy anything you want, Miss, Aunt Evvie said. By the way is your name Polly or Patricia? I disremember, somehow.
Aunt Evvie, you know my name-I'm Trisha. I've always been Trisha to you.
Aunt Evvie took no notice. Whatever your name is, we're having a special today. Everything must go.
Aunt Evvie, what are you doing here?
I BELONG here, Aunt Evvie said. Everyone in town belongs here, Miss Two-Names. In fact, everyone in the WORLD belongs here, because everyone loves a bargain. Everyone loves somethingfor nothing even if it costs everything.
The good feeling was suddenly gone. Dread replaced it. Polly looked into the glass cases and saw bottles of dark fluid marked DR.
GAUNT'S ELECTRIC TONIC. There were badly made windup toys that would cough up their cogs and spit out their springs the second time they were wound. There were crude sex-toys.
There were small bottles of what looked like cocaine; these were labelled DR. GAUNT'S KICKAPOO POTENCY POWDER. Cheap novelties abounded: plastic dog-puke, itching powder, cigarette loads, joy buzzers. There was a pair of those X-ray glasses that were supposed to allow you to look through closed doors and ladies' dresses but actually did nothing except put raccoon rings around your eyes. There were plastic flowers and marked playing cards and bottles of cheap perfume labelled DR. GAUNT'S LOVE POTION #g, TURNSLASSITUDE INTOLUST. The cases were a catalogue of the timeless, the tasteless, and the useless.
Anything you want, Miss Two-Names, Aunt Evvie said.
Why are you calling me that, Aunt Evvie? Please-don't you recognize me?
It's all guaranteed to work. The only thing not guaranteed to work after the sale is You, So step right up and buy, buy, buy.
Now she looked directly at Polly, and Polly was struck through with terror like a knife. She saw compassion in Aunt Evvie's eyes, but it was a terrible, merciless compassion.
What is your name, child? Seems to me I once knew.
In her dream (and in her bed) Polly began to weep.
Has someone else forgotten your name? Aunt Evvie asked. I wonder.
Seems like they have.
Aunt Evvie, you're scaring me!
You're scaring yourself, child, Aunt Evvie responded, looking directly at Polly for the first time. just remember that when you buy here, Miss Two-Names, you're also selling.
But I need it! Polly cried. She began to weep harder. My hands-!
Yes, this does i't, Miss Polly Frisco, Aunt Evvie said, and brought out one of the bottles marked DR. GAUNT'S ELECTRIC TONIC.
She set it on the counter, a small, squat bottle filled with something that looked like loose mud. It can't make your pain gone, of course-nothing can do that-but i't can effect a transferral.
What do you mean? Why are you scaring me?
It changes the location of your arthritis, Miss Two-Names-instead of Your hands, the disease attacks your heart.
No!
Yes.
No! No! NO!
Yes. Oh yes. And your soul as well. But you'll have your