Needful Things - Stephen King [332]
Gaunt? Which way? Which one? "That's what I always wondered about-why her belt wasn't buckled. She didn't even think about it, the habit was so deeply ingrained. But she didn't do it that day."
"Last chance, cop!" Ace shrieked. "I'll take my money or this bitch!
You choose!"
Alan went on ignoring him. "But on the tape, her belt was still buckled," Alan said, and suddenly he knew. Knowing rose in the middle of his mind like a clear silver column of flame.
"It was still buckled AND YOU FUCKED UP, MR. GAUNT!"
Alan wheeled toward the tall figure standing beneath the green canopy eight feet away. He grasped the top of the Tastee-Munch can as he took a single large step toward Castle Rock's newest entrepreneur, and before Gaunt could do anything-before his eyes could do more than begin to widen-Alan had spun the lid off Todd's last joke, the one Annie had said to let him have because he would only be young once.
The snake sprang out, and this time it was no joke.
This time it was real.
It was only real for a few seconds, and Alan never knew if anyone else had seen it, but Gaunt did; of that he was absolutely sure. It was long-much longer than the crepe-paper snake that had flown out a week or so ago when he had removed the can's top in the Municipal Building parking lot after his long, solitary ride back from Portland.
Its skin glowed with a shifting iridescence and its body was mottled with diamonds of red and black, like the skin of some fabulous rattler. its jaws opened as it struck the shoulder of Leland Gaunt's broadcloth coat, and Alan squinted against the dazzling, chromic gleam of its fangs. He saw the deadly triangular head draw back, then dart down toward Gaunt's neck. He saw Gaunt grab for it and seize it but before he did, the snake's fangs sank into his flesh, not once but several times. The triangular head blurred up and down like the bobbin of a sewing machine.
Gaunt screamed-although with pain, fury, or both, Alan could not tell-and dropped the valise in order to seize the snake with both hands. Alan saw his chance and leaped forward as Gaunt held the whipping snake away from him, then hurled it to the sidewalk at his booted feet. When it landed, it was again what it had been before-nothing but a cheap novelty, five feet of spring wrapped in faded green crepe-paper, the sort of trick only a kid like Todd could truly love and only a creature like Gaunt could truly appreciate.
Blood was trickling from Gaunt's neck in tiny threads from three pairs of holes. He wiped it away absently with one of his strange, long-fingered hands as he bent to pick up his valise and stopped suddenly. Bent over like that, long legs cocked, long arm reaching, he looked like a woodcut of Ichabod Crane. But what he was reaching for was no longer there. The hyena-hide valise with its gruesome, respiring sides now sat on the pavement between Alan's feet.
He had taken it while Mr. Gaunt had been occupied with the snake, and he had done it with his customary speed and dexterity.
There was no doubt about Gaunt's expression now; a thunderous combination of rage, hate, and unbelieving surprise contorted his features. His upper lip curled back like a dog's muzzle, exposing the rows of jostling teeth. Now all of those teeth came to points, as if filed for the occasion.
He held his splayed hands out and hissed: "Give it to me-it's mine!"
Alan didn't know that Leland Gaunt had assured dozens of Castle Rock residents, from Hugh Priest to Slopey Dodd, that he hadn't the slightest interest in human souls-poor, wrinkled, diminished things that they were. If he had known, Alan would have laughed and pointed out that lies were Mr. Gaunt's chief stock in trade. Oh, he knew what was in the bag, all right-what was in there, screaming like powerlines in a high wind and breathing like a frightened old man on his deathbed.
He knew very well.
Mr. Gaunt's lips pulled back from his teeth in a macabre grin.
His horrible hands stretched out farther toward Alan.
"I'm warning you, Sheriff-don't fuck with me. I'm not a man you want