Misery(95)

"Oh God!" Paul said, frozen somewhere between humor, amazement, and horror. "What's this f**k-a-row?" The wagon had barely stopped before one of the rear doors flew open and a guy dressed in combat-fatigue pants and a Deadhead tee-shirt leaped out. There was something big and black pistol-gripped in one hand and for one wild moment Paul thought it was a tear-gas gun. Then he raised it to his shoulder, and swept it toward the house, and Paul saw it was a minicam. A pretty young woman was getting out of the front passenger seat, fluffing her blow-dried hair and pausing for one final appraising look at her makeup in the outside rear-view mirror before joining her camera-man.

The eye of the outside world, which had slipped away from the Dragon Lady these last few years, had now returned with a vengeance.

Paul rolled backward quickly, hoping he had been in time.

Well, if you want to know for sure, just check the six o'clock news, he thought, and then had to raise both hands to his mouth to plug up the giggles.

The screen door banged open and shut.

"Get the hell out of here!" Annie screamed. "Get the hell off my land!" Dimly: "Ms Wilkes, if we could have just a few - "

"You can have a couple of loads of double-ought buck up your cockadoodie bumhole if you don't get out of here!"

"Ms Wilkes, I'm Glenna Roberts from KTKA - "

"I don't care if you're John O. Jesus Johnnycake Christ from the planet Mars! Get off my land or you're DEAD!"

"But - " KAPOW!

Oh Annie oh my Jesus Annie killed that stupid broad - He rolled back and peeked through the window. He had no choice - he had to see. Relief gusted through him. Annie had fired into the air. That seemed to have done quite well. Glenna Roberts was diving head-first into the KTKA newsmobile. The camera-man swung his lens toward Annie, Annie swung her shotgun toward the camera-man; the camera-man, deciding he wanted to live to see the Grateful Dead again more than he wanted to roll tape on the Dragon Lady, immediately dropped into the back seat again. The wagon was reversing down the driveway before he got his door all the way closed.

Annie stood watching them go, the rifle held in one hand, and then she came slowly back into the house. He heard the clack as she put the rifle on the table. She came down to Paul's room. She looked worse than he had ever seen her, her face haggard and pate, her eyes darting constantly.

"They're back," she whispered.

"Take it easy."

"I knew all those brats would come back. And now they have."

"They're gone, Annie. You made them go."

"They never go. Someone told them that cop was at Dragon Lady's house before he disappeared. So here they are."

"Annie - "

"You know what they want?" she demanded.

"Of course. I've dealt with the press. They want the same two things they always want - for you to f**k up while the tape's running and for someone else to buy the martinis when Happy Hour rolls around. But, Annie, you've got: to settle d- " I "This is what they want," she said, and raised one hooked hand to her forehead. She pulled down suddenly, sharply, opening four bloody furrows. Blood ran into her eyebrows, down her cheeks, along either side of her nose.

"Annie! Stop it!"

"And this!" She slapped herself across the left cheek with her left hand, hard enough to leave an imprint. "And this!" The right cheek, even harder, hard enough to make droplets of blood fly from the fingernail gouges.

"STOP it!" he screamed.

"It's what they want!" she screamed back. She raised her hands to her forehead and pressed them against the wounds, blotting them. She held her bloody palms out toward him for a moment. Then she plodded out of the room.

After a long, long time, Paul began to write again. It went slowly at first - the image of Annie pulling those furrows into her skin kept intruding - and he thought it was going to be no good, he had just better pack it in for the day, when the story caught him and he fell through the hole in the paper again.

As always these days, he went with a sense of blessed relief

33

More police came the next day: local yokels this time. With them was a skinny man carrying a case which could only contain a steno machine. Annie stood in the driveway with them, listening, her face expressionless. Then she led them into the kitchen.

Paul sat quietly, a steno pad of his own on his lap (he had finished the last legal pad the previous evening), and listened to Annie's voice as she made a statement which consisted of all the things she had told David and Goliath four days ago. This, Paul thought, was nothing more than blatant harassment. He was amused and appalled to find himself feeling a little sorry for Annie Wilkes The Sidewinder cop who asked most of the questions began by telling Annie she could have a lawyer present if she wanted. Annie declined and simply re-told her story. Paul could detect no deviations.

They were in the kitchen for half an hour. Near the end one of them asked how she had come by the ugly-looking scratches on her forehead.

"I did it in the night," she said. "I had a bad dream."

"What was that?" the cop asked.

"I dreamed that people remembered me after all this time and started coming out here again," Annie said.

When they were gone, Annie came to his room. Her face was doughy and distant and ill.

"This place is turning into Grand Central," Paul said.