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Had Tugga given him shit about that yet? Had his mother already said you take it if you want to, it’s
not a real gun? If not, they would. Their lines had already been written. My stomach cramped, this
time not from the twenty-four-hour bug that was going around, but because total realization—the
kind you feel in your gut—had finally arrived in all its bald-ass glory. This was actually going to
happen. In fact, it was happening already. The show had started.
I glanced at my watch. It seemed to me that I’d left the car in the church parking lot an hour ago,
but it was only quarter to six. In the Dunning house, the family would be sitting down to supper . . .
although if I knew kids, the younger ones would be too excited to eat much, and Ellen would already
be wearing her Princess Summerfall Winterspring outfit. She’d probably jumped into it as soon as she
got home from school, and would be driving her mother crazy with requests to help her put on her
warpaint.
I sat down with my back propped against the rear wall of the garage, rummaged in my bag, and
brought out a Payday. I held it up and considered poor old J. Alfred Prufrock. I wasn’t so different,
although it was a candybar I wasn’t sure I dared to eat. On the other hand, I had a lot to do in the next
three hours or so, and my stomach was a rumbling hollow.
Fuck it, I thought, and unwrapped the candybar. It was wonderful—sweet, salty, and chewy. I
gobbled most of it in two bites. I was getting ready to pop the rest of it into my mouth (and
wondering why in God’s name I hadn’t packed a sandwich and a bottle of Coke), when I saw
movement from the corner of my left eye. I started to turn, reaching into the bag for the gun at the
same time, but I was too late. Something cold and sharp pricked the hollow of my left temple.
“Take your hand out of that bag.”
I knew the voice at once. Should hope to smile n kiss a pig, its owner had said when I asked if he or any
of his friends knew a fellow named Dunning. He had said Derry was full of Dunnings, and I verified
that for myself not long after, but he’d had a good idea which one I was after right from the get-go,
hadn’t he? And this was the proof.
The point of the blade dug a little deeper, and I felt a trickle of blood run down the side of my face.
It was warm against my chilly skin. Almost hot.
“Take it out now, chum. I think I know what’s in there, and if your hand don’t come out empty,
your Halloween treat’s gonna be eighteen inches of Jap steel. This thing’s plenty sharp. It’ll pop right
out the other side of your head.”
I took my hand out of the bag—empty—and turned to look at No Suspenders. His hair tumbled
over his ears and forehead in greasy locks. His dark eyes swam in his pale, stubbly face. I felt a dismay
so great it was almost despair. Almost . . . but not quite. Even if it kills me, I thought again. Even if.
“There’s nothing in the bag but candybars,” I said mildly. “If you want one, Mr. Turcotte, all you
have to do is ask. I’ll give you one.”
He snatched the bag before I could reach in. He used the hand that wasn’t holding the weapon,
which turned out to be a bayonet. I don’t know if it was Japanese or not, but from the way it gleamed
in the fading dusklight, I was willing to stipulate that it was plenty sharp.
He rummaged and brought out my Police Special. “Nothing but candybars, huh? This don’t look
like candy to me, Mister Amberson.”
“I need that.”
“Yeah, and people in hell need icewater, but they don’t get it.”
“Keep your voice down,” I said.
He put my gun in his belt—exactly where I had imagined I’d put it, once I’d shoved through the
hedge and into the Dunning backyard—then poked the bayonet toward my eyes. It took willpower to
keep from flinching back. “Don’t you tell me what to—” He staggered on his feet. He rubbed first his
stomach, then his chest, then the stubble-rough column of his neck, as if something were caught in