Misery

42

"I just hope this - " She stopped, the next word pulled back inside her she sucked in breath. Paul sat in his wheelchair behind a barricade of heaped paper and ancient Royal stenomongery. He had purposely turned the top sheet around so she could read this:

MISERY'S RETURN



By Paul Sheldon

Above this sopping pile of paper Paul's swollen right hand hovered, and held between the thumb and first finger was a single burning match.

She stood in the doorway, holding a bottle of champagne wrapped in a strip of towelling. Her mouth dropped open. She closed it with a snap.

"Paul?" Cautiously. "What are you doing?"

"It's done," he said. "And it's good, Annie. You were right. The best of the Misery books, and maybe the best thing I ever wrote, mongrel dog or not. Now I'm going to do a little trick with it.It's a good trick. I learned it from you."

"Paul, no!" she screamed. Her voice was full of agony and understanding. Her hands flew out, the bottle of champagne dropping from them unheeded. It hit the floor and exploded like a torpedo. Curds of foam flew everywhere. "No! No! PLEASE DON'T - "

"Too bad you'll never read it," Paul said, and smiled at her. It was his first real smile in months, radiant and genuine. "False modesty aside, I've got to say it was better than good. It was great, Annie." The match was guttering, printing its small heat on the tips of his fingers. He dropped it. For one terrible moment he thought it had gone out, and then pale-blue fire uncoiled across the title page with an audible sound - foomp! It ran down the sides, tasted the fluid that had pooled along the outer edge of the paper-pile, and shot up yellow.

"OH GOD NO!" Annie shrieked. "NOT MISERY! NOT MISERY! NOT HER! NO! NO!" Now her face had begun to shimmer on the far side of the flames. "Want to make a wish, Annie?" he shouted at her. "Want to make a wish, you f**king goblin?"

"OH MY GOD OH PAUL WHAT ARE YOU DOOOOOING?" She stumbled forward, arms outstretched. Now the pile of paper was not just burning; it was blazing. The gray side of the Royal had begun to turn black. Lighter fluid had pooled under it and now pale-blue tongues of flame shot up between the keys. Paul could feel his face baking, the skin tightening.

"NOT MISERY!" she wailed. "YOU CAN'T BURN MISERY, YOU COCKADOODIE BRAT, YOU CAN'T BURN MISERY!" And then she did exactly what he had almost known she would do. She seized the burning pile of paper and wheeled about, meaning to run to the bathroom with it, perhaps, and douse it in the tub.

When she turned Paul seized the Royal, unmindful of the blisters its hot right side was printing on his already swollen right hand. He lifted it over his head. Little blue firedrops still fell from its undercarriage. He paid them no more mind than he paid the flare of pain in his back as he strained something there. His face was an insane grimace of effort and concentration. He brought his arms forward and down, letting the typewriter fly out of his hands. It struck her squarely in the center of her wide solid back.

"HOO-OWWG!" It was not a scream but a vast, startled grunt. Annie was driven forward onto the floor with the burning stack of paper under her.

Small bluish fires like spirit-lanterns dotted the surface of the board which had served as his desk. Gasping, each breath smooth hot iron in his throat, Paul knocked it aside. He pushed himself up and tottered erect on his right foot.

Annie was writhing and moaning. A lick of flame shot up through the gap between her left arm and the side of her body. She screamed. Paul could smell frying skin, burning fat.

She rolled over, struggling to her knees. Most of the paper was on the floor now, either still burning or hissing to ruin in puddles of champagne, but Annie still held some, and it was still burning. Her cardigan sweater was burning, too. He saw green hooks of glass in her forearms. A larger shard poked out of her right cheek like the blade of a tomahawk.

"I'm going to kill you, you lying cocksucker," she said, and staggered toward him. She knee-walked three "steps" toward him and then fell over the typewriter. She writhed and managed to turn over halfway. Then Paul fell on her. He felt the sharp angles of the typewriter beneath her even through her body. She screamed like a cat, writhed like a cat, and tried to claw out from under him like a cat.

The flames were going out around them but he could still feel savage heat coming off the twisting, heaving mound beneath him and knew that at least some of her sweater and brassiere must be cooked onto her body. He felt no sympathy at all.

She tried to buck him off. He held on, and now he was lying squarely on top of her like a man who means to commit rape, his face almost on hers; his right hand groped, knowing exactly what it was looking for.

"Get off me!" He found a handful of hot, charry paper.

"Get off me!" He crumpled the paper, squeezing flames out between his fingers. He could smell her - cooked flesh, sweat, hate, madness.

GET OFF ME!" she screamed, her mouth yawning wide, and he was suddenly looking into the dank red-lined pit of the goddess. "GET OFF ME YOU COCKADOODIE BR - " He stuffed paper, white bond and black charred onionskin, into that gaping, screaming mouth. Saw the blazing eyes suddenly widen even more, now with surprise and horror and fresh pain.

"Here's your book, Annie," he panted, and his hand closed on more paper. This bunch was out, dripping wet, smelling sourly of spilt wine. She bucked and writhed under him. The salt-dome of his left knee whammed the floor and there was excruciating pain, but he stayed on top of her. I'm gonna rape you, all right, Annie. I'm gonna rape you because all I can do is the worst I can do. So suck my book. Suck my book. Suck on it until you f**king CHOKE. He crumpled the wet paper with a convulsive closing jerk of his fist and slammed it into her mouth, driving the half-charred first bunch farther down.

"Here it is, Annie, how do you like it? It's a genuine first, it's the Annie Wilkes Edition, how do you like it? Eat it, Annie, suck on it, go on and eat it, be a Do-Bee and eat your book all up." He slammed in a third wad, a fourth. The fifth was still burning; he put it out with the already blistered heel of his right hand as he stuffed it in.

Some weird muffled noise was coming out of her. She gave a tremendous jerk and this time Paul was thrown off. She struggled and flailed to her knees. Her hands clawed at her blackened throat, which had a hideously swelled look. Little was left of her sweater but the charred ring of the neck. The flesh of her belly and diaphragm bubbled with blisters. Champagne was dripping from the wad of paper,which protruded from her mouth.

"Mumpf! Mark! Mark!" Annie croaked. She got to her feet somehow, still clawing at her throat. Paul pushed himself backward, legs sticking untidily out in front of him, watching her warily. "Harkoo? Dorg? Mumpf!" She took one step toward him. Two. Then she tripped over the typewriter again. As she fell this time her head twisted at an angle and he saw her eyes looking at him with an expression that was questioning and somehow terrible: What happened, Paul? I was bringing you champagne, wasn't I?

The left side of her head connected with the edge of the mantelpiece and she went down like a loose sack of bricks, striking the floor in a vast tumble that shook the house.

43

Annie had fallen on the bulk of the burning paper; her body had put it out. It was a smoking black lump in the middle of the floor. The puddles of champagne had put out most of the individual pages. But two or three had wafted against the wall to the left of the door while still burning brightly, and the wallpaper was alight in spots... but burning with no real enthusiasm.

Paul crawled over to his bed, pulling himself on his elbows, and got hold of the coverlet. Then he worked his way over to the wall, pushing the shards of broken bottle out of his way with the sides of his hands as he went. He had strained his back. He had burned his right hand badly. His head ached. His stomach roiled with the sick-sweet smell of burned meat. But he was free. The goddess was dead and he was free.

He got his right knee under him, reached up clumsily with the coverlet (which was damp with champagne and striped with smeary black swaths of ash), and began to beat at the flames. When he let the coverlet fall into a smoking heap at the baseboard, there was a big smoking bald spot in the middle of the wall, but the paper was out. The bottom page of the calendar had curled up, but that was all.

He began to crawl back toward the wheelchair. He was halfway there when Annie opened her eyes.

44

Paul stared, unbelieving, as she got slowly to her knees. Paul himself was propped on his hands, legs trailing out behind him. He looked Eke a strange adult version of Popeye's nephew, Swee" Pea.

No... no, you're dead.

You are in error, Paul. You can't kill the goddess. The goddess is immortal. Now I must rinse.

Her eyes were staring, horrible. A huge wound, pink-red, glared through her hair on the left side of her head. Blood sheeted down her face.

"Durd!" Annie cried through her throatful of paper. She began to crawl toward him, hands outstretched, flexing. "Ooo durd!" Paul pulled himself around in a half-circle and began to crawl for the door. He could hear her behind him. And then, as he entered the zone of broken glass, he felt her hand close around his left ankle and squeeze his stump excruciatingly. He screamed.

"DIRT!" Annie cried triumphantly.

He looked over his shoulder. Her face was turning slowly purple, and seemed to be swelling. He realized she actually was turning into the Bourkas" idol.

He yanked with all his might and his leg slithered footlessly out of her grasp, leaving her with nothing but the circlet of leather with which she had capped the stump.

He crawled on, beginning to cry, sweat pouring down his cheeks. He pulled himself along on his elbows like a soldier advancing beneath heavy machine-gun fire. He heard the thud of first one knee from behind him, then the other, then the first again. She was still coming. She was as solid as he had always feared. He had burned her broken her back stuffed her tubes full of paper and still still still she was coming.

"BIRT!" Annie screamed now. "DIRT... BIRT!" One of his elbows came down on a hook of glass and it jabbed up into his arm. He crawled forward anyway with it sticking out of him like a push-pin.

Her hand closed over his left calf.

AW! GAW... OOO OW... AW!" He turned back again and yes, her face had gone black, a dusky rotted-plum black from which her bleeding eyes bulged wildly. Her pulsing throat had swelled up like an inner-tube, and her mouth was writhing. She was, he realized, trying to grin.

The door was just in reach. Paul stretched out and laid hold of the jamb in a death grip.

"GAW... OOO... OW!" Her right hand on his right thigh.

Thud. One knee. Thud. The other.

Closer. Her shadow. Her shadow falling over him.

"No, he whimpered. He felt her tugging, pulling. He held onto the jamb grimly, eyes now squeezed shut.

"GAW... OOO... AW!" Over him. Thunder. Goddess-thunder.

Now her hands scuttled up his back like spiders and settled upon his neck.

"GAW... OOO... DIRT... BIRT!" His air was gone. He held the jamb. He held the jamb and felt her over him felt her hands sinking into his neck and he screamed Die can't you die can't you ever die can't you - "GA W... G - " The pressure slackened. For a moment he could breathe again. Then Annie collapsed on top of him, a mountain of slack flesh, and he couldn't breathe at all.

45

He worked his way out from under her like a man burrowing his way out of a snowshde. He did it with the last of his strength.

He crawled through the door, expecting her hand to settle around his ankle again at any moment, but that did not happen. Annie lay silent and face-down in blood and spilled champagne and fragments of green glass. Was she dead? She must be dead. Paul did not believe she was dead.

He slammed the door shut. The bolt she had put on looked like something halfway up a high cliff, but he clawed his way up to it, shot it, and then collapsed in a shuddery huddle at the door's foot.

He lay in a stupor for some unknown length of time. What roused him from it was a low, minute scratching sound. The rats, he thought. It's the r- Then Annie's thick, blood-grimed fingers poked under the door and tugged mindlessly at his shirt.

He shrieked and jerked away from them, his left leg creaking with pain. He hammered at the fingers with his fist. Instead of pulling back, they jerked a little and lay still.

Let that be the end of her. Please God let that be the end or her.

In horrible pain now, Paul began to crawl slowly toward the bathroom. He got halfway there and looked back. Her fingers were still poking out from under the door. As bad as his pain was, he could not stand to look at that, or even think of that, and so he reversed direction, went back, and pushed them under. He had to nerve himself to do it; he was certain that the moment he touched them, they would clutch him.

He finally reached the bathroom, every part of him throbbing. He pulled himself inside and shut the door.

God, what if she's moved the dope?

But she hadn't. The untidy litter of boxes was still there, including the ones containing the sample packets of Novril. He took three dry, then crawled back to the door and lay down against it, blocking it with the weight of his body.

Paul slept.

Chapter 6

46

When he woke up it was dark, and at first he didn't know where he was - how had his bedroom gotten so small? Then he remembered everything, and with his remembering a queer certainty came: she was not dead, even now not dead. She was standing right outside this door, she had the axe, and when he crawled out she would amputate his head. It would go rolling off down the hallway like a bowling ball while she laughed.

That is crazy, he told himself, and then he heard thought he did - a little rustling sound, the sound of a woman's starched skirt, perhaps, brushing lightly against the wall.

You just made it up. Your imagination... ii's so vivid.

I didn't. I heard it.

He hadn't. He knew that. His hand reached for the door knob, then fell uncertainly back. Yes, he knew he had heard nothing... but what if he had?

She could have gone out the window.

Paul, she's DEAD!

The return, implacable in its illogic: The goddess never dies.

He realized he was frantically biting his lips and made himself stop it. Was this what going crazy was like? Yes. He was close to that, and who had a better right? But if he gave in to it, if the cops finally returned tomorrow or the day after to find Annie dead in the guest-room and a blubbering ball of protoplasm in the downstairs bathroom, a blubbering ball of protoplasm who had once been a writer named Paul Sheldon, wouldn't that be Annie's victory?

You bet. And now, Paulie, you're going to be a good little Do-Bee and follow the scenario. Right?

Okay.

His hand reached for the knob again... and faltered again. He couldn't follow the original scenario. In it he had seen himself lighting the paper and her picking it up, and that had happened. Only he was to have bashed her brains in with the f**king typewriter instead of hitting her in the back with it. Then he had meant to work his way out into the parlor and light the house on fire. The scenario had called for him to effect his escape through one of the parlor windows. He would take a hell of a thump, but he had already seen how fastidious Annie was about locking her doors. Better thumped than crisped, as he believed John the Baptist had once said.

In a book, all would have gone according to plan... but life was so f**king untidy - what could you say for an existence where some of the most crucial conversations of your life took place when you needed to take a shit, or something? An existence where there weren't even any chapters?

"Very untidy," Paul croaked. "Good thing there's guys like me, just to keep things rinsed." He cackled.

The champagne bottle hadn't been in the scenario, but that was minor compared with the woman's hideous vitality and his current painful uncertainty.

And until he knew whether or not she was dead, he couldn't burn the house down, making a beacon that would bring help on the run. Not because Annie might still be alive; he could roast her alive with no qualms at all.

It wasn't Annie that was holding him back; it was the manuscript. The real manuscript. What he had burned had been nothing more than an illusion with a title page on top - blank pages interspersed with written rejects and culls. The actual manuscript of Misery's Return had been safely deposited under the bed, and there it still was.

Unless she's still alive. If she's still alive, maybe she's in there reading it.

So what are you going to do?

Wait right in here, part of him advised. -Right in here, where it's nice and safe.

But another, braver, part of him urged him to go through with the scenario - as much of it as he could, anyway. Get to the parlor, break the window, get out of this awful house. Work his way to the edge of the road and flag down a car. Under previous circumstances this might have meant waiting for days, but not anymore. Annie's house had become a drawing card.