The Collective (11 page)

CHAPTER NINE

There isn't too much left to say. I'm sure that you have all read about the fire that swept the residential Belwood District of California, leveling fifteen square miles of woods and residential homes. I couldn't feel too badly about that fire. I realize that hundreds might have been killed by the gigantic maggot-things that Weinbaum and Rankin were breeding. I drove out there after the fire. The whole place was smoldering ruins. There was no discernable remains of the horror that we had battled that final night, and, after some searching, I found a metal cabinet. Inside there were three ledgers.

Once of them was Weinbaum's diary. I clears up a lot. It revealed that they were experimenting on dead flesh, exposing it to gamma rays. One day they observed a strange thing. The few maggots that had crawled over the flesh were growing, becoming a group. Eventually they grew together, forming three separate large maggots. Perhaps the radioactive bomb had speed up the evolution.

I don't know.

Furthermore, I don't want to know.

In a way, I suppose, I assisted in Rankin's death; the flesh of the body whose grave I had robbed had fed perhaps the very creature that had killed him.

I live with that thought. But I believe that there can be forgiveness. I'm working for it. Or, rather, we're working for it.

Vicki and I. Together.

THE END

STEPHEN KING

first appeared in Contraband#2 Onan 1971

In the key-chords of dawn

all waters are depthless.

The fish flash recalls

timberline clefts where water

pours between the rocks of frost.

We live the night and wait

for the day dream

(we fished the Mississippi with

Norville as children

catching mostly crawdaddies from

the brown silk water)

when we say "love is responsibility";

our poles are adrift in a sea of compliments.

Now you fish for me and I for you.

The line, the red bobber, the worm on the hook: the fishing more than the

eating: bones and scales and gutting knife make a loom of complexity so we are

forced to say "fishing is responsibility"

and put away our poles.

Stephen King

From

First Words 1993, King wrote this 1956

Once upon a time there was a boy named Jhonathan. He was smart, handsome, and very brave. But, Jhonathan was cobblers son.

One days his father said, "Jhonathan, you must go and seek your fortune. You are old enough."

Jhonathan, being a smart boy knew he better ask the king for work. So, he set out.

On the way, he met a rabbit who was a fairy in disguise. The scared thing was being pursued by hunters and jumped into Jhonathans arms. When the hunters came up Jhonathan pointed excitedly and shouts, "That way, that way !"

After the hunters had gone, the rabbit turned into a fairy and said, "you have helped me. I will give you three wishes. What are they?"

But Jhonathan could not think of anything, so the fairy agreed to give him when he needed them.

So Jhonathan kept walking until he made the kingdom without incident.

So he went to the king and asked for work.

But, as luck would have it, the king was in a very bad mood that day. So he vented his mood on Jhonathan.

"Yes there is something you can do. On yonder Mountain there are three witches. If you can kill them, I will give you 5,000 crowns. If you cannot do it I will have your head! You have 20 days." With this he dismissed Jhonathan.

"Now what am I to do?", thought Jhonathan. Well I shall try.

The he remembered the three wishes granted him and set out door the mountain.

* * *

Now Jhonathan was at the mountain and was just going to wish for a knife to kill the witch, when he heard a voice in his ear, "The first witch cannot be pierced."

The second witch cannot be pierced or smothered.

The third cannot be pierced, smothered and is invisible.

With this knowledge Jhonathan looked about and saw no one. Then he remembered the fairy, and smile.

He then went in search of the first witch.

At last he found her. She was in a cave near the foot of the mountain, and was a mean looking hag.

He remembered the fairy words, and before the witch could do anything but give him an ugly look, he wished she should be smothered. And Lo! It was done.

Now he went higher in search of the second witch. There was a second cave higher up. There he found the second witch. He was about to wish her smothered when he remembered she could not be smothered. And the before the witch could do anything but give him an ugly look, he had wished her crushed. And Lo! It was done

Now he had only to kill the third witch and he would have the 5,000 crowns. But on the way up, he was plagued with thoughts of how?

Then he it upon a wonderful plan.

The, he saw the last cave. He waited outside the entrance until he heard the witches footsteps. He then picked up a couple of big rocks and wishes.

He the wished the witch a normal women and Lo! She became visible and then Jhonathan struck her head with the rocks he had.

Jhonathan collected his 5,000 crowns and he and his father lived happily ever after.

The End

STEPHEN KING

(The opening segment of an unfinished, unpublished short story)

Conklin's first, snap, judgement was that this man, Michael Brlggs,
was not the sort of fellow who usually sought psychiatric help. He was
dressed In dark courderoy [sic} pants> a neat blue shirt, and a sport-coat
that matched—sort-of—both. His hair was long, almost shoulder-length. His face was sunburned His large hands were chapped, scabbed In a number
of places, and when he reached over the desk to shake
_T
he feit the rasp of
rough callouses.

"Hello, Mr. Brlggs,"

'Hello* Briggs smiled—a small ill-at-ease smile. His eyes moved
about the room and centered on the couch—It was an eye movement Conklin
had seen before, hut ft was not one Conkltn associated with people who had
been in therapy berore-~tney knew the couch would De there. This Brlggs
with his work-hardened hanas and sunburned face was looking for the profession's most well-known symbol—the one they saw In the movies and the magazine cartoons.

"You're a construction worker?' Conklin asked.

*Yes." Brlggs sat down carefully across the desk.

*You want to talk to me about your son?"

"Yes*

Jeremy.*

'Yes.
⁴
*

A Mttle sflence fen. Conklin, used to using silence as hfs tool, was
less uncomfortable with It than Brlggs obviously was. Mrs. Adrian, his
nurse and receptionist, had taken the call five days be fore > and had said
Briggs sounded distraught—a man who had control, she said, but by inches,
Conkllns specialty was not chilo psychology and his schedule was full, but
Nancy Adrian s assessment of the man behind the bare facts typed onto the
printed form In front of him haa intrigued him, Fllchael Brlggs was forty-five, a construction worker who lived In Lovinger, New York, a town forty
miles north of Mew York City. He was a widower. He wanted to consult with
Conklin about his son, Jeremy, who was seven, Nancy had promised him a
call-back by the end of the day.

Tell him to try Milton Abrams in Albany," Conklin had said, sliding
the form back across the desk toward her

"Can I suggest you see him once before you decide that?" Nancy
Abrams isle] asked.

Conklin looked at her. then leaned back in his chair and took out his
cigarette case. Each
morning
he filled it with exactly ten Winston 100's—

when they were gone, he was done smoking until the next day. It was not as good as quitting; he knew that. it was Just a truce ne had been able to reach.
Now it was the end of the day—no more patients, any way—and he deserved a cigarette. And Nancy's reaction tc Briggs intrigued him. Such suggestions as this were not unheard of, but they were rare...and the woman's intuitions
were good
_r

"Why?" he asked, fighting the cigarette.

"Well, t suggested Milton Abrams«-hes close to where this man
Origgs Is, and he likes kids—but Briggs knows him a' little—he worked on a conduction crew that DuMt a pool addition at Abrams's country house two years ago, He says he would go to him if you still recommended It after
hearing what he has to say, but that he wanted to teil a total stranger first
and get an opinion. He said, Td tell a priest If j was Catholic."

"Urn"

said, 1 just want to know what's going on with my kid—if it's me or what/ He sounded aggressive about it, but he also sounded very, very
scare!"

"The boy Is—"

"Seven."

"Um. And you want me to see him"

She shrugged, then grinned. She was forty-five, but when she grinned
she still looked twenty. "He sounded..,concrete. As though he could tel! a clear story with no shadows. Phenomena, not ephemera."

"Quote me all you want—I still won't raise your salary.'

She wrinkled her nose at him, then grinned in his way he loved Nancy
Abrams [slcl—once, over drinks, he had caJled her the Delia Street of psychiatry, and she had almost hit him. But he valued her Insights, and here
came one now, clear and simple:

"He sounded like a man who thinks there's something physical wrong
with his son. Except he called the office of a New Vork psychiatrist. An
expensive
New York psychiatrist. And he sounded scared.

"All right. Enough." He butted the cigarette—not without regret.
"Book him next week—Tuesday or Wednesday--around four

And here it was, Wednesday afternoon—not around four but 403 on the nose—and here was Mr. Briggs sitting opposite him with his work-
reddened hands folded in his lap and looking warily at Conklia
.

by

Stephen King

Incomplete novel King was writing for his son Owen in 1983. King had written several pages of the story in longhand in a notebook and then transcribed them. While on a trip to California, he wrote about 30 more pages of the story in the same notebook, which was lost off the back of his motorcycle (somewhere in coastal New Hampshire) on a trip from Boston to Bangor. He mentioned that he could reconstruct what was lost, but had not gotten around to it (as of June, 1983). The only part that still exists today is the 5 typescript pages that had been transcribed. The 5 pages, plus a 3-page cover letter to a senior editor at Viking are now owned by a King collector.

Once upon a time--which is how all the best stories start-- a little boy named Owen was playing outside his big red house. He was pretty bored because his big brother and big sister, who could always think of things to do, were in school. His daddy was working, and his mom was sleeping upstairs. She asked him if he would like a nap, but Owen didn't really like naps. He thought they were boring.

He played with his G.I. Joe men for awhile, and then he went around to the back and swung on the swing for awhile. He gave the tetherball a big hit with his first--
ka-bamp
! --and watched the rope wind up as the ball went around and around the pole. He saw his big sister's softball bat lying in the grass and wished Chris, the big boy who sometimes came to play with him, was there to throw him a few pitches. But Chris was in school too. Owen walked around the house again. He thought he would pick some flowers for his mother. She liked flowers pretty well.

He got around to the front of the house and that was when he saw Springsteen in the grass. Springsteen was his big sister's new cat. Owen liked most cats, but he didn't like Springsteen much. Hie

was big and black, with deep green eyes that seemed to see everything. Every day owen had to make sure that Springsteen wasn't trying to eat Butler. Butler was Owen's guinea pig. When Springsteen thought no one was around, he would jump up on the shelf where Butler's big glass cage was and stare in through the screen on top with his hungry green eyes. Springsteen wuld sit there, all crouched down, and hardly move at all. Springsteen's tail would wag back and forth a little, and sometimes one of his ears would flick a bit, but that was all.
I'll get in there pretty soon, you cruddy little guinea pig,
Springsteen seemed to say.
And when I get you, I'll eat you! Better believe it! If guinea pigs say prayers, you better say yours!