She drew in breath to scream and then its front legs dropped onto her shoulders like the arms of some scabrous dime-a-dance Lothario.
Its listless ruby eyes stared into her own. Its fanged mouth dropped open and she could smell its breath-a stink of bitter spices and rotting meat.
She opened her mouth to scream. One of its legs pawed into her mouth. Rough, gruesome bristles caressed her teeth and tongue.
The spider mewled eagerly.
Polly resisted her first instinct to spit the horrid, pulsing thing out. She released the plunger and grabbed the spider's leg. At the same time she bit down, using all the strength in her jaws.
Something crunched like a mouthful of Life Savers, and a cold bitter taste like ancient tea filled her mouth. The spider uttered a cry of pain and tried to draw back. Bristles slid harshly through Polly's fists, but she clamped her howling hands tight around the thing's leg again before it could completely escape... and twisted it, like a woman trying to twist a drumstick off a turkey. There was a tough, gristly ripping noise. The spider uttered another slobbering cry of pain.
It tried to lunge away. Spitting out the bitter dark fluid which had filled her mouth, knowing it would be a long, long time before she was entirely rid of that taste, Polly yanked it back again. Some distant part of her was astounded at this exhibition of strength, but there was another part of her which understood it perfectly. She was afraid, she was revolted but more than anything else, she was angry.
I was used, she thought incoherently. I sold Alan's life for this!
For this monster!
The spider tried to gnash at her with its fangs, but its rear legs lost their tenuous grip on the shaft of the plunger and it would have fallen... if Polly had allowed it to fall.
She did not. She gripped its hot, bulging body between her forearms and squeezed. She lifted it up so it squirmed above her, its legs twitching and pawing at her upturned face. Juice and black blood began to run from its body and trickle up her arms in burning streamlets.
"NO MORE!" shrieked Polly. "NO MORE, NO MORE, NO MORE!"
She threw it. It struck the tiled wall behind the tub and splattered open in a clot of ichor. It hung up for a moment, pasted in place by its own innards, and then fell into the tub with a gooey thump.
Polly grabbed the bathroom plunger again and sprang at it. She began beating it as a woman might beat at a mouse with a broom, but that wasn't working. The spider only shuddered and tried to crawl away, its legs scrabbling at the rubber shower-mat with its pattern of yellow daisies. Polly pulled the plunger back, reversed it, and then rammed forward with all of her strength, using the shaft like a lance.
She caught the wretched, freakish thing dead center and impaled it. There was a grotesque punching sound, and then the spider's guts ruptured and ran out onto the shower-mat in a stinking flood.
It wriggled frantically, curling its legs fruitlessly around the stake she had put in its heart... and then, at last, it became still.
Polly stepped back, closed her eyes, and felt the world waver.
She had actually begun to faint when Alan's name exploded in her mind like a Roman candle. She curled her hands into fists and brought them together, hard, knuckles to knuckles. The pain was bright, sudden, and immense. The world came back in a cold flash.
She opened her eyes, advanced to the tub, and looked in. At first she thought there was nothing there at all. Then, beside the plunger's rubber cup, she saw the spider. It was no bigger than the nail on her pinky finger, and it was very dead.
The rest never happened at all. It was your imagination.
"The bloody f**k it was," Polly said in a thin, shaking voice.
But the spider wasn't the important thing. Alan was the important thing-Alan was in terrible danger, and she was the reason why. She had to find him, and do it before it was too late.
If it wasn't too late already.
She would go to the Sheriff's Office. Someone there would know whereNo, Aunt Evvie's voice spoke up in her mind. Not there. If you go there, it really will be too late. You know where to go. You know where he is.
Yes.
Yes, of course she did.
Polly ran for the door, and one confused thought beat at her mind like moth-wings: Please God, don't let him buy anything. Oh God, please, please, please don't let him buy anything.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
1
The timer under Castle Stream Bridge, which had been known as the Tin Bridge to residents of The Rock since time out of mind, reached 0 at 7:38 p.m. on the night of Tuesday, October 15th, in the year of Our Lord 1991. The tiny burst of electricity which was intended to ring the bell licked across the bare wires Ace had wrapped around the terminals of the nine-volt battery which ran the gadget. The bell actually did begin to ring, but it-and the rest of the timer-was swallowed a split second later in a flash of light as the electricity triggered the blasting cap and the cap in turn triggered the dy***ite.
Only a few people in Castle Rock mistook the dy***ite blast for thunder. The thunder was heavy artillery in the sky; this was a gigantic rifleshot blast. The south end of the old bridge, which was built not of tin but of old rusty iron, lifted off the bank on a squat ball of fire. It rose perhaps ten feet into the air, becoming a gently inclined ramp, and then fell back in a bitter crunch of popping cement and the clatter-clang of flying metal. The north end of the bridge twisted loose and the whole contraption fell askew into Castle Stream, which was now in full spate. The south end came to rest on the lightning-downed elm.
On Castle Avenue, where the Catholics and the Baptists-along with nearly a dozen State Policemen-were still locked in strenuous debate, the fighting paused. All the combatants stared toward the fire-rose at the Castle Stream end of town. Albert Gendron and Phil Burgmeyer, who had been duking it out with great ferocity seconds before, now stood side by side, looking into the glare.
Blood was running down the left side of Albert's face from a temple wound, and Phil's shirt was mostly torn off.
Nearby, Nan Roberts squatted atop Father Brigham like a very large (and, in her rayon waitress's uniform, very white) vulture. She had been using his hair to raise the good Father's head and slam it repeatedly into the pavement. Rev. Rose lay close by, unconscious as a result of Father Brigham's ministrations.
Henry Payron, who had lost a tooth since his arrival (not to mention any illusions he might once have held about religious harmony in America), froze in the act of pulling Tony Mislaburski off Baptist Deacon Fred Mellon.
They all froze, like children playing Statues.
"Jesus Christ, that was the bridge," Don Hemphill muttered.
Henry Payton decided to take advantage of the lull. He tossed Tony Mislaburski aside, cupped his hands around his wounded mouth, and bawled: "All right, everybody! This is the police! I'm ordering you-" Then Nan Roberts raised her voice in a shout. She had spent many long years bawling orders into the kitchen of her diner, and she was used to being heard no matter how stiff the racket was. It was no contest; her voice overtopped Payton's easily.
"THE GODDAM CATHOLICS ARE USING DYNAMITE!" she bugled.
There were fewer participants now, but what they lacked in numbers they made up for in angry enthusiasm.
Seconds after Nan's cry, the rumble was on again, now spreading into a dozen skirmishes along a fifty-yard stretch of the rain-swept avenue.
2
Norris Ridgewick burst into the Sheriff's office moments before the bridge went, yelling at the top of his lungs. "Where's Sheriff Pangborn? I've got to find Sheriff P-" He stopped. Except for Seaton Thomas and a State cop who didn't look old enough to drink beer yet, the office was deserted.
Where the hell was everybody? There were, it seemed, about six thousand State Police units and other assorted vehicles parked helter-skelter outside. One of them was his own VW, which would easily have won the blue ribbon for helter-skelter, had ribbons been awarded.
It was still lying on its side where Buster had tipped it.
"Jesus!" No@-ris cried. "Where is everybody?"
The State cop who didn't look old enough to drink beer yet took in Norris's uniform and then said, "There's a brawl going on upstreet somewhere-the Christians against the cannibals, or some damn thing.
I'm supposed to be monitoring in dispatch, but with this storm I can't transmit or receive doodlysquat." He added morosely: "Who are you?"
"Deputy Sheriff Ridgewick."
"Well, I'm Joe Price. What kind of town have you got here anyhow, Deputy? Everyone in it has gone stone crazy."
Norris ignored him and went to Seaton Thomas. Seat's complexion was dirty gray, and he was breathing with great difficulty.
One of his wrinkled hands was pressed squarely in the middle of his chest.
"Seat, where's Alan?"
"Dunno," Seat said, and looked at Norris with dull, frightened eyes. "Something bad's happening, Norris. Really bad. All over town.
The phones are out, and that shouldn't be, because most of the lines are underground now. But do you know something? I'm glad they're out.
I'm glad because I don't want to know."
"You should be in the hospital," Norris said, looking at the old man with concern.
"I should be in Kansas," Seat said drearily. "Meantime, I'm just gonna sit here and wait for it to be over. I ain't-" The bridge blew up then, cutting him off-that great rifleshot noise ripped the night like a claw.
'Jesus!" Norris and Joe Price cried in unison.