Stephen King - The Plant

But the accustomed drone is not quite the same as before, is it? There are two principal reasons for this. One is down the hall and one is right here in my little janitorial cubby... or perhaps it's only in my head. I would give a great deal to know which, and please believe me that my tongue is nowhere near my cheek when I say so. The change down the hall is, of course, John Kenton. The change in here (or in my head) is Zenith the Common Ivy.

Herb Porter doesn't realize that anything at all is wrong with Kenton. Bill Gelb has noticed but doesn't care. It was Sandra Jackson who asked me yesterday if I had any idea why John had suddenly decided to go through every old manuscript in that corner of the mailroom I think of as The Isle of Forgotten Novels.

“No ma'am!” I said. “I sho don't!”

“Well, I wish he'd stop,” she said. She popped open her compact, peered into it, and began to poke at her hair with an afro comb. “I can't even go in there anymore without sneezing until I'm just about blue. Everything's covered with dust and all that dry creepy stuff that comes out when those cheap padded mailers tear open. You must hate it in there.”

“It sh

City successfully infiltrated. Objective in view. Not this very moment of course. My current location=alley behind Smiler's Market, corner Pk & 32nd. Workplace of Designated Jew almost directly across from my bivouac. Disguised as “Crazy Guitar Gertie” and worked like a charm. No gun but good knife in plastic bag #1 of “homeless person” crap. 2 foremen of the Antichrist working at Satan's House of Zenith showed up 1730 hours yesterday afternoon. One (code name ROGER DODGER) went into market. Bought garlic by smell. Supposed to improve sex-life, HA!! Other (code name JOHN THE BAPTIST) waited outside. Back to me. Could have killed him with no problem. One quick slash. Jugular and carotid. Old commando move. This old dog remembers all his old tricks. Didn't, of course. Must wait for Designated Jew. If others stay out of my way, they may live. If they don't, they will certainly die. No prisoners. BAPTIST gave me two dollars. Cheapskate! Best plan still seems to wait until weekend (i. e. Apr 4–5) and then infiltrate building. Lie low inside until Monday morning (i. e. Apr 6). Of course D. J. may come along before then but cowards travel in packs. Will do you no good D. J. In the end, your meat is mine, HA! “Beaches are sandy, some shores are rocky, I'm going to ventilate, A Designated Mockie.” More dreams of CARLOS (code name DESIGNATED SPIC). I think he is close. Wish I had a picture. Must be crafty. Guitar & wig=good props. DAY OF THE GENERAL instead of DAY OF THE JACKAL, HA!! Guitar needs new strings. Still play pretty well & still sing “like a bird in a tree.” Got suppositories. Dropped load. Can think more clearly in spite of brain-killing transmissions.

Must now play waiting game.

Not the first time.

Over and out.

By James Whitney

Special to The Times

CENTRAL FALLS, RHODE ISLAND: A Cessna 404 Titan commuter airplane owned and operated by Ocean State Airways crashed shortly after takeoff from Barker Field in this small Rhode Island city yesterday afternoon, killing both pilots and all five passengers. Ocean State Airways has been running shuttle flights to New York City's LaGuardia since 1977. OCA Flight 14 was airborne for less than two minutes when it crashed in a vacant lot only a quarter of a mile from its takeoff point. Witnesses said the aircraft banked low over a warehouse, narrowly missing the roof, just before going down.

“Whatever was wrong must have gone wrong right away,” said Myron Howe, who was cutting weeds between Barker Field's two runways when the accident occurred. “He got upstairs and then he tried to come on back. I heard one engine cut out, then the other. I saw both props were dead. He missed the warehouse, and he missed the access road, but then he went in hard.” Preliminary reports indicate no maintenance problems with the C404, which is powered by two 375 horsepower turbo-charged piston engines. The make has an excellent safety record overall, and the aircraft which crashed had less than 9000 hours on its clock, according to Ocean State Airways President George Ferguson. Officials from the Civil Aeronautics Board (CAB) and the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) have launched a joint investigation of the crash.

Killed in the accident, the first in Ocean State's four-year history, were John Chesterton, the pilot, and Avery Goldstein, the co-pilot, both of Pawtucket. Robert Weiner, Tina Barfield, and Dallas Mayr have been identified as three of the downed aircraft's five passengers. The identities of the other two, thought to have been husband and wife, have been withheld pending notification of next of kin.

Ocean State Airways is most commonly used by passengers connecting with larger airlines operating out of LaGuardia Airport. According to Mr. Ferguson, OSA has suspended operations at least until the end of the week and perhaps longer. “I'm devastated by this,” he said. “I've flown that particular craft many times, and would have sworn there wasn't a safer plane in the skies, large or small. I flew it down from Boston myself on Monday, and everything was fine with it then. I don't have any idea what could have caused both engines to shut down the way they did. One, possibly, but not both.”

There's an old Chinese curse which goes, “May you live in interesting times.” I think it must have been especially aimed at folks who keep diaries (and if they follow Roger's edict, that number will soon be increased by three: Bill Gelb, Sandra Jackson, and Herb “Give Me The World And Let Me Boss It” Porter). I sat here in my little home office—which is actually just a corner of the kitchen to which I have added a shelf and a bright light—pounding the keys of my typewriter for nearly five hours last night. Won't be that long tonight; among other things, I have a manuscript to read. And I am going to read it, I think. The dozen or so pages I got through on my way home have pretty well convinced me that this is the one I've been looking for all along, without even really knowing it.

But at least one person of my recent acquaintance won't be reading it. Not even if it's as great as Great Expectations. (Not that it will be; I have to keep reminding myself that I work at Zenith House, not Random House.) Poor woman. I don't know if she was telling the exact truth about wanting to do us a Good Turn, but even if she was lying through her teeth, no one should have to die like that, dropped out of the sky and crushed to death in a burning steel tube.

I arrived at work even earlier today, wanting to check the mail room. OUIJA says stop wasting your time, she told me. The one you're looking for is in the purple box on the bottom shelf. Way in the corner. I wanted to check that corner even before I put on the coffee. And to get another look at Zenith the ivy, while I was down there.

At first I thought I'd beaten Roger this time, because there was no clack-clack from his typewriter. But the light was on, and when I peeked in the open door of his office, there he was, just sitting behind his desk and looking out at the street.

“Morning, boss,” I said. I thought he'd be ready and raring to go, but he just sat there in a semi-slump, pale and disheveled, as if he'd spent the whole night tossing and turning.

“I told you not to encourage her,” he said without turning from the window.