Stephen King - Needful Things

As the pill traced its tiny hard trail down her throat, she thought again: I would give anything to be free of this. Anything.

Anything at all.

Hugh Priest rarely dreamed anymore; these days he did not go to sleep so much as fall unconscious. But he’d had a dream last night, a real lulu. The dream had told him everything he had to know, and everything he was supposed to do.

In it he had been sitting at his kitchen table, drinking a beer and watching a game-show called Sale of the Century. All the things they were giving away were things he had seen in that shop, Needful Things. And all of the contestants were bleeding from their ears and the corners of their eyes. They were laughing, but they looked terrified.

All at once a muffled voice began to call, “Hugh! Hugh! Let me out, Hugh!”

It was coming from the closet. He went over and opened it, ready to coldcock whoever was hiding inside. But there was no one; only the usual tangle of boots, scarves, coats, fishing tackle, and his two shotguns.

“Hugh!”

He looked up, because the voice was coming from the shelf.

It was the fox-tail. The fox-tail was talking. And Hugh recognized the voice at once. It was the voice of Leland Gaunt. He had taken the brush down, revelling again in its plushy softness, a texture that was a little like silk, a little like wool, and really like nothing at all but its own secret self.

“Thanks, Hugh,” the fox-tail said. “It’s really stuffy in here.

And you left an old pipe on the shelf. It really stinks. Whew!”

“Did you want to go to another place?” Hugh had asked. He felt a little stupid talking to a fox-tail, even in a dream.

“No-I’m getting used to it. But I have to talk to you. You have to do something, remember? You promised.

“Crazy Nettle,” he agreed. “I have to play a trick on Crazy Nettle.”

“That’s right,” said the fox-tail, “and you have to do it as soon as you wake up. So listen.”

Hugh had listened.

The fox-tail had told him no one would be home at Nettle’s but the dog, but now that Hugh was actually here, he decided it would be wise to knock. He did so. From inside he heard claws come clicking rapidly across a wooden floor, but nothing else. He knocked again, just to be safe. There was a single stern bark from the other side of the door.

“Raider?” Hugh asked. The fox-tail had told him that was the dog’s name. Hugh thought it was a pretty good name, even if the lady who thought it up was nuttier than a fruitcake.

The single bark came again, not quite so stern this time.

Hugh took a key-ring from the breast pocket of the plaid hunting jacket he wore and examined it. He’d had this ring for a long time, and could no longer even remember what some of the keys had gone to.

But four of them were skeleton keys, easily identified by their long barrels, and these were the ones he wanted.

Hugh glanced around once, saw the street was as deserted as it had been when he first arrived, and began to try the keys one by one.

When Nettle saw Polly’s white, puffy face and haggard eyes, her own fears, which had gnawed at her like sharp weasel’s teeth as she walked over, were forgotten. She didn’t even have to look at Polly’s hands, still held out at waist level (it hurt dreadfully to let them hang down when it was like this), to know how things were with her.

The lasagna was thrust unceremoniously on a table by the foot of the stairs. If it had gone tumbling to the floor, Nettle wouldn’t have given it a second glance. The nervous woman Castle Rock had grown used to seeing on its streets, the woman who looked as if she were skulking away from some nasty piece of mischief even if she was only on her way to the post office, was not here. This was a different Nettle; Polly Chalmers’s Nettle.

Come on,” she said briskly. “Into the living room. I’ll get the thermal gloves.”

“Nettle, I’m all right,” Polly said weakly. “I just took a pill, and I’m sure that in a few minutes-” But Nettle had an arm around her and was walking her into the living room. “What did you do? Did you sleep on them, do you think?”

“No-that would have woken me. It’s just. She laughed.

It was a weak, bewildered sound. “It’s just pain. I knew today was going to be bad, but I had no idea how bad. And the thermal gloves don’t help.”

“Sometimes they do. You know that sometimes they do. Now just sit there.”

Nettle’s tone brooked no refusal. She stood beside Polly until Polly sat in an overstuffed armchair. Then she went into the downstairs bathroom to get the thermal gloves. Polly had given up on them a year ago, but Nettle, it seemed, held for them a reverence that was almost superstitious. Nettle’s version of chicken soup, Alan had once called them, and they had both laughed.

Polly sat with her hands resting on the arms of the chair like lumps of cast-off driftwood and looked longingly across the room at the couch where she and Alan had made love Friday night. Her hands hadn’t hurt at all then, and that already seemed like a thousand years ago.

It occurred to her that pleasure, no matter how deep, was a ghostly, ephemeral thing. Love might make the world go round, but she was convinced it was the cries of the badly wounded and deeply afflicted which spun the universe on the great glass pole of its axis.

Oh you stupid couch, she thought. Oh you stupid empty couch, what good are you to me now?

Nettle came back with the thermal gloves. They looked like quilted oven mitts connected by an insulated electric wire. A plugin cord snaked out of the left glove’s back. Polly had seen an ad for the gloves in Good Housekeeping, of all places. She had placed a call to The National Arthritis Foundation’s 800 number and had ascertained that the gloves did indeed provide temporary relief in some cases. When she showed the ad to Dr. Van Allen, he added the coda which had been tiresomely familiar even two years ago: “Well, it can’t hurt.”

“Nettle, I’m sure that in a few minutes-” -you’ll feel better,” Nettle finished. “Yes, of course you will.

And maybe these will help. Hold up your hands, Polly.”

Polly gave in and held up her hands. Nettle held the gloves by their ends, squeezed them open, and slipped them on with the delicacy of a bomb-squad expert covering packets of C-4 with a blast-blanket.

Her touch was gentle, expert, and compassionate.

Polly didn’t believe the thermal gloves would do a thing… but Nettle’s obvious concern had already had its effect.

Nettle took the plug, got down on her knees, and slipped it into the baseboard socket near the chair. The gloves began to hum faintly, and the first tendrils of dry warmth caressed the skin of Polly’s hands.

“You’re too good to me,” Polly said softly. “Do you know that?”

“I couldn’t be,” Nettle replied. “Not ever.” Her voice was a trifle husky, and there was a bright, liquid shine in her eyes.

“Polly, it’s not my place to tell you your business, but I just can’t keep quiet any longer. You have to do something about your poor hands.

You have to. Things just can’t go on this way.”

“I know, dear. I know.” Polly made a huge effort to climb over the wall of depression which had built itself up in her mind.

“Why did you come over, Nettle? Surely it wasn’t just to toast my hands.”

Nettle brightened. “I made you a lasagna!”

“Did you? Oh, Nettle, you shouldn’t have!”

“No? That’s not what I think. I think you won’t be up to cooking today, or tomorrow, either. I’ll just put it in the refrigerator.”

“Thank you. Thank you so much.”

“I’m glad I did it. Doubly glad, now that I see you.” She reached the hall doorway and looked back. A bar of sun fell across her face, and in that moment Polly might have seen how drawn and tired Nettle looked, if her own pain had not been so large. “Don’t you move, now!”