Stephen King - Sleeping Beauties

In front of the shed she plucked up a piece of paper caught in a bush. At the top, in big blue letters, it announced EVERYTHING IS ON SALE EVERY DAY! Below this were pictures of refrigerator units both large and small, washing machines, dishwashers, microwave ovens, vacuum cleaners, Dirt Devils, trash compactors, food processors, more. One picture showed a trim young woman in jeans smiling knowingly down upon her daughter, who was blond like Mom. The pretty tyke held a plastic baby in her arms and smiled down upon it. There were also large TVs showing men playing football, men playing baseball, men in racing cars, and grill set-ups beside which stood men with giant forks and giant tongs. Although it did not come right out and say so, the message of this advertising circular was clear: women work and nest while men grill the kill.

Evie rolled the advertising circular into a tube and began to snap the fingers of her left hand beneath the protruding end. A spark jumped at each snap. On the third one, the paper flared alight. Evie could grill, too. She held the tube up, examined the flame, and tossed it into the shed. She walked away at a brisk pace, cutting through the woods toward Route 43, known to the locals as Ball’s Hill Road.

“Busy day,” she said to the moths once more circling her. “Busy, busy day.”

When the shed blew she did not turn around, nor did she flinch when a piece of corrugated steel whickered over her head.

The Dooling County sheriff’s station dozed in the morning sun. The three holding cells were empty, barred doors standing open, floors freshly washed and smelling of disinfectant. The single interview room was likewise empty, as was Lila Norcross’s office. Linny Mars, the dispatcher, had the place to herself. Behind her desk hung a poster of a snarling, buffed-out con wearing an orange jumpsuit and curling a couple of hand barbells. THEY NEVER TAKE A DAY OFF, the poster advised, AND NEITHER SHOULD YOU!

Linny made a practice of ignoring this well-meant advice. She had not worked out since a brief fling with Dancercise at the YWCA, but did take pride in her appearance. Now she was absorbed in an article in Marie Claire about the proper way to put on eyeliner. To get a stable line, one began by pressing one’s pinky against one’s cheekbone. This allowed more control and insured against any sudden twitches. The article suggested starting in the middle and working one’s way to the far corner of the eye, then going to the nose side and working one’s way in to complete the look. A thin line for daywear; a thicker, more dramatic one for that important night out with the guy you hoped would—

The phone rang. Not the regular line, but the one with the red stripe on the handset. Linny put Marie Claire down (reminding herself to stop by the Rite Aid and get some L’Oréal Opaque) and picked up the phone. She had been catching in Dispatch for five years now, and at this time of the morning it was apt to be a cat up a tree, a lost dog, a kitchen mishap, or—she hoped not—a choking incident with a toddler involved. The weapons-related shit almost always happened after the sun went down, and usually involved the Squeaky Wheel.

“911, what is your emergency?”

“The Avon Lady killed Tru!” a woman shouted. “She killed Tru and Tru’s friend! I don’t know his name, but she put his fuckin head right through the fuckin wall! If I look at that again, I’ll go blind!”

“Ma’am, all 911 calls are recorded,” Linny said, “and we do not appreciate pranks.”

“I ain’t prankin! Who’s prankin? Some random bitch just came in here, killed Tru! Tru and the other guy! There’s blood ever’where!”

Linny had been ninety percent sure that this was a prank or a crank when the slurry voice mentioned the Avon Lady; now she was eighty percent sure that it was for real. The woman was blubbering almost too hard to be understood, and her piney woods accent was as thick as a brick. If Linny hadn’t come from Mink Crossing in Kanawha County, she might have thought her caller was speaking a foreign language.

“What is your name, ma’am?”

“Tiffany Jones, but ne’mine me! They’s dead and I don’t know why she let me live, but what if she comes back?”

Linny hunched forward, studying today’s duty sheet—who was in, who was on patrol. The sheriff’s department had only nine cars, and one or two were almost always in the shop. Dooling County was the smallest county in the state, although not quite the poorest; that dubious honor went to neighboring McDowell County, splat in the middle of nowhere.

“I don’t see your number on my screen.”

“Course you don’t. It’s one of Tru’s burners. He does somethin to em. He—” There was a pause, a crackle, and Tiffany Jones’s voice at once receded and pitched higher. “—oh my Christ, the lab just blew! Why’d she do that for? Oh, my Christ, oh, my Christ, oh—”

Linny started to ask what she was talking about, and then heard a rumbling boom. It wasn’t particularly loud, it didn’t rattle the windows, but it was a boom, all right. As if a jet from Langley over in Virginia had broken the sound barrier.

How fast does sound travel? she wondered. Didn’t we learn that formula in physics class? But high school physics had been a long time ago. Almost in another life.

“Tiffany? Tiffany Jones? Are you still there?”

“You get someone out here before the woods catch afire!” Tiffany screamed this so loudly that Linny held the phone away from her ear. “Follow your damn nose! Watch the smoke! It’s pilin up already! Out Ball’s Hill, past the Ferry and the lumberyard!”

“This woman, the one you called the Avon Lady—”

Tiffany began to laugh as she cried. “Oh, cops goan know her if they see her. She’ll be the one covered in Truman Mayweather’s blood.”

“May I have your ad—”

“Trailer don’t have no address! Tru don’t take mail! Just shut your gob and get someone out here!”

With that, Tiffany was gone.

Linny crossed the empty main office and went out into the morning sun. A number of people were standing on the Main Street sidewalks, shading their eyes and looking east. In that direction, maybe three miles distant, black smoke was rising. Nice and straight, not ribboning, and thank God for that. And yes, it was near Adams Lumberyard, a place she knew well, first from pickup truck trips out there with her daddy and then from pickup truck trips out there with her husband. Men had many strange fascinations. Lumberyards seemed to be one of them, probably falling somewhere just ahead of bigfoot trucks but well behind gun shows.

“What do we got?” called Drew T. Barry of Drew T. Barry Indemnity, standing outside his storefront across the street.

Linny could practically see the columned figures of premiums scrolling across the backs of Drew T. Barry’s eyes. She returned inside without answering him, first to call the fire department (where phones would already be ringing, she guessed), then Terry Coombs and Roger Elway in Unit Four, then the boss. Who was probably asleep after calling in sick the previous night.

But Lila Norcross wasn’t asleep.

She had read in a magazine article, probably while waiting to have her teeth cleaned or her eyes checked, that it took the average person fifteen to thirty minutes to fall asleep. There was a caveat, however, of which Lila hardly needed to be informed: one needed to be in a calm state of mind, and she was not in that state. For one thing, she was still dressed, although she had unsnapped her pants and unbuttoned her brown uniform shirt. She had also taken off her utility belt. She felt guilty. She wasn’t used to lying to her husband about little things, and had never lied about a really big thing until this morning.