Needful Things (92 page)

When they turn to look, you will slip the crowbar's split end under the doorknob. Prop the other end against the ground. Wedge it firmly.

When do I shout?
Babs had asked.

You'll know. They'll all look like somebody stuck Flit-guns full of red pepper up their butts. Do you remember what you're supposed to shout, Babs?

She had. It seemed like sort of a mean trick to pull on Betsy Vigue, with whom she had skipped hand-in-hand to school, but it also seemed harmless (well . . .
fairly
harmless), and they were not children anymore, she and the little girl she had for some reason always called Betty
La-La; all of that had been a long time ago. And, as Mr. Gaunt had pointed out, no one would ever connect it with her. Why should they? Babs and her husband were, after all, Seventh-Day Adventists, and as far as
she
was concerned, the Catholics and the Baptists deserved just what they got—Betty La-La included.

Lightning flashed. Babs froze, then scurried a window closer to the door, peering in to make sure Betsy wasn't sitting down at the head table yet.

And the first hesitant drops of that mighty storm began to patter down around her.

The stench which began to fill the Baptist Church was like the stench which had clung to Don Hemphill . . . but a thousand times worse.

“Oh shit!”
Don roared. He had completely forgotten where he was, and remembering probably wouldn't have changed his language much.
“They've set one up here, too! Out! Out! Everybody out!”

“Move!”
Nan Roberts bellowed in her lusty rush-hour-at-the-diner baritone.
“Move! Hoss your freight, folks!”

They could all see where the stink was coming from—thick runners of whitish-yellow smog were pouring over the choir's waist-high railing and through the diamond-shaped cut-outs in the low panels. The side door was just beneath the choir balcony, but no one thought of going in that direction. A stench that strong would kill you . . . but first your eyeballs would pop and your hair would fall out and your asshole would seal itself shut in outraged horror.

The Baptist Anti-Gambling Christian Soldiers of Castle Rock became a routed army in less than five seconds. They stampeded toward the vestibule at the back of the church, screaming and gagging. One of the pews was overturned and hit the floor with a loud bang. Deborah Johnstone's foot was pinned beneath it, and Norman Harper struck her broadside while she was struggling to pull it free. Deborah fell over and there was a loud crack as her
ankle broke. She shrieked with pain, her foot still caught under the pew, but her cries went unheeded among so many others.

Rev. Rose was closest to the choir, and the stink closed over his head like a large, smelly mask. This is the smell of Catholics burning in hell, he thought confusedly, and leaped from the pulpit. He landed squarely on Deborah Johnstone's midriff with both feet, and her shrieks became a long, choked wheeze that trailed away to nothing as she passed out. Rev. Rose, unaware that he had just knocked one of his most faithful parishioners unconscious, clawed his way toward the back of the church.

Those who reached the vestibule doors first discovered there was no escape to be had that way; the doors had been locked shut somehow. Before they could turn back, these leaders of the proposed exodus were smashed flat against the locked doors by those behind them.

Screams, roars of outrage, and furious curses blued the air. And as the rain started outside, the vomiting began inside.

Betsy Vigue took her place at the Chairwoman's table between the American flag and the Infant of Prague banner. She rapped her knuckles for order, and the ladies—about forty in all—began to take their seats. Outside, thunder banged across the sky. There were little screams and nervous laughter.

“I call this meeting of the Daughters of Isabella to order,” Betsy said, and picked up her agenda. “We'll begin, as usual, by reading—”

She stopped. There was a white business envelope lying on the table. It had been beneath her agenda. The words typed on it glared up at her.

READ THIS RIGHT AWAY YOU POPE WHORE

Them, she thought. Those Baptists. Those ugly, nasty, small-minded people.

“Betsy?” Naomi Jessup asked. “Is something wrong?”

“I don't know,” she said, “I think so.”

She tore the envelope open. A sheet of paper slid out. Typed on it was the following message:

THIS IS THE SMELL OF CATHOLIC CUNTS!

A hissing noise suddenly began to come from the left rear corner of the hall, a sound like an overburdened steam-pipe. Several of the women exclaimed and turned in that direction. Thunder whacked heartily overhead, and this time the screams were in earnest.

A whitish-yellow vapor was pouring from one of the cubbyholes at the side of the room. And suddenly the small one-room building was filled with the most awful smell any of them had ever experienced.

Betsy got to her feet, knocking over her chair. She had just opened her mouth—to say what, she had no idea—when a woman's voice outside cried, “
This is because of Casino Nite, you bitches! Repent! Repent!”

She caught a glimpse of someone outside the rear door before the foul cloud coming from the cubbyhole obscured the window in the door completely . . . and then she no longer cared. The stink was unbearable.

Pandemonium broke loose. The Daughters of Isabella plunged back and forth in the cloudy, stinking room like maddened sheep. When Antonia Bissette was shoved backward and broke her neck against the steel edge of the Chairwoman's table, no one heard or noticed.

Outside, thunder roared and lightning flashed.

The Catholic men in the K of C Hall had formed a loose circle around Albert Gendron. Using the note he'd found taped to his office door as a take-off point (“Aw, this ain't nothing—you should have been there when . . .”), he was regaling them with horrible yet fascinating stories of Catholic-baiting and Catholic revenge in Lewiston back in the thirties.

“So when he seen how that bunch of ignorant Holy Rollers had covered the feet of the Blessed Virgin with cow-patty, he right away jumped in his car and drove—”

Albert broke off suddenly, listening.

“What's that?” he asked.

“Thunder,” Jake Pulaski said. “It's gonna be one big storm.”

“No—
that,”
Albert said, and got up. “Sounds like screamin.”

The thunder retreated temporarily to mere grumbles, and in the hiatus they all heard it: women. Women screaming.

They turned toward Father Brigham, who had risen from his chair. “Come on, men!” he said. “Let's see—”

Then the hissing began, and the stink began to billow from the back of the hall toward where the men stood in a knot. A window shattered and a rock bounced crazily across the floor, which had been polished to a mellow gloss over the years by dancing feet. Men yelled and skipped back from the carom. The rock rolled across to the far wall, bounced once more, and lay still.

“Hellfire from the Baptists!”
someone yelled from outside.
“No gambling in Castle Rock! Spread the word, nun-fuckers!”

The foyer door of the K of C Hall had also been propped shut with a crowbar. The men struck it and began to pile up.

“No!”
Father Brigham yelled. He fought his way through the rising stench to a small side door. It was unlocked.
“This way!
THIS WAY!”

At first no one listened; in their panic they continued to pile up against the Hall's immovable front door. Then Albert Gendron reached out with his big hands and knocked two heads together.

“Do what the Father says!”
he roared.
“They're killing the women!”

Albert bulled his way back through the crush by main force, and the others began to follow him. They made their way in a rough, stumbling line through the streaming murk, coughing and cursing. Meade Rossignol could hold his churning gut no longer. He opened his mouth and
yarked supper all over the wide back of Albert Gendron's shirt. Albert hardly noticed.

Father Brigham was already stumbling toward the steps which led to the parking lot and the Daughters of Isabella Hall on the far side. He paused every now and then to retch dryly. The stink clung to him like flypaper. The men began to follow him in ragged procession, barely noticing the rain, which had now begun to fall harder.

When Father Brigham was halfway down the short flight of steps, a flash of lightning showed him the crowbar propped against the door of the Daughters of Isabella Hall. A moment later one of the windows on the right side of the building shattered outward and women began to hurl themselves through the hole, tumbling on the lawn like large rag dolls which had learned how to vomit.

Rev. Rose never reached the vestibule; there were too many people stacked up in front of him. He turned, holding his nose, and staggered back into the church. He tried to yell to the others, but when he opened his mouth, he sprayed a great jet of puke instead. His feet tangled in each other and he fell, knocking his head hard on the top of a pew. He tried to get to his feet and could not do it. Then large hands thrust themselves into his armpits and pulled him up. “Out the window, Rev'rund!” Nan Roberts shouted. “Hoss y'freight!”

“The glass—”

“Never mind the glass! We're going to choke in here!”

She propelled him forward, and Rev. Rose just had time to throw a hand over his eyes before he shattered his way through a stained-glass window depicting Christ leading His sheep down a hill the exact color of lime Jell-O. He flew through the air, struck the lawn, and bounced. His upper plate shot from his mouth and he grunted.

He sat up, suddenly aware of the dark, the rain . . . and the blessed perfume of open air. He had no time to savor this; Nan Roberts grabbed him by the hair of his head and jerked him to his feet.

“Come on, Rev'rund!” she shouted. Her face, glimpsed in a blue-white flash of lightning, was the twisted face of a harpy. She was still wearing her white rayon uniform—she had always made it a habit to dress just as she had her waitresses dress—but the swell of her bosom was now wearing a bib of vomit.

Rev. Rose stumbled along beside her, head down. He wished she would let go of his hair, but each time he tried to say so, the thunder drowned him out.

A few others had followed them out the broken window, but most were still stacked up on the other side of the vestibule door. Nan saw why immediately; two crowbars had been propped under the handles. She kicked them aside as a bolt of lightning struck down on the Town Common, blowing the bandstand, where a tormented young man named Johnny Smith had once discovered the name of a killer, to flaming matchwood. Now the wind began to blow harder, whipping the trees against the dark, racing sky.

The moment the crowbars were gone, the doors flew open—one was torn entirely off its hinges and tumbled into the flowerbed on the left side of the steps. A flood of wild-eyed Baptists poured out, stumbling and falling all over one another as they pelted down the church steps. They stank. They wept. They coughed. They vomited.

And they were all as mad as hell.

The Knights of Columbus, led by Father Brigham, and the Daughters of Isabella, led by Betsy Vigue, came together in the center of the parking lot as the skies opened and the rain began to drive down in buckets. Betsy groped for Father Brigham and held him, her red eyes streaming tears, her hair plastered against her skull in a wet, gleaming cap.

“There are others still inside!” she cried. “Naomi Jessup . . . 'Tonia Bissette . . . I don't know how many others!”

“Who was it?” Albert Gendron roared. “Who in the hell did it?”

“Oh, it was the Baptists! Of course it was!”
Betsy screamed, and then she began to weep as lightning jumped across the sky like a white-hot tungsten filament.
“They called me a Pope whore! It was the Baptists! The Baptists! It was the God damned Baptists!”

Father Brigham, meanwhile, had disengaged himself from Betsy and leaped to the door of the Daughters of Isabella Hall. He booted the crowbar aside—the door had splintered all around it in a circle—and yanked it open. Three dazed, retching women and a cloud of stinking smoke came out.

Through it he saw Antonia Bissette, pretty 'Tonia who was so quick and clever with her needle and always so eager to help out on any new church project. She lay on the floor near the Chairwoman's table, partly hidden by the overturned banner depicting the Infant of Prague. Naomi Jessup knelt beside her, wailing. 'Tonia's head was twisted at a weird, impossible angle. Her glazed eyes glared up at the ceiling. The stench had ceased to bother Antonia Bissette, who had not bought a single thing from Mr. Gaunt or participated in any of his little games.

Naomi saw Father Brigham standing in the doorway, got to her feet, and staggered toward him. In the depth of her shock, the smell of the stink-bomb no longer seemed to bother her, either. “Father,” she cried. “Father,
why?
Why did they do this? It was only supposed to be a little fun . . . that was all it was supposed to be.
Why?”

“Because that man is insane,” Father Brigham said. He folded Naomi into his arms.

Beside him in a voice which was both low and deadly, Albert Gendron said: “Let's go get them.”

The Baptist Anti-Gambling Christian Soldiers strode up Harrington Street from the Baptist Church in the pouring rain with Don Hemphill, Nan Roberts, Norman Harper, and William Rose in the forefront. Their eyes were reddened, furious orbs peering from puffy, irritated sockets. Most of the Christian Soldiers had vomit on their pants,
their shirts, their shoes, or all three. The rotten-egg smell of the stink-bomb clung to them in spite of the sheeting rain, refusing to be washed away.