Four Past Midnight

by Stephen King

  "He's doing it, though," Mort said. He went into the house and once he was inside the door, he threw the magazine as hard as he could. It flew like a startled bird, pages riffling, and landed on the floor with a slap. "Oh yeah, you bet, you bet your fucking ass, he's doing it. But I don't have to wait around for him. I--"

  He saw Shooter's hat. Shooter's hat was lying on the floor in front of the door to his study.

  Mort stood where he was for a moment, heart thundering in his ears, and then walked over to the stove in great cartoon tippy-toe steps. He pulled the poker from the little clutch of tools, wincing when the poker's tip clanged softly against the ash-shovel. He took the poker and walked carefully back to the closed door again, holding the poker as he had held it before crashing into the bathroom. He had to skirt the magazine he'd thrown on the way.

  He reached the door and stood in front of it.

  "Shooter?"

  There was no answer.

  "Shooter, you better come out under your own power! If I have to come in and get you, you'll never walk out of anyplace under your own power again!"

  There was still no answer.

  He stood a moment longer, nerving himself (but not really sure he had the nerve), and then twisted the knob. He hit the door with his shoulder and barrelled in, screaming, waving the poker--

  And the room was empty.

  But Shooter had been here, all right. Yes. The VDT unit of Mort's word cruncher lay on the floor, its screen a shattered staring eye. Shooter had killed it. On the desk where the VDT had stood was an old Royal typewriter. The steel surfaces of this dinosaur were dull and dusty. Propped on the keyboard was a manuscript. Shooter's manuscript, the one he had left under a rock on the porch a million years ago.

  It was "Secret Window, Secret Garden."

  Mort dropped the poker on the floor. He walked toward the typewriter as if mesmerized and picked up the manuscript. He shuffled slowly through its pages, and came to understand why Mrs. Gavin had been so sure it was his ... sure enough to rescue it from the trash. Maybe she hadn't known consciously, but her eye had recognized the irregular typeface. And why not? She had seen manuscripts which looked like "Secret Window, Secret Garden" for years. The Wang word processor and the System Five laser printer were relative new-comers. For most of his writing career he had used this old Royal. The years had almost worn it out, and it was a sad case now--when you typed on it, it produced letters as crooked as an old man's teeth.

  But it had been here all the time, of course--tucked away at the back of the study closet behind piles of old galleys and manuscripts ... what editors called "foul matter." Shooter must have stolen it, typed his manuscript on it, and then sneaked it back when Mort was out at the post office. Sure. That made sense, didn't it?

  No, Mort. That doesn't make sense. Would you like to do something that does make sense? Call the police, then. That makes sense. Call the police and tell them to come down here and lock you up. Tell them to do it fast, before you can do any more damage. Tell them to do it before you kill anyone else.

  Mort dropped the pages with a great wild cry and they seesawed lazily down around him as all of the truth rushed in on him at once like a jagged bolt of silver lightning.

  46

  There was no John Shooter.

  There never had been.

  "No," Mort said. He was striding back and forth through the big living room again. His headache came and went in waves of pain. "No, I do not accept that. I do not accept that at all. "

  But his acceptance or rejection didn't make much difference. All the pieces of the puzzle were there, and when he saw the old Royal typewriter, they began to fly together. Now, fifteen minutes later, they were still flying together, and he seemed to have no power to will them apart.

  The picture which kept coming back to him was of the gas jockey in Mechanic Falls, using a squeegee to wash his windshield. A sight he had never expected to witness again in his lifetime. Later, he had assumed that the kid had given him a little extra service because he had recognized Mort and liked Mort's books. Maybe that was so, but the windshield had needed washing. Summer was gone, but plenty of stuff still splatted on your windshield if you drove far enough and fast enough on the back roads. And he must have used the back roads. He must have sped up to Derry and back again in record time, only stopping long enough to burn down his house. He hadn't even stopped long enough to get gas on the way back. After all, he'd had places to go and cats to kill, hadn't he? Busy, busy, busy.

  He stopped in the middle of the floor and whirled to stare at the window-wall. "If I did all that, why can't I remember?" he asked the silvery crack in the glass. "Why can't I remember even now?"

  He didn't know ... but he did know where the name had come from, didn't he? One half from the Southern man whose story he had stolen in college; one half from the man who had stolen his wife. It was like some bizarre literary in-joke.

  She says she loves him, Mort. She says she loves him now.

  "Fuck that. A man who sleeps with another man's wife is a thief. And the woman is his accomplice."

  He looked defiantly at the crack.

  The crack said nothing.

  Three years ago, Mort had published a novel called The Delacourt Family. The return address on Shooter's story had been Dellacourt, Mississippi. It--

  He suddenly ran for the encyclopedias in the study, slipping and almost falling in the mess of pages strewn on the floor in his hurry. He pulled out the M volume and at last found the entry for Mississippi. He ran a trembling finger down the list of towns--it took up one entire page--hoping against hope.

  It was no good.

  There was no Dellacourt or Delacourt, Mississippi.

  He thought of looking for Perkinsburg, the town where Shooter had told him he'd picked up a paperback copy of Everybody Drops the Dime before getting on the Greyhound bus, and then simply closed the encyclopedia. Why bother? There might be a Perkinsburg in Mississippi, but it would mean nothing if there was.

  The name of the novelist who'd taught the class in which Mort had met John Kintner had been Richard Perkins, Jr. That was where the name had come from.

  Yes, but I don't remember any of this, so how-?

  Oh, Mort, the small voice mourned. You're very sick. You're a very sick man.

  "I don't accept that," he said again, horrified by the wavery weakness of his voice, but what other choice was there? Hadn't he even thought once that it was almost as if he were doing things, taking irrevocable steps, in his sleep?

  You killed two men, the little voice whispered. You killed Tom because he knew you were alone that day, and you killed Greg so he wouldn't find out for sure. If you had just killed Tom, Greg would have called the police. And you didn't want that, COULDN'T have that. Not until this horrible story you've been telling is all finished. You were so sore when you got up yesterday. So stiff and sore. But it wasn't just from breaking in the bathroom door and trashing the shower stall, was it? You were a lot busier than that. You had Tom and Greg to take care of. And you were right about how the vehicles got moved around ... but you were the one who called up Sonny Trotts and pretended to be Tom. A man who just got into town from Mississippi wouldn't know Sonny was a little deaf, but you would. You killed them, Mort, you KILLED those men!

  "I do not accept that I did!" he shrieked. "This is all just part of his plan! This is just part of his little game! His little mind-game! And I do not... I do not accept ..."

  Stop, the little voice whispered inside his head, and Mort stopped.

  For a moment there was utter silence in both worlds: the one inside his head, and the one outside of it.

  And, after an interval, the little voice asked quietly: Why did you do it, Mort? This whole elaborate and homicidal episode ? Shooter kept saying he wanted a story, but there is no Shooter. What do you want, Mort? What did you create John Shooter FOR?

  Then, from outside, came the sound of a car rolling down the driveway. Mort looked at his watch and saw that the han
ds were standing straight up at noon. A blaze of triumph and relief roared through him like flames shooting up the neck of a chimney. That he had the magazine but still no proof did not matter. That Shooter might kill him did not matter. He could die happily, just knowing that there was a John Shooter and that he himself was not responsible for the horrors he had been considering.

  "He's here!" he screamed joyfully, and ran out of the study. He waved his hands wildly above his head, and actually cut a little caper as he rounded the corner and came into the hall.

  He stopped, looking out at the driveway past the sloping roof of the garbage cabinet where Bump's body had been nailed up. His hands dropped slowly to his sides. Dark horror stole over his brain. No, not over it; it came down, as if some merciless hand were pulling a shade. The last piece fell into place. It had occurred to him moments before in the study that he might have created a fantasy assassin because he lacked the courage to commit suicide. Now he realized that Shooter had told the truth when he said he would never kill Mort.

  It wasn't John Shooter's imaginary station wagon but Amy's no-nonsense little Subaru which was just now coming to a stop. Amy was behind the wheel. She had stolen his love, and a woman who would steal your love when your love was really all you had to give was not much of a woman.

  He loved her, all the same.

  It was Shooter who hated her. It was Shooter who meant to kill her and then bury her down by the lake near Bump, where she would before long be a mystery to both of them.

  "Go away, Amy," he whispered in the palsied voice of a very old man. "Go away before it's too late."

  But Amy was getting out of the car, and as she closed the door behind her, the hand pulled.the shade in Mort's head all the way down and he was in darkness.

  47

  Amy tried the door and found it unlocked. She stepped in, started to call for Mort, and then didn't. She looked around, wide-eyed and startled.

  The place was a mess. The trash can was full and had overflowed onto the floor. A few sluggish autumn flies were crawling in and out of an aluminum pot-pie dish that had been kicked into the corner. She could smell stale cooking and musty air. She thought she could even smell spoiled food.

  "Mort?"

  There was no answer. She walked further into the house, taking small steps, not entirely sure she wanted to look at the rest of the place. Mrs. Gavin had been in only three days ago--how had things gotten so out of hand since then? What had happened?

  She had been worried about Mort during the entire last year of their marriage, but she had been even more worried since the divorce. Worried, and, of course, guilty. She held part of the blame for herself, and supposed she always would. But Mort had never been strong ... and his greatest weakness was his stubborn (and sometimes almost hysterical) refusal to recognize the fact. This morning he had sounded like a man on the point of suicide. And the only reason she had heeded his admonition not to bring Ted was because she thought the sight of him might set Mort off if he really was poised on the edge of such an act.

  The thought of murder had never crossed her mind, nor did it do so now. Even when he had brandished the gun at them that horrible afternoon at the motel, she had not been afraid. Not of that. Mort was no killer.

  "Mort? M--"

  She came around the kitchen counter and the word died. She stared at the big living room with wide, stunned eyes. Paper was littered everywhere. It looked as if Mort must at some point have exhumed every copy of every manuscript he had in his desk drawers and in his files and strewn the pages about in here like confetti at some black New Year's Eve celebration. The table was heaped with dirty dishes. The Silex was lying shattered on the floor by the window-wall, which was cracked.

  And everywhere, everywhere, everywhere was one word. The word was SHOOTER.

  SHOOTER had been written on the walls in colored chalks he must have taken from her drawer of art supplies. SHOOTER was sprayed on the window twice in what looked like dried whipped cream--and yes, there was the Redi-Whip pressure-can, lying discarded under the stove. SHOOTER was written over and over on the kitchen counters in ink, and on the wooden support posts of the deck on the far side of the house in pencil--a neat column like adding that went down in a straight line and said SHOOTER SHOOTER SHOOTER SHOOTER.

  Worst of all, it had been carved into the polished cherrywood surface of the table in great jagged letters three feet high, like a grotesque declaration of love: SHOOTER.

  The screwdriver he had used to do this last was lying on a chair nearby. There was red stuff on its steel shaft--stain from the cherrywood, she assumed.

  "Mort?" she whispered, looking around.

  Now she was frightened that she would find him dead by his own hand. And where? Why, in the study, of course. Where else? He had lived all the most important parts of his life in there; surely he had chosen to die there.

  Although she had no wish to go in, no wish to be the one to find him, her feet carried her in that direction all the same. As she went, she kicked the issue of EQMM Herb Creekmore had had sent out of her way. She did not look down. She reached the study door and pushed it slowly open.

  48

  Mort stood in front of his old Royal typewriter; the screen-and-keyboard unit of his word processor lay overturned in a bouquet of glass on the floor. He looked strangely like a country preacher. It was partly the posture he had adopted, she supposed; he was standing almost primly with his hands behind his back. But most of it was the hat. The black hat, pulled down so it almost touched the tops of his ears. She thought he looked a little bit like the old man in that picture, "American Gothic," even though the man in the picture wasn't wearing a hat.

  "Mort?" she asked. Her voice was weak and uncertain.

  He made no reply, only stared at her. His eyes were grim and glittering. She had never seen Mort's eyes look this way, not even on the horrible afternoon at the motel. It was almost as if this was not Mort at all, but some stranger who looked like Mort.

  She recognized the hat, though.

  "Where did you find that old thing? The attic?" Her heartbeat was in her voice, making it stagger.

  He must have found it in the attic. The smell of mothballs on it was strong, even from where she was standing. Mort had gotten the hat years ago, at a gift shop in Pennsylvania. They had been travelling through Amish country. She had kept a little garden at the Derry house, in the angle where the house and the study addition met. It was her garden, but Mort often went out to weed it when he was stuck for an idea. He usually wore the hat when he did this. He called it his thinking cap. She remembered him looking at himself in a mirror once when he was wearing it and joking that he ought to have a bookjacket photo taken in it. "When I put this on," he'd said, "I look like a man who belongs out in the north forty, walking plow-furrows behind a mule's ass."

  Then the hat had disappeared. It must have migrated down here and been stored. But--

  "It's my hat," he said at last in a rusty, bemused voice. "Wasn't ever anybody else's."

  "Mort? What's wrong? What's--"

  "You got you a wrong number, woman. Ain't no Mort here. Mort's dead." The gimlet eyes never wavered. "He did a lot of squirmin around, but in the end he couldn't lie to himself anymore, let alone to me. I never put a hand on him, Mrs. Rainey. I swear. He took the coward's way out."

  "Why are you talking that way?" Amy asked.

  "This is just the way I talk," he said with mild surprise. "Everybody down in Miss'ippi talks this way."

  "Mort, stop!"

  "Don't you understand what I said?" he asked. "You ain't deaf, are you? He's dead. He killed himself."

  "Stop it, Mort," she said, beginning to cry. "You're scaring me, and I don't like it."

  "Don't matter," he said. He took his hands out from behind his back. In one of them he held the scissors from the top drawer of the desk. He raised them. The sun had come out, and it sent a starflash glitter along the blades as he snicked them open and then closed. "You won't be scared long." He
began walking toward her.

  49

  For a moment she stood where she was. Mort would not kill her; if there had been killing in Mort, then surely he would have done some that day at the motel.

  Then she saw the look in his eyes and understood that Mort knew that, too.

  But this wasn't him.

  She screamed and wheeled around and lunged for the door.

  Shooter came after her, bringing the scissors down in a silver arc. He would have buried them up to the handles between her shoulderblades if his feet had not slid on the papers scattered about the hardwood floor. He fell full-length with a cry of mingled perplexity and anger. The blades stabbed down through page nine of "Secret Window, Secret Garden" and the tips broke off. His mouth struck the floor and sprayed blood. The package of Pall Mails--the brand John Kintner had silently smoked during the breaks halfway through the writing class he and Mort Rainey had shared-shot out of his pocket and slid along the slick wood like the weight in a barroom shuffleboard game. He got up on his knees, his mouth snarling and smiling through the blood which ran over his lips and teeth.

  "Won't do you no help, Mrs. Rainey!" he cried, getting to his feet. He looked at the scissors, snicked them open to study the blunted tips a little better, and then tossed them impatiently aside. "I got a place in the garden for you! I got it all picked out. You mind me, now!"

  He ran out the door after her.

  50

  Halfway across the living room, Amy took her own spill. One of her feet came down on the discarded issue of EQMM and she fell sprawling on her side, hurting her hip and right breast. She cried out.

  Behind her, Shooter ran across to the table and snatched up the screwdriver he had used on the cat.

  "Stay right there, and be still," he said as she turned over on her back and stared at him with wide eyes which looked almost drugged. "If you move around, I'm only goin to hurt you before it's over. I don't want to hurt you, missus, but I will if I have to. I've got to have something, you see. I have come all this way, and I've got to have something for my trouble."

  As he approached, Amy propped herself up on her elbows and shoved herself backward with her feet. Her hair hung in her face. Her skin was coated with sweat; she could smell it pouring out of her, hot and stinking. The face above her was the solemn, judgmental face of insanity.