About the Author
----------------
Stephen King is the author of more than sixty books,
all of them worldwide bestsellers. His recent work includes The
Institute, Elevation, The Outsider, ing Beauties (cowritten
with his son Owen King), and the Bill Hodges trilogy: End of
Watch, Finders Keepers, and Mr. Mercedes (an Edgar Award
winner for Best Novel and an AT&T Audience Network original
television series). His novel 11/22/63 was named a top ten book
of 2011 by The New York Times Book Review and won the Los Angeles
Times Book Prize for Mystery/Thriller. His epic works The Dark
Tower and It are the basis for major motion pictures, with It now
the highest grossing horror film of all time. He is the
recipient of the 2018 PEN America Literary Service Award,
the 2014 National Medal of Arts, and the 2003 National Book
Foundation Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American
Letters. He lives in Bangor, Maine, with his wife, novelist
Tabitha King.
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Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
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8
On Monday, March 25, Lee came walking up Neely Street carrying a
long package wrapped in brown paper. Peering through a tiny crack
in the curtains, I could see the words REGISTERED and INSURED
stamped on it in big red letters. For the first time I thought he
seemed furtive and nervous, actually looking around at his
exterior surroundings instead of at the spooky furniture deep in
his head. I knew what was in the package: a 6.5mm Carcano
—also known as a Mannlicher-Carcano—complete with ,
purchased from Klein’s Sporting Goods in Chicago. Five minutes
after he climbed the outside stairs to the second floor, the
Lee would use to change history was in a closet above my head.
Marina took the famous pictures of him holding it just outside my
living room window six days later, but I didn’t see it. That was
a Sunday, and I was in Jodie. As the tenth grew closer, those
weekends with Sadie had become the most important, the dearest,
things in my life.
9
I came awake with a jerk, hearing someone mutter “Still not too
late” under his breath. I realized it was me and shut up.
Sadie murmured some thick protest and turned over in bed. The
familiar squeak of the springs locked me in place and time: the
Candlewood Bungalows, April 5, 1963. I fumbled my watch from the
nightstand and peered at the luminous numbers. It was quarter
past two in the morning, which meant it was actually the sixth of
April.
Still not too late.
Not too late for what? To back off, to let well enough alone? Or
bad enough, come to that? The idea of backing off was attractive,
God knew. If I went ahead and things went wrong, this could be my
last night with Sadie. Ever.
Even if you do have to kill him, you don’t have to do it right
away.
True enough. Oswald was going to relocate to New Orleans for
awhile after the attempt on the general’s life—another shitty
apartment, one I’d already visited—but not for two weeks. That
would give me plenty of time to stop his clock. But I sensed it
would be a mistake to wait very long. I might find reasons to
keep on waiting. The best one was beside me in this bed: long,
lovely, and smoothly naked. Maybe she was just another trap laid
by the obdurate past, but that didn’t matter, because I loved
her. And I could envision a scenario—all too clearly—where I’d
have to run after killing Oswald. Run where? Back to Maine, of
course. Hoping I could stay ahead of the cops just long enough to
get to the rabbit-hole and escape into a future where Sadie
Dunhill would be . . . well . . . about eighty years old. If she
were alive at all. Given her habit, that would be like
rolling six the hard way.
I got up and went to the window. Only a few of the bungalows were
occupied on this early-spring weekend. There was a mud- or
manure-splattered pickup truck with a trailer full of what looked
like farm implements behind it. An Indian motorcycle with a
sidecar. A couple of station wagons. And a two-tone Plymouth
Fury. The moon was sliding in and out of thin clouds and it
wasn’t possible to make out the color of the car’s lower half by
that stuttery light, but I was pretty sure I knew what it was,
anyway.
I pulled on my pants, undershirt, and shoes. Then I slipped out
of the cabin and walked across the courtyard. The chilly air bit
at my bed-warm skin, but I barely felt it. Yes, the car was a
Fury, and yes, it was white over red, but this one wasn’t from
Maine or Arkansas; the plate was Oklahoma, and the decal in the
rear window read GO, SOONERS. I peeked in and saw a scatter of
textbooks. Some student, maybe headed south to visit his folks on
spring break. Or a couple of horny teachers taking advantage of
the Candlewood’s liberal guest policy.
Just another not-quite-on-key chime as the past harmonized with
itself. I touched the trunk, as I had back in Lisbon Falls, then
returned to the bungalow. Sadie had pushed the sheet down to her
waist, and when I came in, the draft of cool air woke her up. She
sat, holding the sheet over her s, then let it drop when
she saw it was me.
“Can’t , honey?”
“I had a bad dream and went out for some air.”
“What was it?”
I unbuttoned my jeans, kicked off my loafers. “Can’t remember.”
“Try. My mother always used to say if you tell your dreams, they
won’t come true.”
I got into bed with her wearing nothing but my undershirt. “My
mother used to say if you kiss your honey, they won’t come true.”
“Did she actually say that?”
“No.”
“Well,” she said thoughtfully, “it sounds possible. Let’s try
it.”
We tried it.
One thing led to another.
10
Afterward, she lit a . I lay watching the smoke drift up
and turn blue in the occasional moonlight coming through the
half-drawn curtains. I’d never leave the curtains that way at
Neely Street, I thought. At Neely Street, in my other life, I’m
always alone but still careful to close them all the way. Except
when I’m peeking, that is. Lurking.
Just then I didn’t like myself very much.
“George?”
I sighed. “That’s not my name.”
“I know.”
I looked at her. She inhaled deeply, enjoying her
guiltlessly, as people do in the Land of Ago. “I don’t have any
inside information, if that’s what you’re thinking. But it stands
to reason. The rest of your past is made up, after all. And I’m
glad. I don’t like George all that much. It’s kind of . . .
what’s that word you use sometimes? . . . kind of dorky.”
“How does Jake suit you?”
“As in Jacob?”
“Yes.”
“I like it.” She turned to me. “In the Bible, Jacob wrestled an
angel. And you’re wrestling, too. Aren’t you?”
“I suppose I am, but not with an angel.” Although Lee Oswald
didn’t make much of a devil, either. I liked George de
Mohren--schildt better for the devil role. In the Bible, Satan’s
a tempter who makes the offer and then stands aside. I hoped de
Mohrenschildt was like that.
Sadie snubbed her . Her voice was calm, but her eyes
were dark. “Are you going to be hurt?”
“I don’t know.”
“Are you going away? Because if you have to go away, I’m not sure
I can stand it. I would have died before I said it when I was
there, but Reno was a nightmare. Losing you for good . . .” She
shook her head slowly. “No, I’m not sure I could stand that.”
“I want to marry you,” I said.
“My God,” she said softly. “Just when I’m ready to say it’ll
never happen, Jake-alias-George says right now.”
“Not right now, but if the next week goes the way I hope it does
. . . will you?”
“Of course. But I do have to ask one teensy question.”
“Am I single? Legally single? Is that what you want to know?”
She nodded.
“I am,” I said.
She let out a comic sigh and grinned like a kid. Then she
sobered. “Can I help you? Let me help you.”
The thought turned me cold, and she must have seen it. Her lower
lip crept into her mouth. She bit down on it with her teeth.
“That bad, then,” she said musingly.
“Let’s put it this way: I’m currently close to a big machine full
of sharp teeth, and it’s running full speed. I won’t allow you
next to me while I’m monkeying with it.”
“When is it?” she asked. “Your . . . I don’t know . . . your date
with destiny?”
“Still to be determined.” I had a feeling that I’d said too much
already, but since I’d come this far, I decided to go a little
farther. “Something’s going to happen this Wednesday night.
Something I have to witness. Then I’ll decide.”
“Is there no way I can help you?”
“I don’t think so, honey.”
“If it turns out I can—”
“Thanks,” I said. “I appreciate that. And you really will marry
me?”
“Now that I know your name is Jake? Of course.”
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