Stephen King - The Outsider

Contents

FICTION:

Carrie

Salems Lot

The Shining

Night Shift

The Stand

The Dead Zone

Firestarter

Cujo

Different Seasons

Cycle of the Werewolf

Christine

Pet Sematary

IT

Skeleton Crew

The Eyes of the Dragon

Misery

The Tommyknockers

The Dark Half

Four Past Midnight

Needful Things

Geralds Game

Dolores Claiborne

Nightmares and Dreamscapes

Insomnia

Rose Madder

Desperation

Bag of Bones

The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon

Hearts in Atlantis

Dreamcatcher

Everythings Eventual

From a Buick 8

Cell

Liseys Story

Duma Key

Just After Sunset

Stephen King Goes to the Movies

Under the Dome

Full Dark, No Stars

11.22.63

Doctor Sleep

Mr Mercedes

Revival

Finders Keepers

The Bazaar of Bad Dreams

End of Watch

Sleeping Beauties (with Owen King)

The Dark Tower I: The Gunslinger

The Dark Tower II: The Drawing of the Three

The Dark Tower III: The Waste Lands

The Dark Tower IV: Wizard and Glass

The Dark Tower V: Wolves of the Calla

The Dark Tower VI: Song of Susannah

The Dark Tower VII: The Dark Tower

The Wind through the Keyhole: A Dark Tower Novel

By Stephen King as Richard Bachman

Thinner

The Running Man

The Bachman Books

The Regulators

Blaze

NON-FICTION

Danse Macabre

On Writing ( A Memoir of the Craft )

www.hodder.co.uk

First published in Great Britain in 2018 by Hodder & Stoughton

An Hachette UK company

Copyright 2018 by Stephen King

The right of Stephen King to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead is purely coincidental.

A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library

ISBN 978 1 473 67641 1

Hodder & Stoughton Ltd

Carmelite House

50 Victoria Embankment

London EC4Y 0DZ

www.hodder.co.uk

For Rand and Judy Holston

Thought only gives the world an appearance of order to anyone weak enough to be convinced by its show.

Colin Wilson

The Country of the Blind

It was an unmarked car, just some nondescript American sedan a few years old, but the blackwall tires and the three men inside gave it away for what it was. The two in front were wearing blue uniforms. The one in back was wearing a suit, and he was as big as a house. A pair of black boys standing on the sidewalk, one with a foot on a scuffed orange skateboard, the other with a lime-colored board under his arm, watched it turn into the parking lot of the Estelle Barga Recreational Park, then looked at each other.

One said, Thats Five-O.

The other said, No shit.

They headed off with no further conversation, pumping their boards. The rule was simple: when Five-O shows up, its time to go. Black lives matter, their parents had instructed them, but not always to Five-O. At the baseball field, the crowd began to cheer and clap rhythmically as the Flint City Golden Dragons came to bat in the bottom of the ninth, one run down.

The boys didnt look back.

Statement of Mr Jonathan Ritz [July 10th, 9:30 PM, interviewed by Detective Ralph Anderson]

Detective Anderson: I know youre upset, Mr Ritz, its understandable, but I need to know exactly what you saw earlier this evening.

Ritz: Ill never get it out of my mind. Never. I think I could use a pill. Maybe a Valium. Ive never taken any of that stuff, but I sure could use something now. My heart still feels like its in my throat. Your forensic people should know that if they find puke at the scene, and I guess they will, its mine. Im not ashamed, either. Anyone would have lost their supper if they saw something like that.

Detective Anderson: Im sure a doctor will prescribe something to calm you down when were done. I think I can arrange for that, but right now I need you clearheaded. You understand that, dont you?

Ritz: Yes. Of course.

Detective Anderson: Just tell me everything you saw, and well be finished for this evening. Can you do that for me, sir?

Ritz: All right. I went out to walk Dave right around six oclock this evening. Dave is our beagle. He has his evening meal at five. My wife and I eat at five thirty. By six, Dave is ready to take care of his business Number One and Number Two, I mean. I walk him while Sandy my wife does up the dishes. Its a fair division of labor. A fair division of labor is very important in a marriage, especially after the children have grown up, thats the way we look at it. Im rambling, arent I?

Detective Anderson: Thats okay, Mr Ritz. Tell it your way.

Ritz: Oh, please call me Jon. I cant stand Mr Ritz. Makes me feel like a cracker. Thats what the kids called me when I was in school, Ritz Cracker.

Detective Anderson: Uh-huh. So you were walking your dog

Ritz: Thats right. And when he got a strong scent the scent of death, I suppose I had to hold him back on his leash with both hands, even though Daves just a little dog. He wanted to get at what he was smelling. The

Detective Anderson: Wait, lets go back. You left your house at 249 Mulberry Avenue at six oclock

Ritz: It might have been a little before. Dave and I walked down the hill to Geralds, that grocery on the corner where they sell all the gourmet stuff, then up Barnum Street, and then into Figgis Park. Thats the one the kids call Frig Us Park. They think adults dont know what they say, that we dont listen, but we do. At least some of us do.

Detective Anderson: Was this your usual evening walk?

Ritz: Oh, sometimes we change it up a little so we dont get bored, but the park is where we almost always end up before heading home, because theres always lots for Dave to smell. Theres a parking lot, but at that time of the evening its almost always empty, unless there are some high school kids playing tennis. There werent any that night, because the courts are clay and it rained earlier. The only thing parked there was a white van.

Detective Anderson: A commercial van, would you say?

Ritz: Thats right. No windows, just double doors in the back. The kind of van small companies use to haul stuff in. It might have been an Econoline, but I couldnt swear to that.

Detective Anderson: Was there a company name written on it? Like Sams Air Conditioning or Bobs Custom Windows? Something like that?

Ritz: No, uh-uh. Nothing at all. It was dirty, though, I can tell you that. Hadnt been washed in some time. And there was mud on the tires, probably from the rain. Dave sniffed at the tires, then we went along one of the gravel paths through the trees. After about a quarter of a mile, Dave started to bark and ran into the bushes on the right. Thats when he got that scent. He almost dragged the leash out of my hand. I tried to pull him back and he wouldnt come, just flopped over and dug at the ground with his paws and kept on barking. So I snubbed him up close I have one of those retractable leashes, and its very good for that kind of thing and went after him. He doesnt bother about squirrels and chipmunks so much now that hes not a puppy anymore, but I thought he might have scented up a raccoon. I was going to make him come back whether he wanted to or not, dogs need to know whos boss, only that was when I saw the first few drops of blood. They were on a birch leaf, about chest-high to me, which would make it I guess five feet or so off the ground. There was another drop on another leaf a little further on, then a whole splash of it on some bushes further on still. Still red and wet. Dave sniffed at that one, but wanted to keep going. And listen, before I forget, right about then I heard an engine start up behind me. I might not have noticed, except it was pretty loud, like the muffler was shot. Kind of rumbling, do you know what I mean?