The Dark Half by Stephen King Read Free Book Online

used at the end of Machine’s Way to carve up the bastard’s face.
    If he turned around, George Stark would do a little whittling of his own.
    Empty of people the house might be, but except for the rugs (the wall-to-wall salmon-colored carpet in the living room was also gone), all the furnishings were still there. A vase of flowers stood on the little deal table at the end of the hall, where you could either go straight ahead into the living room with its high cathedral ceiling and window-wall facing the lake, or turn right into the kitchen. Thad touched the vase and it exploded into shards and a cloud of acrid-smelling ceramic powder. Stagnant water poured out, and the half-dozen garden roses which had been blooming there were dead and gray-black before they landed in the puddle of smelly water on the table. He touched the table itself. The wood gave a dry, parched crack and the table split in two, seeming to swoon rather than fall to the bare wood floor in two separate pieces.
    What have you done to my house? he cried to the man behind him . . . but without turning. He didn’t need to turn in order to verify the presence of the straight-razor, which, before Nonie Griffiths had used it on Machine, leaving his cheeks hanging in red and white flaps and one eye dangling from its socket, Machine himself had employed to flay the noses of his “business rivals. ”
    Nothing, Stark said, and Thad didn’t have to see him in order to verify the smile he heard in the man’s voice. You are doing it, old hoss.
    Then they were in the kitchen.
    Thad touched the stove and it split in two with a dull noise like the clanging of a great bell clotted with dirt. The heating coils popped upward and askew, funny spiral hats blown cocked in a gale. A noxious stench eddied out of the dark hole in the stove’s middle, and, peering in, he saw a turkey. It was putrescent and noisome. Black fluid filled with unnameable gobbets of flesh oozed from the cavity in the bird.
    Down here we call that fool’s stuffing, Stark remarked from behind him.
    What do you mean? Thad asked. Where do you mean, down here?
    Endsville, Stark said calmly. This is the place where all rail service terminates, Thad.
    He added something else, but Thad missed it. Liz’s purse was on the floor, and Thad stumbled over it. When he grasped the kitchen table to keep himself from falling, the table fell into splinters and sawdust on the linoleum. A bright nail spun into one corner with a tiny metallic chittering noise.
    Stop this right now! Thad cried. I want to wake up! I hate to break things!
    You always were the clumsy one, old hoss Stark said. He spoke as if Thad had had a great many siblings, all of them as graceful as gazelles.
    I don’t have to be, Thad informed him in an anxious voice that teetered on the edge of a whine. I don’t have to be clumsy. I don’t have to break things. When I’m careful, everything is fine.
    Yes—too bad you stopped being careful, Stark said in that same smiling I-am-just-remarking-on-how-things-are voice. And they were in the back hall.
    Here was Liz, sitting splay-legged in the corner by the door to the woodshed, one loafer off, one loafer on. She was wearing nylon stockings, and Thad could see a run in one of them. Her head was down, her slightly coarse honey-blonde hair obscuring her face. He didn’t want to see her face. As he hadn’t needed to see either the razor or Stark’s razor grin to know that both were there, so he didn’t need to see Liz’s face to know she was not sleeping or unconscious but dead.
    Turn on the lights, you’ll be able to see better, Stark said in that same smiling I-am-just-passing-the-time-of-day-with-you-my-friend voice. His hand appeared over Thad’s shoulder, pointing to the lights Thad himself had installed back here. They were electric, of course, but looked quite authentic: two hurricane lamps mounted on a wooden spindle