talk in Nan's over those cups of coffee and slabs of apple pie.
It's the same here as where you grew up, most likely. People getting bet up over religion, people carryin torches, people carryin secrets, people carryin grudges... and even a spooky story every now and then, like what might or might not have happened on the day Pop died in his junk shop, to liven up the occasional dull day.
Castle Rock is still a pretty nice place to live and grow, as the sign you see when you come into town says. The sun shines pretty on the lake and on the leaves of the trees, and on a clear day you can see all the way into Vermont from the top of Castle View. The summer people argue over the Sunday newspapers, and there is the occasional fight in the parkin lot of The Mellow Tiger on Friday or Saturday night (sometimes both), but the summer people always go home and the fights always end. The Rock has always been one of the good places, and when people get scratchy, you know what we say? We say He'll get over i't or She'll get over it.
Henry Beaufort, for instance, is sick of Hugh Priest kickin the Rock-Ola when he's drunk... but Henry will get over it. Wilma jerzyck and Nettle Cobb are mad at each other... but Nettle will get over it (probably) and being mad's just a way of life for Wilma.
Sheriff Pangborn's still mourning his wife and younger child, who died untimely, and it was a sure-enough tragedy, but he'll get over it in time. Polly Chalmers's arthritis isn't getting any better-in fact, it's getting worse, a little at a time-and she may not get over it, but she'll learn to live with it. Millions have.
We bump up against each other every now and then, but mostly things go along all right. Or always have, until now. But I have to tell you a real secret, my friend; it's mostly why I called you over once I saw you were back in town. I think trouble-real trouble is on its way. I smell it, just over the horizon, like an out-of-season storm full of lightning. The argument between the Baptists and the Catholics over Casino Nite, the kids who tease poor Slopey about his stutter, John LaPointe's torch, Sheriff Pangborn's grief... think those things are going to look like pretty small potatoes next to what is coming.
See that building across Main Street? The one three doors up from the vacant lot where the Emporium Galorium used to stand?
Got a green canopy in front of it? Yup, that's the one. The windows are all soaped over because it's not quite open yet. NEEDFUL THINGS, the sign says-now just what the dog does that mean? I dunno, either, but that's where the bad feeling seems to come from.
Right there.
Look up the street one more time. You see that boy, don't you?
The one who's walking his bike and looks like he's havin the sweetest daydream any boy ever had? Keep your eye on him, friend.
I think he's the one who's gonna get it started.
No, I told you, I dunno what... not exactly. But watch that kid. And stick around town for a little while, would you? Things just feel wrong, and if something happens, it might be just as well if there was a witness.
I know that kid-the one who's pushin his bike. Maybe you do, too.
His name's Brian-something. His dad installs siding and doors over in Oxford or South Paris, I think.
Keep an eye on him, I tell you. Keep an eye on everything.
You've been here before, but things are about to change.
I know it.
I feel it.
There's a storm on the way.
CHAPTER ONE
1
In a small town, the opening of a new store is big news. it wasn't as big a deal to Brian Rusk as it was to some; his mother, for instance. He had heard her discussing it (he wasn't supposed to call it gossiping, she had told him, because gossiping was a dirty habit and she didn't do it) at some length on the telephone with her best friend, Myra Evans, over the last month or so.
The first workmen had arrived at the old building which had last housed Western Maine Realty and Insurance right around the time school let in again, and they had been busily at work ever since.
Not that anyone had much idea what they were up to in there; their first