Carrie by Stephen King

Hands it to Sheriff Doyle, who solemnly puts it in a wicker basket marked People’s Exhibit A.

(and tommy’s dead)

Well, well. She began to cry. She put her hands over her face and sobbed into them. A soft breeze snuffled through the juniper bushes on top of the hill. More fire engines screamed by on Route 6 like huge red hounds in the night.

(the town’s burning down 0 well)

She had no idea how long she sat there, crying in a grainy half-doze. She was not even aware that she was following Carrie’s progress toward The Cavalier, no more than she was aware of the process of respiration unless she thought about it. Carrie was hurt very badly, was going on brute determination alone at this point. It was three miles out to The Cavalier, even cross country, as Carrie was going. Sue

(watched? thought? doesn’t matter) as Carrie fell in a brook and dragged herself out, icy and shivering. It was really amazing that she kept going. But of course it was for Momma. Momma wanted her to be the Angel’s Fiery Sword, to destroy (she’s going to destroy that too)

She got up and began to run clumsily, not bothering to follow the trail of blood. She didn’t need to follow it any more.

From The Shadow Exploded (pp. l6~65): Whatever any of us may think of the Carrie White affair, it is over.

It’s time to turn to the future. As Dean McGuffin points out, in his excellent Science Yearbook article, if we refuse to do this, we will almost certainly have to pay the piper-and the price is apt to be a high one.

A thorny moral question is raised here. Progress is already being made toward complete isolation of the TK gene. It is more or less assumed in the scientific community (see, for instance, Bourke and Hannegan’s “A View Toward Isolation of the TK Gene with Specific Recommendations for Control Parameters” in Microbiology Annual, Berkeley: 1982) that when a testing procedure is established, all school-age children will undergo the test as routinely as they now undergo the TB s~n-patch. Yet TK is not a germ; it is as much a part of the afflicted person as the color of his eyes.

If overt TK ability occurs as a part of puberty, and if this hypothetical TK test is performed on children entering the first grade, we shall certainly be forewarned. But in this case, is forewarned forearmed? If the TB test shows positive, a child can be treated or isolated. If the TK test shows positive, we have no treatment except a bullet in the head. And how is it possible to isolate a person who will eventually have the power to knock down all walls?

And even if isolation could be made successful, would the American people allow a small pretty girl-child to be ripped away from her parents at the first sign of puberty to be locked in a bank vault for the rest of her life? I doubt it. Especially when the White Commission

has worked so hard to convince the public that the nightmare in Chamberlain was a complete fluke.

Indeed, we seem to have returned to Square One .

From the sworn testimony of Susan Snell, taken before The State Investigatory Board of Maine (from The White Commission Report), pp. 30~472:

Q.

Now, Miss Snell, the Board would like to go through your testimony concerning your alleged meeting

with Carrie White in The Cavalier parking lot-

A.

Why do you keep asking the same questions over and over?

I’ve told you twice already.

Q.

We want to make sure the record is correct in every-

A.

You want to catch me in a lie, isn’t that what you really mean? You don’t think I’m telling the truth, do you?

Q.

You say you came upon Carrie at-

A.

Will you answer me?

Q.

-at approximately 2:00 on the morning of May 28th. Is that correct?

A.

I’m not going to answer any more questions until you answer the one I just asked.

Q.

Miss Snell, this body is empowered to cite you for contempt if you refuse to answer on any other grounds than Constitutional ones.

A.

I don’t care what you’re empowered to do. I’ve lost someone I love. Go and throw me in jail. I don’t care. I-I-Oh, go to hell.

All of you, go to hell. You’re trying to .. . to … I don’t know, crucify me or something. Just lay off me!

(A short recess)

Q.

Miss Snell, are you willing to continue your testimony at this time?

A.

Yes. But I won’t be badgered, Mr. Chairman.

Q.

OF course not, young lady. No one wants to badger you.

Now you claim to have come upon Carrie in the parking lot of this tavern at ~bout 2:00. Is that correct?

A.

Yes.

Q.

You knew the time.

A.

I was wearing the watch you see on my wrist right now.

Q.

To be sure. Isn’t The Cavalier better than six miles from where you left your mother’s car?

A.

It is by the road. It’s closer to three as the crow flies.

Q.

You walked this distance?

A.

Yes.

Q.

Now you testified earlier that you “knew” you were getting close to Carrie. Can you explain this?

A.

No.

Q.

Could you smell her?

A.

What?

Q. Did you follow your nose?

(Laughter in the galleries)

A.

Are you playing games with me?

Q.

Answer the question, please.

A.

No. I didn’t follow my nose.

Q.

Could you see her?

A. No.

Q. Hear her?

A. No.

Q. Then how could you possibly know she was there?

A. How did Tom Quillan know? Or Cora Simard? Or poor Vic Mooney? How did any of them know?

Q. Answer the question, miss. This is hardly the place or the time for impertinence.

A. But they did say they “just knew,” didn’t they? I read Mrs.

Simard’s testimony in the paper! And what about the fire hydrants that opened themselves? And the gas pumps that broke their own locks and turned themselves on? The power lines that climbed down off their poles! And-

Q. Miss Snell, please-

A. Those things are in the record of this Commission’s proceedings!

Q. That is not an issue here.

A. Then what is? Are you looking for the truth or just a scapegoat?

Q. You deny you had prior knowledge of Carrie White’s whereabouts?

A. Of course I do. It’s an absurd idea.

Q. Oh? And why is it absurd?

A. Well, if you’re suggesting some kind of conspiracy, it’s absurd because Carrie was dying when I found her. It could not have been an easy way to die.

Q. If you had no prior knowledge of her whereabouts, how could you go directly to her location?

A. Oh, you stupid man! Have you listened to anything that’s been said here? Everybody knew it was Carrie! Anyone could have found her if they had put their minds to

it.

Q But not just anyone found her. You did. Can you tell us why people did not show up from all over, like iron filings drawn to a magnet?

A. She was weakening rapidly. I think that perhaps the… the zone of her influence was shrinking.

Q. I think you will agree that that is a relatively uninformed supposition.

A. Of course it is. On the subject of Carrie White, we’re all relatively uninformed.

Q. Have it your way, Miss Snell. Now if we could turn to At first, when she climbed up the embankment between Henry Drain’s meadow and the parking lot of The Cavalier, she thought Carrie was dead. Her figure was halfway across the parking lot, and she looked oddly shrunken and crumpled. Sue was reminded of dead animals she had seen on 95-woodchucks, groundhogs, skunks-that had been crushed by speeding trucks and station wagons.

But the presence was still in her mind, vibrating stubbornly, repeating the call letters of Carrie White’s personality over and over.

An essence of Carrie, a gestalt. Muted now, not strident, not announcing itself with a clarion, but waxing and waning in steady oscillations.

Unconscious.

Sue climbed over the guard rail that bordered the parking lot, feeling the heat of the fire against her face. The Cavalier was a wooden frame building, and it was burning briskly. The charred remains of a car were limned in flame to the right of the back door. Carrie had done that, then. She did not go to look and see if anyone had been in it. It didn’t matter, not now.

She walked over to where Carrie lay on her side, unable to hear her own footsteps under the hungry crackle of the fire. She looked down at the curled-up figure with a bemused and bitter pity. The knife hilt protruded cruelly from her shoulder, and she was lying in a small pool of blood-some of it was trickling from her mouth. She looked as if she had been trying to turn herself over when unconsciousness had taken her. Able to start fires, pull down electric cables, able to kill almost by thought alone; lying here unable to turn herself over.

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