Everything's Eventual (64 page)

Mom? Mommy? Patsy sounded suddenly concerned. I don't want anything, I was just kidding around, you know.

I've got aSassy for you, if you want, Darlene said. I found it in one of my rooms and put it in my locker.

This month's? Patsy sounded suspicious.

Actually this month's. Come on.

They were halfway across the room when they heard the drop of the coin and the unmistakable ratchet of the handle and whir of the drums as Paul pulled the handle of the slot machine beside the desk and then let it go.

Oh you dumb hoser, you're in trouble now! Patsy cried. She did not sound exactly unhappy about it. How many times has Mom told you not to throw your money away on stuff like that? Slots're for the tourists!

But Darlene didn't even turn around. She stood looking at the door that led back to the maid's country, where the cheap cloth coats from Ames and Wal-Mart hung in a row like dreams that have grown seedy and been discarded, where the time-clock ticked, where the air always smelled of Melissa's perfume and Jane's Ben-Gay. She stood listening to the drums whir, she stood waiting for the rattle of coins into the tray, and by the time they began to fall she was already thinking about how she could ask Melissa to watch the kids while she went down to the casino. It wouldn't take long.

Luckey me, she thought, and closed her eyes. In the darkness behind her lids, the sound of the falling coins seemed very loud. It sounded like metal slag falling on top of a coffin.

It was all going to happen just the way she had imagined, she was somehow sure that it was, and yet that image of life as a huge slagheap, a pile of alien metal, remained. It was like an indelible stain that you know will never come out of some favorite piece of clothing.

Yet Patsy needed braces, Paul needed to see a doctor about his constantly running nose and constantly watering eyes, he needed a Sega system the way Patsy needed some colorful underwear that would make her feel funny and sexy, and she needed what? What did she need? Deke back?

Sure, Deke back, she thought, almost laughing. I need him back like I need puberty back, or labor pains. I need well

(nothing)

Yes, that was right. Nothing at all, zero, empty, adi=s . Black days, empty nights, and laughing all the way.

I don't need anything because I'm luckey, she thought, her eyes still closed. Tears, squeezing out from beneath her closed lids, while behind her Patsy was screaming at the top of her lungs. Oh shit! Oh shit-a-booger, you hit the jackpot, Paulie! You hit the damned jackpot!

Luckey, Darlene thought. So luckey, oh luckey me.

Contents

Introduction:Practicing the (Almost) Lost Art

Autopsy Room Four

The Man in the Black Suit

All That You Love Will Be Carried Away

The Death of Jack Hamilton

In the Deathroom

The Little Sisters of Eluria

Everything's Eventual

L. T. 's Theory of Pets

The Road Virus Heads North

Lunch at the Gotham CafT

That Feeling, You Can Only Say What It Is in French

Luckey Quarter

a

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This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Copyright ! 2002 by Stephen King

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ISBN 0-7432-3704-8

The following selections, some in different form, were previously published: Autopsy Room Four in Robert Bloch'sPsychos; The Man in the Black Suit inThe New Yorker andYear's Best Fantasy & Horror 1995; All That You Love Will Be Carried Away and The Death of Jack Hamilton inThe New Yorker; In the Deathroom onBlood and Smoke (audio book); The Little Sisters of Eluria inLegends; Everything's Eventual inFantasy & Science Fiction and onF13 (CD-ROM); L. T. 's Theory of Pets inThe Best of the Best 1998; The Road Virus Heads North in999; Lunch at the Gotham CafT inDark Love, Year's Best Fantasy and Horror 1996 and onBlood and Smoke (audio book); That Feeling, You Can Only Say What It Is in French inThe New Yorker; 1408 onBlood and Smoke (audio book); Riding the Bullet as a Scribner e-book; and Luckey Quarter inUSA Weekend.