Misery

The letter t-key falls out of the typewriter. Frustrated, Paul wishes he could "fucking demand" a new typewriter but, after Annie's recent behavior, knows he can't (237). Paul thinks how earlier, he would have "had the guts to at least try to stand up to Annie Wilkes" but no longer (238). Paul hears bees buzzing outside and realizes it's the first day of summer.

Chapter 32 of Misery's Return continues. Geoffrey and Ian are in Africa with Hezekiah, a local man who speaks English. The three men watch Misery, who's been handcuffed to a eucalyptus tree and covered in a swarm of bees. The bees are supposed to cure her of her condition but, should the drums stop beating, will kill her. Ian keeps trying to free Misery from her position but Geoffrey and Hezekiah stop him every time. Geoffrey asks Hezekiah what will happen when the drums stop just as the drums stop.

Paul realizes another key has stopped working. He picks up the fifty-pound typewriter and shakes it. The e-key falls out, "the most frequently used letter in the English language" (242). Paul thinks now he's going to have to write the novel longhand. He flashes back to Annie cutting off his foot.

Paul ruminates on his situation. He begins to consider himself Scheherazade to himself, telling stories to keep himself alive. Paul thinks that he could have died but couldn't "until he knew how it all came out," 'it' being the end of Misery's Return (246).

Paul feels a "sensation of not of floating but of sliding" towards death (246). However, he stays alive, brought out of his semi-coma by "the beat of drums and the drone of bees" (247). Paul has a vision of empty handcuffs on the eucalyptus tree and wonders how Misery escaped her bondage.

Annie doesn't want Paul to go back to writing after she hobbles him. She takes "extravagant care of him," as though she knows how close she came to killing him with her actions (248). However, she quickly resumes filling in the n's as "an act of atonement" and then moves on to feeling what Paul calls "the gotta," as in Annie's 'gotta' know what happens to Misery (249).

Paul gets back to writing. He begins to think of his writing process in sexual metaphors and muses that Annie could have cut off his penis. Paul laughs at this thought until he sobs. He wonders "how close he was to going insane" (253).

Annie comes into Paul's room in a good mood with the makings of ice cream sundaes. She tells Paul he deserves it. As they start to eat, Annie asks Paul to tell her the rest of Misery's Return. Paul tells her that he can't and her face "darkened at once" (254). Paul explains that though he's a good storywriter, he's a "rotten story-teller." Annie accuses Paul of making up "a big cockadoodie excuse," but he insists that it's not an excuse (254). Paul tells Annie she's acting like a child calling its mother mean for disciplining it, but Annie counters that if Paul keeps making her mad she doesn't "promise to be responsible" (255). Annie finally lets it go.

After she leaves the room, Paul begins thinking about different anecdotes, both from his life and history, about literature's effects on its readers. Paul remembers a friend who shut himself in his darkened house to mourn the death of his favorite fictional character. He also thinks about the people who "mobbed the Baltimore docks" for their monthly installments of Charles Dickens' Little Dorrit and Oliver Twist (258).

Paul himself encountered fervent fandom before Annie. Disney had written him suggesting Misery theme parks, and one fan had sent him multiple letters and Polaroid pictures showing the reproduction of "Misery's Parlor" she had created in her own home (259). Paul wrote her back only once, expressing "congratulations and admiration," but nothing more (260). Paul drifts to sleep.

A few days after the sundaes, Paul hears Annie banging around in the kitchen. She then comes into Paul's room with a syringe, the Betadine, and an electric knife. Paul begins to scream as Annie plugs the knife into the outlet by his bed. She pours the Betadine onto the knife blade and his left thumb then, telling Paul she loves him, severs his thumb.

Paul sinks into a drug- and pain-induced sleep and dreams that Annie brings him a birthday cake with his thumb in the cake's center. She tells Paul if he's good, he won't have to "eat any of the special candle" (262). Paul awakens, suppressing a scream, and realizes it's been over a month since Annie cut off his thumb. Paul looks out the bedroom window and sees a Colorado State Police car.

After "the amputation of his thumb," Paul doesn't work on Misery's Return, instead trying to keep track of the days (263). Paul feels as though "something had disturbed the dream" of writing a great novel (264). The book's language has become "florid and overblown" and "continuity lapses had begun to proliferate with the stealth of rats" (265). Paul feels helpless to stop this but tries to keep writing, convinced that this is "still a goddam good yarn, the best Misery novel by far" (266). Paul even continues to lift the typewriter for exercise.

Paul struggles with his inner thoughts, trying to scream to get the police officer's attention. He finds himself unable, though, to scream for fear of upsetting Annie. The police officer gets out of his cruiser. He's a young man, in his early twenties, standing only thirty yards from Paul's window. Paul finally begins to scream, "Africa! Help me!" (268).

The officer tilts his head with "moderate puzzlement" and steps towards Paul's window (269). Paul takes the ceramic ashtray from beside his typewriter and hurls it through the window. The glass shatters. Paul yells for the officer to help him and watch out for Annie. The officer pulls a photograph out of his shirt pocket and recognizes Paul's face.

Annie speeds towards the officer on her Lawnboy, a ride-on lawnmower. She brandishes a wooden cross she'd used as a grave marker for her cow, Bossie, which she'd recently buried in her yard. Annie stabs the officer in his back with the sharp end of the cross. The officer falls over and Annie pulls the cross out of his back and begins to stab him repeatedly. Paul yells at her to stop but Annie continues, a "jolly grin" on her face (271). Once satisfied the officer is dead, Annie tosses the cross aside and walks out of view.

Paul sits in his chair, unable to move. Then he notices that the officer is still alive. He crawls towards his cruiser. Paul hears the noise of Annie's lawnmower and yells for the officer to look out. The officer draws his gun but fumbles with it. Annie runs over the officer's arm as he reaches for the gun. The officer tries to get himself under his cruiser, but Annie beats him and runs over his head with the lawnmower. Paul vomits then closes his eyes.

Annie comes into the house and closes the door to Paul's room, telling him she'll deal with him later. She's installed a Krieg lock on his bedroom door, too. Annie leaves the house again and Paul thinks Annie has "the luck of the devil himself" to have run over the officer without tipping over on the lawnmower (274). Paul watches Annie drag the officer's body into the barn, then drive his cruiser into it, too. She closes the barn doors until she can barely pass through them.

Singing, Annie begins gathering the shreds of the officer's uniform from around the lawn into big green garbage bags. Through his shattered window, Annie hands Paul the ashtray he threw. Annie tells Paul that she didn't kill the officer; Paul did. Paul tries to argue but Annie won't have it. She tells him she's "very busy," so they'll have to "talk about that a lot" later (277).

Annie begins to hose the blood off the lawnmower but misses the "blade underneath" (277). Paul doesn't think she'll remember to clean that. Afterwards, she comes into the house and Paul hears her dragging something "that sounded soft and heavy" down the stairs. Frightened that she's gone to the shed to get the axe again, Paul realizes Annie is just "dragging something down cellar" (278). Next, Annie approaches Paul's room.

Annie opens the bedroom door and tells Paul that she's not going to kill him, though she should. She then wheels Paul out of his room to the basement door. Annie tells Paul that he can go down the stairs "piggy-back or bum over teakettle" (279). With reluctance, Paul chooses piggyback. Annie carries him down with ease and sets him on a mattress in the dank basement. She pulls out a hypodermic needle.

Annie tells Paul it's "scopolamine," a morphine-based drug to keep his pain away while she's gone (281). She goes back upstairs and brings pillows, blankets, and three bottles of Pepsi with her into the basement. She tells Paul that all she ever did was pull him out of his wrecked car and gave him medicine and talk him out of the "bad book" he'd written and "into the best one" he ever wrote. Paul yells that she also cut off his "fucking foot." Annie tells him not to use the "effword" around her. She says Paul's lucky she didn't cut off his "man-gland" though she thought about it (282). Annie reaches into the bag she has slung over her shoulder and pulls out the officer's gun. She tells Paul that if anyone comes looking for him before dark, she'll shoot them, then Paul, then herself.

After dark, Annie will drive the police cruiser to her Laughing Place. She tells Paul she'd take him with her, but she'll have to ride her ex-husband's bicycle back to the house. Paul worries that Annie won't come back. The basement door has a Krieg lock and so does the bulkhead. The cellar windows are much too small for Paul to squeeze through.

Annie says she'll put a note on her front fence saying she went to the "World's Biggest Flea Market" in nearby Steamboat Heaven to look at ceramics (285). If the police question her, she'll tell them she didn’t stay at the flea market because there were no good ceramics. Instead, she started to drive home but got tired and slept in her car. Annie tells Paul that by the time the police arrive in the morning, she'll be home and Paul will be "snug as a bug in a rug" in his bed (286).

Annie says she can handle two police officers. She tells Paul that it's all right for him to see the police officers, but if they see him, she'll start shooting and it will be Paul's fault. Annie says when the officers ask her if she's ever seen Paul Sheldon, she'll say she hasn't but would remember if she had because he's her favorite writer. She'll tell them that she offered the missing officer a cup of coffee, but he didn't accept it, saying he had to "move along" (287). Annie will say she offered him a cold Pepsi instead and he accepted. She plans to put the dead officer's fingerprints on an empty Pepsi bottle and toss it out a few miles up the road.

Annie figures that even if the officers buy her story, they'll still come back to question her because "all the papers" say she's "nutty as a fruitcake." She tells Paul they'll have about a week before that happens, so he's "going to have to write faster" (288).

Before she leaves, Annie tells Paul that she would "end it right now" if it weren't for the book. She thinks it's "the best Misery story of them all" and wants to know "how it all comes out" (289). Paul says he does, too. This confuses Annie, who believes that Paul knows how the book will end. He explains to her that he has a rough idea. In this case, it will either be a "very sad" ending, or one that "holds out some hope for the future." Annie, "suddenly thunderous," worries that this means Paul will kill Misery again. Paul asks what Annie would do if he did (290). He tells her it doesn't scare him a bit that she's going to kill him. Paul knows that Annie will do it once the book is done, either way.

Annie brings Paul more Pepsi, some crackers and cheese, and sardines. Paul says if she'll give him a legal pad and pen, he'll keep writing while she's gone. Annie regrets that she can't do that. If she does, she'll have to leave a light on for him, which might arouse neighbors’ suspicion. Annie says if she gives him a candle, he might try to burn the house down with it. Paul reminds her that he could have burned the house down "long before this" (291). Unmoved, Annie leaves Paul in the dark. Paul yells about the rats. Annie tells him the rats might recognize him "for one of their own" and starts laughing (292). Paul thinks he can hear her laughing all the way to her Cherokee.

In the dark basement, Paul's "so-fucking-vivid-imagination" takes hold of him. He imagines the dead police officer coming back to life and somehow crawling out of the barn and "melting magically into through the bulkhead." Paul sees the reanimated officer crawling across the basement floor to say to Paul, "You opened your mouth and killed me." With his eyes closed, Paul thinks he feels the officer's "dead fingers slip, tickling, down his cheek," but it's only a spider (293). He brushes it away frantically, which makes his legs hurt. Paul reaches for the needle, loaded with scopolamine, but decides to save it.

In the dark, Paul makes out the barbecue pot where Annie made him burn Fast Cars.

Paul sleeps a little and urinates into the bedpan. It hurts him and he thinks a urinary infection must be setting in. Paul decides to take the scopolamine shot, half-hoping that Annie's "loaded it with a hot shot of something" that will kill him (295).

Paul doesn't die but he begins to feel "untethered from his body." He thinks about the barbecue pot and a disco song that goes, "burn, baby burn, burn the mother down" (295). An idea flickers in Paul's brain then he falls asleep.

Paul awakens at dawn to a very large rat eating the cheese Annie left for him. Paul screams, and the rat runs away. Paul takes two Novrils to ease the pain in his legs then begins contemplating the barbecue pot again. He wonders if he'd "wildly overestimated just how good Fast Cars had been" (296). Paul thinks about his frustration with being dismissed by the critical press as a "popular writer" (297).

Paul has to urinate again but it's more painful this time. The Novril kicks in and Paul spots a can of lighter fluid. He falls asleep with a smile on his face.

Annie arrives in the afternoon, tired though not depressed, and hauls Paul upstairs on her back. She turns to where the can of lighter fluid that Paul stuffed down the back of his pants once sat, but doesn't say anything. Paul feels that this time "he had really fooled her" (299).

Paul asks Annie for another shot of scopolamine and while she goes to get it, Paul hides the lighter fluid under his mattress. She comes back to give him the shot and some pencils and moves his wheelchair closer to the bed. Annie says she's going to sleep for a while, but she'll hear if a car comes. Annie tells Paul he can write longhand if he wants. Paul asks Annie if she'll promise him not to read anymore until he's done with the book. She asks if it's going to be a good one, and Paul tells her it's going to be "very hot stuff" (301).

Around eight o'clock that evening, Paul gets into his wheelchair and wheels over to the window where his "informal little writer's camp was pitched." He pulls out a "nine-inch section of the baseboard" (301) he'd discovered earlier and stashes the lighter fluid there. He writes for three hours then goes to sleep.

Chapter 37 of Misery's Return finds Geoffrey outside the hut of M'Chibi 'Beautiful One,' chief of the Bourka tribe. Geoffrey has "the Baroness's trunk poised over his head." Geoffrey hopes to get some of the torches M'Chibi, "Keeper of the Fire" has stashed in his hut (302). Geoffrey considers Hezekiah's advice to strike M'Chibi's head quickly but has "a moment's doubt" as the two men begin to exit the hut (303).

Paul pauses in his writing when he hears "the sound of an approaching engine." He feels calm even as Annie tells him to "get out of sight" (303). Paul angles himself so that he can't be seen but can still see outside. Two state troopers get out of the Plymouth: a tall man with shoulders "wide as a barn beam" and a smaller man with "faded blue eyes" (304). Annie talks to the two men while Paul wonders if he can get their attention without Annie killing them. Paul thinks he has an "eight in ten" chance that the troopers would apprehend Annie but decides to sit quietly. Paul wants to "take care of Annie Wilkes himself" (305).

The officer Annie shot, Duane Kushner, has become big news. The local news radio had broadcast the story frequently since Annie had returned from hiding Kushner's cruiser. A few National Guard officers had found Paul's Camaro swept off the road by the spring runoff. No connection between Kushner and Paul's disappearances has been announced yet.

Annie is still talking with the Colorado troopers. She leads them inside her house and they ask her what time Kushner came by, how long he stayed, whether he showed her a picture of Paul, and if had seen Paul. Annie says that she has seen him because she has "all his books." She says this "disappointed Officer Kushner" because if it was true Paul Sheldon was Annie's favorite writer, she would have recognized him if she'd seen him recently (307).

Paul hears the troopers move closer to his bedroom and also hears Annie telling one of the troopers not to break something. Annie tells the troopers that she gave Officer Kushner a cold Pepsi, which he took with him. The officers ask if Kushner said where he was going next, and Annie says he didn't, though she thinks he headed west. The troopers ask to look in Annie's barn and she says to go ahead and be sure to say hi to her pig, Misery.

Paul watches the troopers leave. They both tip their hats to Annie but have "a look in their eyes" that makes Paul think they know who Annie is. Annie comes back inside and asks Paul why he didn't holler. Paul says he didn't because he told her he was going to keep his mouth shut and finish his book for her "in relative peace." Annie looks at him "uncertainly, wanting to believe" and tells Paul to "get busy right away" (310).

The next two days pass without event. Paul begins to write longhand using the "half-dozen Berol Black Warrior pencils" Annie sharpens for him. In Misery's Return, the Bourkas' village burns while Ian, Geoffrey, and Hezekiah try to rescue Misery from "the crenellated passages behind the idol's forehead" and the Bourkas try to find and kill them (311).

On the third day, a Ford news wagon pulls up and a cameraman and news anchorwoman get out of it. Annie runs outside with her rifle and tells them to "get the hell out of here" (312). The newswoman tries to ask Annie some questions but Annie's anger escalates until she fires the rifle into the air then aims it at the news people. They dive into the station wagon and leave.

Annie comes into the house and tells Paul that "those brats" are back. They figured out where "the Dragon Lady" is. Paul tells Annie that all the news people want is to see Annie "fuck up while the tape's rolling" (313). Annie scratches her forehead, drawing blood, then tells Paul that this is what they want. She smears her hand in the blood and says this is what they want, then leaves the room. Paul continues writing.

Local police come to Annie's house to take her statement. They sit in the kitchen, recording it on a steno machine while Paul listens from his room. Annie's story doesn't change from the one she told the troopers. The local officers tell her she can have a lawyer present but she declines. They ask her how she got "the ugly-looking scratches on her forehead"; Annie says she got them during a bad dream that people remembered her and started coming to her house again (314).

After they leave, Annie comes into Paul's room looking "doughy and distant and ill" (314). She asks Paul how much longer until he's done with the book and he says two or three days. Annie says that the next time the police come, they'll have a search warrant.

Annie comes into Paul's room around midnight and tells him he should have been in bed an hour ago. Paul tells Annie it doesn't matter; he has to get the story down while it's in his head. Since starting to write longhand, Paul's developed a "half callus and half blister" on his index finger where the pencil rubs hardest. Annie asks Paul if he thinks it's really good and if he's not just doing it for her anymore. Paul says no, wanting to say that it was never for Annie, or anyone else, only for himself. Paul thinks it would be "unwise" to say this to her, though (314).

Paul writes until dawn then sleeps a few hours. He dreams Annie's father is climbing a long flight of stairs, carrying a basket of newspaper clippings. Paul tries to warn him but can't cry out. All that comes out is "a neatly reasoned paragraph of narration," different each time he tries to yell. Annie comes "rushing down the hall" to push her father down the stairs then turns into a bee (316). 

The next day some curious locals, or "Designated Gawkers" as Paul calls them, come up to Annie's. One, a carful of teenagers, yells at Annie, asking her where she buried the body. After they drive away, Annie wraps barbed wire around a length of chain and stretches it across her driveway. She attaches some red cloth "to aid visibility" (316). Annie tells Paul it won't keep the cops away, but it will keep the "brats" (317) away.

Annie notices Paul's swollen hand. She tells him she hates to "be a cockadoodie pest," and Paul interrupts her, saying he'll have Misery's Return done around six tomorrow evening (317). Annie's face softens, and she tells Paul that she loves him.

Annie brings Paul a Keflex pill for his urinary infection and a bucket of ice for his hand. Paul has to use his left hand to pry the pencil from his cramped, swollen right hand then puts his hand into the ice until it's "almost completely numb." After this, Paul begins writing again. He goes to bed at dawn and dreams he's "lost in a snowstorm," only it's not snow swirling around him, but papers covered in typing (317). All the "n's and t's and e's" are missing. Paul knows once the storm ends, he'll have to fill in all the missing letters by hand, "deciphering words that were barely there" (318).

Paul awakens around eleven the next morning and Annie brings him juice, Novril, and chicken soup. Annie tells Paul it's a "very special day" then fusses over his hand, "so swollen the skin was shiny." Annie tells Paul she'll get him another Novril, but he refuses. Paul says he wants his head clear for writing and tells Annie he'll finish the story on the Royal then fill in the missing letters by hand. Annie, looking "honestly sorry," says she should have gotten Paul a different typewriter (318). She kisses Paul's swollen hand.

Annie leaves Paul to finish his soup, and when she returns, Paul asks her what a "Do-Bee" is. Annie says Paul is the "goodest Do-Bee there ever was" then tells him she has something for him (319). She returns with a tray of caviar and toast points. Paul begins to laugh, which hurts his body. Instead of upsetting Annie this time, though, Paul's laughter makes her laugh, too.

Paul eats his fill of caviar. Annie tells him she also bought a bottle of Dom Pérignon for them to drink when the book is done. Paul asks for one more thing: a cigarette from the carton in his suitcase. Annie protests that those things will cause cancer, but Paul replies that cancer probably isn't something he has to worry about just now. With reluctance, Annie agrees to let Paul have a cigarette by himself in the room before they drink the champagne together. Paul asks her to bring the cigarette to him around noon, so he can "look at it once in a while" while he finishes writing (321). Annie tells Paul that "only Don't Bees smoke" then leaves the room (322).

In the final pages of Misery's Return, Ian, Geoffrey, Hezekiah, and Misery are on a ship, sailing away from Africa. The men worry that Misery is dead, but then she rouses from her unconsciousness. She hugs Ian as Geoffrey and Hezekiah leave the married couple alone. As he leaves, Geoffrey silently tells Misery he loves her and asks if she hears him. In his mind, Geoffrey hears Misery say that she hears him and loves him, too.

Above deck, Geoffrey smokes a pipe instead of "throwing himself over the rail." He watches the sun go down behind a "cloud which was the coast of Africa" (323). Paul ends the story here, scrawling "the end" in pen (324).

Paul fills in the final pages' missing letters with his "swollen hand." He feels "good to be done" though a bit strange (324). Paul looks over at the single cigarette Annie brought him in the ceramic ashtray. Annie also brought Paul a book of matches with a single match inside, though Paul thinks that one "should be good enough." Paul leans down and begins to "work the loose section of baseboard out" (325) to retrieve the lighter fluid.

Five minutes later, Paul calls Annie into his room. He sits in his wheelchair with the board across the arms, holding the Royal typewriter and the lighter-fluid-soaked manuscript. Annie asks him if he's really done, and Paul says he did the best he could. Annie says she can hardly believe it and goes to get the champagne. Paul listens to Annie moving in the kitchen, knowing he's "hearing all these sounds for the last time" (326). He feels a mix of wonder and fear.

Paul struggles to light the single match as Annie returns to his room. It lights on the third strike.

Annie enters the room holding the unopened champagne bottle to see Paul holding the lit match over the Misery's Return manuscript. She "cautiously" asks Paul what he's doing. Paul says it's done and "maybe the best thing" he's ever written but now he's going to "do a little trick" he learned from Annie. Annie screams at Paul not to do it and drops the champagne bottle, which explodes on impact. Paul says it's too bad Annie will never read it with "his first real smile in months" (327). He drops the match and the manuscript ignites.

The papers blaze on Paul's board, turning the side of the Royal black. Flames begin to shoot up between the typewriter's keys. Annie lunges to grab the burning manuscript and as she does, Paul lifts the flaming typewriter, as he'd been practicing, and brings it down on Annie's back. She falls to the floor with "a vast, startled grunt." Paul pushes the board off his wheelchair and stands on his one foot. Annie rolls herself onto her hands and knees and calls Paul a "lying cocksucker" (328). She tells him she's going to kill him, but Paul falls on top of her. Annie lands on top of the typewriter.

Paul begins to shove handfuls of the flaming manuscript into Annie's mouth. He tells her to "be a Do-Bee and eat your book all up." Though mostly aflame, Annie manages to buck Paul off of her and gets to her feet. She trips on the typewriter and hits her head on the mantelpiece as she falls "like a loose sack of bricks" (330).

Annie falls on the "bulk of the burning paper," amidst "the puddles of champagne" and broken glass (330). Paul uses his coverlet to put out the small flames around the room. He's badly hurt and "the sick-sweet smell of burned meat" fills his room. Seeing he's put all the paper flames out, Paul drags himself to his wheelchair as Annie opens her eyes (331).

Paul watches, "unbelieving," as Annie crawls to her hands and knees (331). He begins to drag himself towards the door. Over his shoulder, Paul sees Annie's face turning "slowly purple." Annie grabs Paul's left leg but he pulls it "footlessly" out of her grasp. Annie continues to advance as Paul reaches the doorjamb. He grabs it and holds on as Annie makes her way to him. Her face has gone "a dusky rotted-plum black from which her bleeding eyes" bulge (332). As Annie comes down on Paul's body, she wraps her hands around his throat. Her own throat, however, badly burned, closes, and Annie collapses on Paul.

Paul drags himself out from under Annie "with the last of his strength." Paul thinks Annie "must be dead" but doesn't believe it (333). He slams the bedroom door shut and bolts its lock. He lies "in a stupor" for a while until a "low, minute scratching sound" rouses him (334). Annie's fingers poke out from under the door and grasp his shirt. Paul pounds the fingers with his fist then drags himself to the bathroom and finds the Novril. He takes three capsules then falls asleep against the bathroom door.

Paul awakens in the bathroom, imagining that he hears Annie moving around in the parlor. He goes back and forth in his head between thinking she's dead and thinking she's in the house, or out the window. Paul contemplates leaving the house and burning it down but can't. He hid "the real manuscript" for Misery's Return under his bed (336). Paul finally leaves the bathroom and drags himself into the parlor. In the dark, Paul think she sees Annie behind the overstuffed sofa, behind the kitchen door, and, finally, behind him.

From outside, Paul hears tires "skid in the dirt" as the car's driver sees the chain across the driveway, then someone says, "Shit! Look at this!" Paul drags himself to the parlor window and sees the two state troopers who had questioned Annie about Officer Kushner. Paul grabs one of Annie's ceramic figures, a penguin on a block of ice with the caption "Now my tale is told!" and hurls it through the window (337). He yells, "Here, in here, please, I'm in here!" (338).

The troopers, Wicks and McKnight, break into the house and find Paul, looking like "he hadn't seen anybody in forty years" (338).

In stuttering sentence fragments, Paul tells Wicks and McKnight that he's the missing writer for whom they've been looking, that Annie kept him locked in the bedroom and cut off his foot, and that Annie is in the bedroom. As Wicks unlocks the door, Paul yells for them to "be careful!" (339).

The troopers unlock the door and go inside. Paul waits for them or Annie to scream but "a very long time" passes without sound. When Wicks finally comes back, he tells Paul there was "blood and broken glass and charred paper" in the bedroom but not a person (340). Paul begins to scream until he faints.