Characters in Misery

The fourth was their father, Adrian Krenmitz, 41. Mr. Krenmitz rescued the surviving Krenmitz child, Laurene Krenmitz, who is eighteen months old.

Oak Hall was the inheritance of Albert Fossington a schoolmate of Geoffrey’s and Ian’s. Mrs. Ramage quite rightly believed that Bertie Fossington was mad. Some three years ago he had eaten his favorite polo pony after it had broken two legs and needed to be destroyed.

Three of the dead were children—Paul Krenmitz, 8, Frederick Krenmitz, 6, and Alison Krenmitz, 3. The fourth was their father, Adrian Krenmitz, 41. Mr. Krenmitz rescued the surviving Krenmitz child, Laurene Krenmitz, who is eighteen months old.

The neat handwriting below this clipping read Los Angeles Call, January 29th, 1962. USC STUDENT DIES IN FREAK FALL Andrea Saint James, a USC nursing student, was pronounced dead on arrival at Mercy Hospital in North Los Angeles last night, the apparent victim of a bizarre accident.

The following week’s paper identified him as Andrew Pomeroy, age twenty-three, of Cold Stream Harbor, New York. Pomeroy had left New York for L.A. in September of the previous year, hitchhiking. His parents had last heard from him on October 15th. He had called them collect from Julesburg.

Then, reading the clipping again, he noticed something suggestive: Angela Ford from John Ford. Kirsten Frawley from Stanley Frawley. Danna McLaren from Lee McLaren. And . . . Ralph Dugan from Anne Dugan. There’s this American custom, right? No one talks about it much, but it’s there.

Faintly he could hear the sound of Annie Wilkes, Thomas’s capable nurse, as she began to soothe him and change his napkin. “The wee bairn’s in good voice today,” Mrs. Ramage observed.

… had apparently taken a fancy to before sending Baron Heidzig into the mouth of the idol and to his undoubtedly terrible death: the Baron’s blued steel handcuffs. This time it was Hezekiah who grabbed Ian, but the bushes rustled again and Geoffrey looked into the clearing, his breath momentarily catching …

He vaguely remembered an evening he’d spent drinking Scotch with a gloomy playwright named Bernstein at the Lion’s Head, down in the Village (and if he lived to see the Village again he would get down on whatever remained of his knees and kiss the grimy sidewalk of Christopher Street).

Been here untouched since Bill died five years ago, on Lammas-night. I’ll have a bit and then join you, Mr. Geoffrey.” “You’re a brave woman, Mrs. Ramage. Be quick.” “Aye, never fear me,” she said, and grasped the bottle of gin with a hand that trembled only slightly.

“Two years ago I had Billy Haversham put heat-tapes in the roof. You throw a switch and they get hot and melt the ice. I won’t need them much longer this winter, though—see how it’s melting on its own?” He had a forkful of egg halfway to his mouth.

… door with rusty hinges squealing in the wind—but Bossie No. 1 abruptly fell silent. Paul wondered uneasily if perhaps the poor animal’s udder had burst, resulting in death by exsanguination. For a moment his imagination so vivid! tried to present him with a picture of the cow lying dead in …

Her baseball cap had fallen off. Her face was twisted in a frozen snarl. In one hand she held a wooden cross. It had marked the grave of the Bossie—Paul didn’t remember if it was No. 1 or No. 2—which had finally stopped bawling.

… sexy, bubbleheaded, unsinkabie Misery Chastain; by his agent, Bryce Bell. “I think he’s fine,” Bell said, “but I wish he’d get in touch and ease my mind. And his ex-wives wish he’d get in touch and ease their bank accounts.” Sheldon was last seen seven weeks ago in Boulder, Colorado, …

It doesn’t have to exactly be the whole story, I guess, but . . . did the Baron kill Calthorpe?” her eyes sparkled. “That’s one thing I really want to know. And what did he do with the body if he did?

Yes, he supposed it was. In Can You? the counsellor would start a story about this guy named Careless Corrigan. Careless was lost in the trackless jungles of South America.

Father, Carl Wilkes; mother, Crysilda Wilkes. The name of Annie’s older brother gave him a start. He must have been the one with whom she had gone to the movies and seen the chapter-plays. Her brother had been Paul, too. Page three announced the birth of Anne Marie Wilkes, d.o.b.

Hastings House had ordered an unprecedented first printing of a million copies. “And that’s only the beginning,” Charlie Merrill, his editor, had told him at lunch that day—the lunch from which Paul was now returning with his bound galleys.

Only the name of the unfortunate Miss Charlotte Evelyn-Hyde, late of Storping-on-Firkill, the village just to the west of Little Dunthorpe, was sufficient to bring a scream tearing from her. “Oh, my saints! Oh, my dear Jesus! Has she been buried alive? Has she been buried alive?

If he got out of this alive, he thought he might drop Christopher Hale a note. Hale reviewed books for the New York Times.

It’s called Dom Pérignon. It cost seventy-five dollars! For one bottle! But Chuckie Yoder down at the liquor store says it’s the best there is.” “Chuckie Yoder is right,” Paul said, thinking that it was partly Dom’s fault that he’d gotten himself into this hell in the first place.

His name was Colter. He was one of the church sextons. To be brutally frank, the man was a gravedigger. “Colter,” he said. “What can I do for you?” Colter spoke hesitantly. “It’s the noises, sair. The noises in the churchyard.

Father, Carl Wilkes; mother, Crysilda Wilkes. The name of Annie’s older brother gave him a start. He must have been the one with whom she had gone to the movies and seen the chapter-plays. Her brother had been Paul, too. Page three announced the birth of Anne Marie Wilkes, d.o.b.

The counsellor would look around the circle and pick one of the day-campers. “Daniel,” he would say. “Can you?” The moment Can you? was out of his mouth, the counsellor would click the stopwatch into motion. Daniel then had exactly ten seconds to go on with the story.

Danna McLaren from Lee McLaren. And . . . Ralph Dugan from Anne Dugan. There’s this American custom, right? No one talks about it much, but it’s there. Men propose in the moonlight; women file in court. That’s not always how it works, but usually that’s it.

Dr. Billford, shaken to within an inch of sanity himself, diagnosed catalepsy. The poor woman had apparently fallen into some sort of deathlike trance, much like the sort those Indian fakirs could voluntarily induce in themselves before allowing themselves to be buried alive or to have needles passed …

“It’s just that I didn’t want to go to Dr. Bookings, nor did I want to disturb His Lordship. Not, at least, until I’d spoken to you, if ye take my meaning, sair.” Geoffrey didn’t, but quite suddenly he did know one thing—who this late-coming visitor was.

Dr. Frank Canley, the admitting physician, said that Wilkes died of multiple skull fractures and a broken neck. He was 44. Wilkes is survived by his wife, Crysilda, a son, Paul, 18, and a daughter, Anne, 14.

He pulled in a gasp of air and hot pain needled his side, where his ribs had been tightly taped by Dr. Shinebone.

Annie had listened to the radio constantly since her long sleep, and the missing state cop, whose name was Duane Kushner, was big news.

… was just the cat, a crosseyed Siamese named Dumpster he had gotten last month at the pound. There was no Annie because Annie had not been a goddess at all, only a crazy lady who had hurt Paul for reasons of her own. Annie had managed to pull most of …

Why, didn’t Duncan Fromsley see old man Patterson not two days after his funeral, glowin’ just as white as marsh-fire (which was just what it probably was, Geoffrey thought, marsh-fire plus whatever came out of old Fromsley’s last bottle)?

11 It wasn’t a cat. Eddie Desmond had lived in New York City all his life, but he had been to the Bronx Zoo, and Christ, there were picture-books, weren’t there?

… they had brought it out of the luau pit—Eileen had turned away but Paul had watched, fascinated, as they pulled off the pig’s crackling skin as easily as you might skim off a sweater after a football game. “Almost over—” She turned the torch off. His leg lay in a …

March 2nd, 1969. It was a simple obituary which seemed to have no connection with Annie Wilkes at all. Ernest Gonyar, age seventy-nine, had died in Saint Joseph’s Hospital. No exact cause of death given. “After a long illness,” the obit said.

Three of the dead were children—Paul Krenmitz, 8, Frederick Krenmitz, 6, and Alison Krenmitz, 3. The fourth was their father, Adrian Krenmitz, 41. Mr. Krenmitz rescued the surviving Krenmitz child, Laurene Krenmitz, who is eighteen months old.

Or there was the case of his friend Gary Ruddman, who worked for the Boulder Public Library. When Paul had dropped over to see him one day, he had found Gary’s shades drawn and a black crepe fluff on the door. Concerned, Paul had knocked hard until Gary answered.

He had been dreaming awake. 6 MISERY’S RETURN By Paul Sheldon For Annie Wilkes CHAPTER 1 For a moment Geoffrey Alliburton was not sure who the old man at the door was, and this was not entirely because the bell had awakened him from a deepening doze.

… had stopped in the Boulderado bar and tipped George twenty bucks to provide him with a second bottle of Dom, and he had drunk it rolling up 1-70 into the Rockies under a sky the color of gunmetal, and somewhere east of the Eisenhower Tunnel he had diverted from the …

“Ms. Wilkes, I’m Glenna Roberts from KTKA—” “I don’t care if you’re John Q. Jesus Johnnycake Christ from the planet Mars! Get off my land or you’re DEAD!” “But—” KAPOW! Oh Annie oh my Jesus Annie killed that stupid broad— He rolled back and peeked through the window.

She could smell Gwendolyn Chastain’s perfume in the moment before the madwoman’s hands closed around her throat. “In fact,” the gipsy who was not a gipsy observed, “I think she is here now.” Misery tried to scream, but could no longer even breathe.

“All done,” he agreed, and in his mind he saw the Roydmans driving up from Sidewinder, saw a bright arrow of light strike Mrs. Roydman’s face, making her wince and put a shielding hand up—What’s down there, Ham? . . . Don’t tell me I’m crazy, there’s something down there!

March 19th, 1969. The lady was identified as Hester “Queenie” Beaulifant, eighty-four. In the picture she looked like something whose bones might have been exhumed from the La Brea Tar Pits. The same thing that had gotten Ernie had gotten “Queenie”—seemed like that long-illness shit was going around.

Geoffrey realized with cold certainty that what they had seen when Hezekiah pulled the protective screen of bushes aside had come very close to driving Ian mad. He still tottered on the brink, and the slightest push would send him over. If that happened, he would take Misery with him.

… Paul Sheldon For Annie Wilkes CHAPTER 1 Although Ian Carmichael would not have moved from Little Dunthorpe for all the jewels in the Queen’s treasury, he had to admit to himself that when it rained in Cornwall, it rained harder than anywhere else in England. There was an old strip …

Pray for us.” “I never saw him again,” she said. The fifth victim, Irving Thalman, 58, was a bachelor who lived on the top floor of the building. The third-floor apartment was vacant at the time of the fire.

Mr. Krenmitz rescued the surviving Krenmitz child, Laurene Krenmitz, who is eighteen months old. According to Mrs. Jessica Krenmitz, her husband put the youngest of their four children in her arms and told her, “I’ll be back with the others in a minute or two. Pray for us.”

He remembered finding one of Joan’s bras under a sofa cushion earlier in the day, and she had been gone a full three months, showed you what kind of a job the cleaning service did; he remembered hearing New York traffic, and, faintly, the monotonous tolling of a church bell …

Then, reading the clipping again, he noticed something suggestive: Angela Ford from John Ford. Kirsten Frawley from Stanley Frawley. Danna McLaren from Lee McLaren. And . . . Ralph Dugan from Anne Dugan. There’s this American custom, right? No one talks about it much, but it’s there.

Then, reading the clipping again, he noticed something suggestive: Angela Ford from John Ford. Kirsten Frawley from Stanley Frawley. Danna McLaren from Lee McLaren. And . . . Ralph Dugan from Anne Dugan. There’s this American custom, right? No one talks about it much, but it’s there.

Laura D. Rothberg. Long illness. September 21st, 1978. Denver Receiving Hospital. Then the pattern broke wide open. The next page announced a wedding instead of a funeral. The photo showed Annie, not in her uniform but in a white dress frothing with lace.

Mr. Krenmitz rescued the surviving Krenmitz child, Laurene Krenmitz, who is eighteen months old. According to Mrs. Jessica Krenmitz, her husband put the youngest of their four children in her arms and told her, “I’ll be back with the others in a minute or two. Pray for us.”

Danna McLaren from Lee McLaren. And . . . Ralph Dugan from Anne Dugan. There’s this American custom, right? No one talks about it much, but it’s there. Men propose in the moonlight; women file in court. That’s not always how it works, but usually that’s it.

Halfway through Fast Cars, Tony had killed Lieutenant Gray when the lieutenant tried to slap the cuffs on him in a Times Square movie theater. Paul wanted Tony to get away with the murder—for awhile, anyway—because there could be no third act with Tony sitting in the cooler.

He had been standing in the deep shadows outside the hut which belonged to M’Chibi “Beautiful One” for the last five minutes, looking rather like a too-slim version of the circus strong-man with the Baroness’s trunk poised over his head.

… that the pirates had taken her away as Mad Jack Wickersham had sworn they would. Mrs. Ramage suddenly remembered something she had left undone in the parlor and left them together—she went, however, with a smile on her face. Mrs. Ramage, too, had her moments when she could not help …

The tails blew out behind him as he whipped Mary on. The elderly mare did not like the speed upon which he was insisting; Geoffrey did not like the deepening pain in his shoulder and side . . . but the pain of neither could he helped. Scratching sounds, sair!

Mrs. Roman D. (“Virginia”) Sandpiper told him that she had found a man named McKibbon who owned an old squirrel-rifle, and had gotten him to put the bullet-hole in the wall by the chair—while she could not swear to the historical accuracy of the gun, Mrs. Roman D. (“Virginia”) Sandpiper …

2 Now I must rinse she said, and this is how it rinses out: 3 Nine months after Wicks and McKnight carried him from Annie’s house on a makeshift litter, Paul Sheldon was dividing his time between Doctors Hospital in Queens and a new apartment on the East Side of …

… Made “As Yet,” Sheriff’s Office Spokeswoman Says By Michael Leith Anne Wilkes, the thirty-nine-year-old head nurse of the maternity ward at Boulder Hospital, is being questioned today about the deaths of eight infants—deaths which have taken place over a span of some months. All of the deaths took place following …

Centralia Fire Chief Michael O’Whunn said that the fire began in the apartment building’s basement. When asked about the possibility of arson, he said: “It’s more likely that a wino crept into the basement, had a few drinks, and accidentally started the fire with a cigarette.

Now he heard the eager squeal of the pig—she had thought he would mind, but he thought Misery was a wonderful name for a pig.

Mr. Cranthorpe, for instance. She hoped Mr. Cranthorpe would get his comeuppance, but she did not demand it. She saw the story’s creative course as something outside of her hands, in spite of her obvious control of him. But some things simply could not be done.

She included Polaroids of Misery’s Spinning Wheel, Misery’s Escritoire (complete with a half-completed bread-and-butter note to Mr. Faverey, saying she would be in attendance at the School Hall Recitation on 20th Nov.

She had done it on purpose, he realized dully. If he, Paul, couldn’t see them, then there was no chance that Mr. Rancho Grande might look in through the guest-room window and see him. The shadows remained on the melting snowpack of Annie’s driveway for about five minutes.

One, then two drops fell on the coverlet. “And then do I go down the street to the bank and say to Mrs. Bollinger, ‘Here’s one big bastard of a check and you better give me fifty effing dollars just as effing quick as you can’?

He had been twelve. It was summer vacation, his father working, his mother gone to spend the day in Boston with Mrs. Kaspbrak from across the street. He had seen a pack of her cigarettes and had lit one of them.

His mother liked to tell Mrs. Mulvaney on the other side of the fence what a marvellous imagination he had, so vivid, and what wonderful little stories he was always writing down (except, of course, when she was calling him a sissy and a bawl-baby).

Mrs. Ramage, the Carmichaels’ crotchety but lovable old housekeeper, asked him as she came in from the pantry. As usual, her mobcap was askew and she smelled of the snuff she still firmly believed, after all these years, to be a secret vice. “Not on purpose, Mrs. Ramage,” Ian said.

“All done,” he agreed, and in his mind he saw the Roydmans driving up from Sidewinder, saw a bright arrow of light strike Mrs. Roydman’s face, making her wince and put a shielding hand up—What’s down there, Ham? . . . Don’t tell me I’m crazy, there’s something down there!

Four days following the interment, an elderly woman named Mrs. Soames—Mrs. Ramage knew her slightly—had observed something white lying on the ground of the Congregational church’s cemetery as she entered it to put flowers on the grave of her husband, who had died the previous winter.

But Nancy Dartmonger, the lady who runs it, is a silly woman.” Annie darkened a little, but he saw at once that she was not darkening at him—the survival instinct, he was discovering, might be only instinct in itself, but it created some really amazing shortcuts to empathy.

“Hello, Sidewinder Police Station, Officer Humbuggy speaking.” “Listen to me, Officer Humbuggy. Listen very carefully and don’t interrupt, because I don’t know how much time I have. My name is Paul Sheldon. I’m calling you from Annie Wilkes’s house.

Why, didn’t Duncan Fromsley see old man Patterson not two days after his funeral, glowin’ just as white as marsh-fire (which was just what it probably was, Geoffrey thought, marsh-fire plus whatever came out of old Fromsley’s last bottle)?

Page two was a birth announcement: Paul Emery Wilkes, born in Bakersfield Receiving Hospital, May 12th, 1939. Father, Carl Wilkes; mother, Crysilda Wilkes. The name of Annie’s older brother gave him a start.

Three of the dead were children—Paul Krenmitz, 8, Frederick Krenmitz, 6, and Alison Krenmitz, 3. The fourth was their father, Adrian Krenmitz, 41. Mr. Krenmitz rescued the surviving Krenmitz child, Laurene Krenmitz, who is eighteen months old.

The third was a woman of forty-six named Paulette Simeaux. Paulette had died of that common runner-up, Short Illness. Although the picture accompanying the obit was even grainier and fuzzier than usual, Paul saw that Paulette Simeaux made “Queenie” Beaulifant look like Thumbelina.

Miss Wilkes said that, in her effort to render aid, she almost fell herself. “We had a cat named Peter Gunn,” she said, “only we hadn’t seen him for days and thought the pound must have gotten him because we kept forgetting to get him a tag.

Beside her, holding her hands in his, was a man named Ralph Dugan. Dugan was a physical therapist, DUGAN-WILKES NUPTIALS, the clipping was headed. Rocky Mountain News, January 2nd, 1979. Dugan was quite unremarkable save for one thing: he looked like Annie’s father.

“Put that in your wallet,” Roger Sheldon said, “and if you ever get excited while you’re making out at the drive-in, take a second between excited enough to want to and too excited to care and slip that on.

Then, reading the clipping again, he noticed something suggestive: Angela Ford from John Ford. Kirsten Frawley from Stanley Frawley. Danna McLaren from Lee McLaren. And . . . Ralph Dugan from Anne Dugan. There’s this American custom, right? No one talks about it much, but it’s there.

She had been a vain and foolish creature, dangerous as well—she had almost gotten them killed when she had freed Stringfellow’s bushmaster—but silly or not, foolish or not, dangerous or not, no man or woman deserved to die like that.

When asked if Miss Wilkes was under arrest, Sheriff’s Office spokeswoman Tamara Kinsolving said she was not. When asked if Miss Wilkes had come in of her own free will to give information in the case, Ms. Kinsolving replied: “I would have to say that was not the case.

Faintly he could hear the sound of Annie Wilkes, Thomas’s capable nurse, as she began to soothe him and change his napkin. “The wee bairn’s in good voice today,” Mrs. Ramage observed.

… of car-thievery with a tough old ex-cop named Tom Twyford. Tom had shown him how to hotwire an ignition, how to use the thin and limber strip of metal car-thieves called Slim Jims to yank the lock on a car door, how to short out a car burglar alarm. Or, …

“I understand what you mean, Annie. It’s true that Tony Bonasaro has no nobility. He’s a slum kid trying to get out of a bad environment, you see, and those words . . . everybody uses those words in—” “They do not!” she said, giving him a forbidding look.

“When I got to the feed store, Tony Roberts told me I better step on it if I was going to get back here before the storm hit, and I said—” “How far are we from this town?” he asked. “A ways,” she said vaguely, looking off toward the window.

The servants—most notably Geoffrey’s gossipy butler, Tyler—would see and talk. Also, he needed to establish the total amnesia which had been caused by the shock of being buried alive. Amnesia? Shit, the chick could barely talk. Sort of a relief, given Misery’s usual burblings. So—what next?

But the blue-ribbon winner (at least until Annie Wilkes had entered his life) had been Mrs. Roman D. Sandpiper III, of Ink Beach, Florida. Mrs. Roman D. Sandpiper, whose given name was Virginia, had turned an upstairs room of her home into Misery’s Parlor.

… from the palace dungeons of the mad French viscount Leroux, how they had escaped in a wagon load of hay, and how Misery distracted one of the viscount’s guards at a critical moment by slipping one gorgeously unclad leg out of the hay and waving it delicately. Geoffrey had been …

“There was a book I read when I was in high school,” Wicks told his wife early the next morning. “Count of Monte Cristo, I think, or maybe it was The Prisoner of Zenda. Anyway, there was a guy in that book who’d spent forty years in solitary confinement.