killed! And you'd never know!'
'Know what?' Slade asked.
'That I'm Polly Peachtree!'
Slade gaped at her. 'But you can't be Polly Peachtree! She was my
one true love and she was killed by a flaming Montgolfer balloon
while milking the cows!'
'I escaped but I had amnesia!' She cried. 'It's all just come back to
me tonight. Look!' And she pulled off a blond wig she had been
wearing. She was indeed the beautiful Polly Peachtree of Paduka,
returned from the dead!
'POLLY!!!'
'SLADE!!!'
Slade rushed to her and they embraced, Sam Columbine forgotten.
Slade was just about to ask her how things were going when Sam
Columbine, evil rat that he was, crept up behind him and shot
Slade in the back three times.
'Thank God!' Polly whispered as she and Sam embraced 'At last.
he's gone and we are free, my darling!'
Yeah,' Sam growled 'How are things going Polly?'
tYou don't know how terrible it's been,' she sobbed 'Not only was
he killing everybody, but he was queerer than a three-dollar bill.'
'Well it's over,' Sam said.
'Like fun!' Slade said. He sat up and blasted them both. 'Good
thing I was wearing my bullet proof underwear,' he said lighting a
new Mexican cigar. He stared at the cooling bodies of Sam
Columbine and Polly Peachtree, and a great wave of sadness swept
over him. He threw away his cigar and lit a joint. Then he walked
over to where he had tethered Stokely, his black stallion. He
wrapped his arms around Stokely's neck and held him close.
'At last, darling,' Slade whispered. 'We're alone.'
After a long while, Slade and Stokely rode off into the sunset in
search of new adventures.
THE END
Squad D
Stephen King
Written for
Dangerous Visions #3
Billy Clewson died all at once, with nine of the ten other members
of D Squad on April 8, 1974. It took his mother two years, but she
got started right away on the afternoon the telegram announcing
her son's death came, in fact. Dale Clewson simply sat on the
bench in the front hall for five minutes, the sheet of yellow flimsy
paper dangling from his fingers, not sure if he was going to faint or
puke or scream or what. When he was able to get up, he went into
the living room. He was in time to observe Andrea down the last
swallow of the first drink and pour the post-Billy era's second
drink. A good many more drinks followed - it was really amazing,
how many drinks that small and seemingly frail woman had been
able to pack into a two-year period. The written cause - that which
appeared on her death certificate - was liver dysfunction and renal
