Carrie

CARRIE _________________ STEPHEN KING DOUBLEDAY NEW YORK LONDON TORONTO SYDNEY AUCKLAND Published by Doubleday, a division of Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing Group, Inc. 666 Fifth Avenue, New York, New York 10103 DOUBLEDAY and the portrayal of an anchor with a dolphin are trademarks of Doubleday, a division of Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing Group, Inc. ISBN: 0-385-08695-4 LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOG CARD NUMBER: 73-9037 Copyright © 1974 by Stephen King ALL RIGHTS RESERVED PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA FIRST EDITION This is for Tabby, who got me into it----And then bailed me out of it. CARRIE Part One ____________ Blood Sport News item from the Westover (Me.) weekly Enterprise, August 19, 1966: RAIN OF STONES REPORTED It was reliably reported by several persons that a rain of stones fell from a clear blue sky on Carlin Street in the town of Chamberlain on August 17th. The stones fell principally on the home of Mrs. Margaret White, damaging the roof extensively and ruining two gutters and a downspout valued at approximately $25. Mrs. White, a widow, lives with her three-year-old daughter, Carietta. Mrs. White could not he reached for comment. Nobody was really surprised when it happened, not really, not at the subconscious level where savage things grow. On the surface, all the girls in the shower room were shocked, thrilled, ashamed, or simply glad that the White bitch had taken it in the mouth again. Some of ~hem might also have claimed surprise, but of course their claim was untrue. Carrie had been going to school with some of them since the first grade, and this had been building since that time, building slowly and immutably, in accordance with all the laws that govern human nature, building with all the steadiness of a chain reaction approaching critical mass. What none of them knew, of course, was that Carrie White was telekinetic. Graffiti scratched on a desk of the Barker Street Grammar School in Chamberlain: Carrie White eats shit. The locker room was filled with shouts, echoes, and the subterranean sound of showers ~plashing on tile. The girls had been playing volleyball in Period One, and their morning sweat was light and eager. Girls stretched and writhed under the hot water, squalling, flicking water, squirting white bars of soap from hand to hand. Carrie stood among them stolidly, a frog among swans. She was a chunky girl with pimples on her neck and back and buttocks, her wet hair completely without color. It rested against her face with dispirited sogginess and she simply stood, head slightly bent, letting the water splat against her flesh and roll off. She looked the part of the sacrificial goat, the constant butt, believer in left-handed monkey wrenches, perpetual foulup, and she was. She wished forlornly and constantly that Ewen High had individual-and thus private-showers, like the high schools at Westover or Lewiston. They stared. They always stared. Showers turning off one by one, girls stepping out, removing pastel bathing caps, toweling, spraying deodorant, checking the clock over the door. Bras were hooked, underpants stepped into. Steam hung in the air; the place might have been an Egyptian bathhouse except for the constant rumble of the Jacuzzi whirlpool in the corner. Calls and catcalls rebounded with all the snap and flicker of billiard balls after a hard break. "-so Tommy said he hated it on me and I