You Like It Darker

by Stephen King

The Answer Man laughed and pointed a finger at Phil. “Good one, my friend. I like you. But before I take your money, there’s one rule we need to get straight.”

“I am not a psychiatrist or a counselor. Nor am I a fortune teller, although I’m sure that’s what you’re thinking. Here’s the point: don’t try asking me any questions with should I in them. No should I this, no should I that. I answer questions, but I’m not going to solve your problems.”

“My father says there’s going to be a war. I say there won’t be. Which of us is right?” “He is.” “Will America be in it?” “Yes.” “How long before we’re in it?” “Four years and two months.” He was down to twenty seconds now, maybe a little more. “Will I be in it?” “Yes.” “Will I be hurt?” “No.” But that wasn’t the right question. It left a loophole. “Will I be killed?” The big stopwatch reached zero and went off with a BRRRANG sound. The Answer Man silenced it.

“You asked that question just before the alarm, so I’ll answer. No, Just Phil, you will not be killed.”

The Answer Man only smiled. “But I didn’t know exactly where I was going or what road I was going to take… so how could you?” No reply. Of course not. His five minutes were up. “You know what? I feel… weird. Swimmy.” The world seemed to be going away. The Answer Man was still sitting at his table, but he appeared to be withdrawing. As if on rails. Grayness began to encroach on Phil’s field of vision. He raised his hands to his eyes to clear them, and gray became black.

When Phil came to, he was behind the wheel of his Chevrolet, parked on the shoulder of Route 111. His watch said it was 1:20. I passed out. First time in my life, but don’t they say there’s a first time for everything?

“How much do you charge?” It came out Yankee: Chaaage.

Nine weeks later, Phil sat in a Parris Island Quonset hut, sweating and aching in every muscle. He was reading a letter from Sally Ann. She was pregnant.

He heard bullets whip by on both sides of his head. He was aware of tugs at his pants and shirt, as if he were being nipped by a playful puppy. He would later count over a dozen holes in his clothing, but not a single bullet hit him or even grazed him.

The Nambu jammed. He threw it aside, bent, and a bullet whanged his helmet off his head and sent it flying. Phil hardly noticed.

Honor recipients during the Second World War, and although unwounded, his war was over. A photographer took a picture of his bullet-riddled shirt with the sun shining through the holes, and it made all the papers back home in what combat Marines called “the world.” He was an authentic hero, and would spend the rest of his service in America, making speeches and selling War Bonds.

Ted Allburton embraced him and called him a warrior. Called him son. Phil thought, This man is ridiculous. But he hugged back willingly enough, knowing when a hatchet was being buried. He met his son, now nearly three years old.

He thought of how some of those passing slugs had tugged playfully at his clothes, as if they weren’t pellets of death, or worse, bringers of lifelong injury. He thought of how sure he’d been of his survival because of the Answer Man’s—call it what it was—his prophecy. And on those nights he wondered if the man under the red umbrella had seen the future… or made it. To this question Phil found no answer.

Phil had aged; the Answer Man hadn’t. He looked exactly the same as he had on that October day fourteen years ago. His thinning hair was no thinner now. His eyes were the same bright blue. White shirt, gray slacks, black shoes—all just as before. His long-fingered hands were folded on his table just as before.

The one on the left read $50 PER 3 MINUTES. The one on the right read YOUR FIRST ANSWER FREE. I guess even magic isn’t immune to inflation, Phil thought. Meanwhile, the Answer Man was looking at him with lively interest.

“They don’t see us, do they?” “Another question to which you know the answer, my friend. Of course they don’t. Reality has folds, and we’re currently in one of them. That’s your free question. If you want to ask others, you have to pay. And in case you were wondering, I don’t take checks.”

A week later their family doctor called and told them he was sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but it looked like Jake had acute lymphocytic leukemia.

Their sturdy son went downhill fast. Eight months into what was then called “the wasting disease,” Jake had a remission that gave his parents several weeks of cruel hope. Then came the crash. Jacob Theodore Parker died in Portsmouth Regional Hospital on March 23rd, 1953, at the age of ten.

It was the first lie he told about her drinking, but not the last.

But she did. She had her Gilbey’s Gin and her Kool cigarettes. Two packs a day. She kept them in a little alligator case that looked like a change purse. She became pregnant in 1954. He suggested she quit smoking. She suggested he should keep his advice, however well-meant, to himself. She miscarried in her fourth month.

“No more of that,” she told him from her bed in North Conway Hospital. “I’m forty. Too old to have a baby.”

Coming home on Route 16, driving at a high rate of speed, her little Renault Dauphine veered off the road and struck a bridge abutment. Death was instantaneous. The postmortem reported a blood alcohol level of .39. Upon hearing the news that his daughter was dead, Ted Allburton suffered a heart attack. After five days in intensive care, he died. The back-to-back funerals almost made Phil wish he were back on Eniwetok.

shaded the Answer Man’s little table. “Come here and talk to me,” Phil said to the windy darkness. From the pocket of his overcoat he took a roll of bills. “I’ve got eight hundred here, maybe even a thousand, and I’ve got a few questions. Number one is this—was it an accident, or did she kill herself?”

Below the photograph were six words in capitals Phil had carefully lettered himself. ALWAYS REMEMBER OTHERS HAVE IT WORSE

Frank the beagle died peacefully in the fall of 1993. Phil buried him in the backyard, digging the hole with his own hands, although his joints squalled in protest at every shovelful. When the grave was filled and patted down and re-sodded, he gave a funeral oration, also short. “I loved you, old boy. Still do.” That was the year Phil turned eighty-one.

There was just one change Phil could see, although it was hard to be sure with his vision doubling and sometimes trebling. There was only a single sign on the Answer Man’s table. It read ALL ANSWERS FREE

“Is it heaven we go to? Is it hell? Is it reincarnation? Are we still ourselves? Do we remember? Will I see my wife and son? Will it be good? Will it be awful? Are there dreams? Is there sorrow or joy or any emotion?” The Answer Man, almost lost in the gray, said: “Yes.”

“Do you think I can get us back home in one piece, Frank? And without killing someone? Bark once for yes, twice for no.” Frank barked once, so it was yes. It was yes.

Horror stories are best appreciated by those who are compassionate and empathetic. A paradox, but a true one. I believe it is the unimaginative among us, those incapable of appreciating the dark side of make-believe, who have been responsible for most of the world’s woes.