Plant2

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The Plant

by Stephen King

part two of a novel in progress

p h i l t r u m p r e s s

Bangor, Maine 

S Y N O P S I S

JOHN KENTO N , who attended Brown University, majored in English, and was pres-

ident of the Literary Society, has had a rude awakening in the real world: he is one of

four editors at Zenith House, a down-at-the-heels paperback publisher in New York.

Zenith has 2% of the paperback market and is ﬁfteenth in a ﬁeld of ﬁfteen paperback

publishers. All of the Zenith House personnel are worried that Apex, the parent cor-

poration, may decide to put the house on the market if there isn’t a sales turnaround

in the calendar year 1981...and due to Zenith’s poor distribution network, that seems

unlikely.

On January 4th of 1981, Kenton receives a query letter from CARLOS DETWEILLER,

of Central Falls, Rhode Island. Detweiller, twenty-three, works in the Central Falls

House of Flowers, and is hawking a book he has written called True Tales of Demon

Infestations. It’s obvious to Kenton that Detweiller has absolutely no talent as a

writer...but then, neither do most of the writers on Zenith’s roster (biggest seller: the

Macho Man series). He encourages Detweiller to submit sample chapters and an outline.

Instead, Detweiller submits the work entire, which is even more abysmal than

Kenton—who thought that the book could perhaps be cut down, ghost-written, and

juiced up for The Amityville Horror audience—would have believed in his worst night-

mares. Yet the worst nightmare of all is in the photographs Detweiller encloses. Some

are painfully faked pictures of a séance in progress, but a series of four show a grue-

somely realistic human sacriﬁce, in which an old man’s chest is cut open and a drip-

ping human heart is pulled out of the incision.

The story, which is told in epistolary style, resumes with a letter from John Kenton to

his ﬁancée, RUTH TA N A K A , who is working on her PhD in California.

c c c c c c c c c c c c c c c c c c c c

January 30, 1981

Dear Ruth,

Yes, it was good to talk to you last night, too. Even when you’re on the

other side of the country, I don’t know what I’d do without you. I think this

has been just about the worst month of my life, and without you to talk to

and your warm support, I don’t know how I could have gotten through it.

The initial terror and revulsion of those pictures was bad, but I’ve discovered

I can deal with terror—and Roger may be locked in his impersonation of

some crusty editor in a Damon Runyon story (or maybe it’s that Ben Hecht

play I’m thinking of), but the funny thing is, he really does have a heart of

gold. When all that shit came down, he was like a rock—his support never

wavered.

Terror is bad, but the feeling that you’ve been a horse’s ass is a lot worse,

I’ve found. When you’re afraid, you can fall back on your bravery. When

you’re humiliated, I guess you just have to call up your fiancée long distance

and bawl on her shoulder. All I’m saying, I guess, is thanks—thanks for

being there and thanks for not laughing...or calling me a hysterical old

woman jumping at shadows.

I had one final phone-call last night after I’d talked to you—from Chief

Barton Iverson of the Central Falls P.D. He was also remarkably forgiving,

but before I give you the final gist of it, let me try to clarify the whole

sequence of events following my reception of the Detweiller manuscript last

Wednesday. Your confusion was justifiable—I think I can be a little clearer

now that I’ve had a night’s sleep (and without Ma Bell in my ear, chipping

off the dollars from my malnourished paycheck!).

As I think I told you, Roger’s reaction to the “Sacrifice Photos” was even

stronger and more immediate than mine. He came down to my office as if

he had rockets in his heels, leaving two distributors waiting in his outer

office (and, as I believe Flannery O’Connor once pointed out, a good dis-

tributor is hard to find), and when I showed him the pictures, he turned

pale, put his hand over his mouth, and made some extremely unlovely gag-

ging sounds so I guess you’d have to say I was more right than wrong about

the quality of the photos (considering the subject matter, “quality” is a

strange word to use, but it’s the only one that seems to fit).

He took a minute or two to think, then told me I’d better call the police

in Central Falls—but not to say anything to anybody else.

“They could still be fakes,” he said, “but it’s best not to take any

chances. Put ‘em in an envelope and don’t touch them anymore. There

could be fingerprints.”

“They don’t look like fakes,” I said. “Do they?”

“No.”

He went back to the distributors and I called the cops in Central

Falls—my first conversation with Iverson. He listened to the whole story and

then took my telephone number. He said he’d call me back in five minutes,

but he didn’t tell me why.

He was actually back in about three minutes. He told me to take the

photographs to the 31st Precinct at 140 Park Avenue South, and that the

New York Police would wire the “Sacrifice Photos” to Central Falls.

“We should have them by three this afternoon,” he said. “Maybe even

sooner.”

I asked him what he intended to do until then.

“Not much,” he said. “I’m going to send a plainsclothesman around to

this House of Flowers and try to ascertain whether or not Detweiller is still

working there. I hope to do that without arousing any suspicions. Until I see

the pictures, Mr. Kenton, that’s really all I can do.”

I had to bite my tongue to keep from telling him that I thought there

was a lot more he could do. I didn’t want to be dismissed as a typical pushy

New Yorker, and I didn’t want to have this fellow exasperated with me from

the jump. And I reminded myself that Iverson hadn’t seen the pictures.

Under the circumstances I guess he was going as fast as he could on the

basis of a call from a stranger—a stranger who might be a crank.

I got him to promise he’d call me back as soon as he got the pho-

tographs, and then I took them down to the 31st Precinct myself. They were

expecting me; a Sergeant Tyndale met me in the reception area and took

the envelope of photographs. He also made me promise I’d stay at the office

until I’d heard from them.

“The Central Falls Chief of Police—”

“Not him,” Tyndale said, as if I was talking about a trained monkey.

“Us.”

All the movies and novels are right, babe—it doesn’t take long before

you start feeling like a criminal yourself. You expect somebody to turn a

bright light in your face, hook one leg over a beat-up old desk, lean down,

blow cigarette smoke in your face, and say “Okay, Carmody, where did you

put the bodies?” I can laugh about it now, but I sure wasn’t laughing then.

I wanted Tyndale to take a look at the photos and tell me what he

thought of them—whether or not they were authentic—but he just shooed

me out with another reminder to “stick close,” as he put it. It had started to

rain and I couldn’t get a cab and by the time I’d walked the seven blocks

back to Zenith House I was soaked. I had also eaten half a roll of Tums.

Roger was in my office. I asked him if the distributors were gone, and

he flapped a hand in their direction. “Sent one back to Queens and one

back to Brooklyn,” he said. “Inspired. They’ll sell another fifty copies of Ants

from Hell between them. Schmucks.” He lit a cigarette. “What did the cops

say?”

I told him what Tyndale had told me.

“Ominous,” he said. “Very fooking ominous.”

“They looked real to you, didn’t they?”

He considered, then nodded. “Real as rain.”

“Good.”

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ddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddThePlantbyStephenKingparttwoofanovelinprogressphiltrumpressBangor,Maine2000bCopyright©1983,d2000,;bynStepheniKing.rAllgrights/reserved.nSYNOPSISJOHNKENTON,whoattendedBrownUniversity,majoredinEnglish,andwaspres-identoftheLiterarySociety,hashadarudeawakeni...

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