It Came from the Garage! by Stephen King

Author:Stephen King
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-1-954619-35-7
Publisher: Darkwater Media Group, Inc.
Published: 2021-08-03T16:00:00+00:00

* * *

When Bill Schott awoke the following morning, it was already sunrise. His head pounded like a work crew hammering railway spikes. Groaning, he rolled out of bed and sat up, massaged the hurt out of his temples with the pads of his fingers.

“What the hell happened last night?” he asked aloud. He wasn’t hung-over, though judging by how much he had drunk in last night’s dream, he could not rule out vicarious intoxication.

“Sleep-walkers exist, so who says sleep-drinkers can’t be a real thing?” he said with a smirk. To test his theory, he went to his liquor cabinet and found the glasses and bottle of J&B undisturbed. “That solves that,” he said, then got dressed and headed for the car park.

Bill normally left for work at such an early hour that the concierge desk in his apartment’s lobby was not yet staffed. The desk clerk—a lovely brunette señorita in a low-cropped blouse with more by way of bust size than brain cells—showed up around seven most mornings. On the rare occasions in which she and Bill crossed paths, he would always greet her with a passably-pronounced “Buenos días,” and she would reply in kind.

The words, “Buenos días,” were already upon his lips by the time the elevator doors opened and he hustled out into the lobby.

“Monsieur?”

Bill’s shoes squealed against the smooth granite floor as he dug his heels in to halt. He pivoted at the waist to face her. “What did you say?”

Staffing the desk was a young lady—just as pretty as the last, to be sure—but she was a blonde, dressed in a navy blazer and a matching beret. Her face was milk-white, with high cheekbones and a sharply-angled nose, and glistening green eyes.

“Excusez-moi?” she replied, recoiling slightly.

“Never…” he choked out, “never mind,” and headed out the door.

His car was where he had left it. As much to his surprise as to his relief, it was identical to how he’d last seen it. Perhaps it had been the bad lighting that had made his car look a different tone of red. Perhaps he could chalk up his misinterpretation of the decal numbers to that too.

No such luck.

Emblazoned on his Ford’s fender was: Galaxie 374.

Bile churned in the pit of his stomach. He started the engine and drove to work.

The commute to his office was the same as always, except that the environs were markedly different. Hung above alleyways were strands of blue, white, and red pennants. In the place of street corner taquerías were boulangeries, as their etched glass storefronts announced.

It didn’t hit home for Bill until he rolled up to the park with the equestrian statue. While he had never taken the time to learn the name of the Mexican war hero whose statue was erected at the center of the traffic circle, he was observant enough to realize that now, someone else’s likeness had replaced it.

“Napoleon?!”

Eyes on the statue, he mashed the brake pedal absent-mindedly, nearly causing a three-car pileup behind him. Horns blared, and

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