Misery

On his way through the parlor, Paul picks up Annie’s “MEMORY LANE” book out of curiosity. On the first page is a news article announcing the marriage of her parents, Carl and Crysilda. Birth announcements for her older brother—also named Paul—and herself follow. Annie has just turned 44 years old. The next clipping is an article about an apartment fire that killed five people, including three children from the Krenmitz family. Annie’s mother was interviewed, as the Krenmitzes were their neighbors. Alarmed, Paul recalls Annie talking about having to babysit the “Krenmitzes’ four brats,” whom she hated. Though she was only 11 at the time of the fire, Paul is certain Annie started it.

Turning the pages, Paul finds two similar articles from five years apart. The first details Carl Wilkes’ death, which occurred after he tripped over a pile of clothing on the stairs. In the second, a young nursing student (Andrea Saint James) meets a similar fate, tripping over the corpse of their dorm cat, who had been accidentally poisoned. Annie was Andrea’s roommate. Thinking it likely that Annie poisoned the cat herself, Paul realizes the Annie he knows—who now lives in his imagination—would have killed her roommate for any number of trivial reasons. That no one connected these two similar incidents speaks to Annie’s cleverness.

Continuing through the book, Paul sees Annie’s graduation announcement in her hometown’s newspaper. The next clipping is a New Hampshire obituary for an elderly man who died after a “long illness.” Paul concludes that Annie must have killed him, since this seems to be her “Book of the Dead.” Several more obituaries follow this one, all of their subjects dying at Saint Joseph’s Hospital. Paul is certain Annie’s name is on their nurses’ register. Horrified by the size of the book, Paul cannot stop himself from reading more. After several more death notices, there is an article about new staff at a Pennsylvania hospital. Annie is pictured. From there, the obituaries begin again.

Paul remembers the dream he had about Annie in a nurse’s uniform, killing patients one by one. He imagines she thinks of the people she kills like the rat: “poor poor things.” Her life, as told in the newspaper clippings, follows a predictable pattern. She moves gradually westward from hospital to hospital, kills some people, and moves on. When she reaches Denver, the obituaries stop. Instead, Paul sees a wedding announcement for Annie and Ralph Dugan. Paul anticipates seeing his obituary next. Instead, he finds a realtor’s one-sheet picturing the house he is currently trapped inside. Annie has carved curse words into the next page, which shows that Ralph divorced her on grounds of “mental cruelty” one year into their marriage.

After the divorce, Annie began working at a hospital in Boulder. More obituaries follow, indicating she had killed over 30 people by 1981. In 1982, an article names Annie as the new head maternity ward nurse in January. Two weeks after her appointment, infants begin to die. After five nursery deaths, the authorities launch an investigation and question Annie. The clippings depict her release and return to work, followed by three more infant deaths. At last, in July, the newspapers report Annie’s arrest. She has chronicled her own trial and saved letters to the editor, in which townsfolk condemn her, calling her the Dragon Lady.

The articles reveal the prosecution’s case against Annie is weak. That the state willfully took Annie to court on mostly circumstantial evidence suggests her initial interrogation—whose transcript was not admitted in court, thanks to Annie’s lawyer—was damning. The transcript of Annie’s testimony at her preliminary hearing suggests an alarming lack of empathy for the dead infants. Paul is startled to see a picture of Annie in her holding cell, reading Misery’s Quest while awaiting the jury’s verdict. Astonishingly, Annie is acquitted of her crimes based on lack of evidence. 

From interviews with the jurors, it is clear to Paul that everyone knew Annie had committed the murders, but they could not prove it. The next article reports the discovery of the mutilated corpse of a young man named Andrew Pomeroy. He had been killed with an axe. The very last clipping in Annie’s book stops Paul in his tracks. It is a two-week old article about Paul’s own disappearance, reported by his agent, Bryce Bell. Paul feels this is a precursor to his own obituary, and he returns to his room in a state of shock and horror.

After drugging himself, Paul contemplates the improbability of escaping Annie. With no one coming to help, Paul realizes he will need to kill Annie to get away from her. A storm comes, followed by a frost that freezes the yard. Paul can hear Annie’s neglected pig and cows bellowing in the barn. He is angry at Annie for leaving them alone. During the day, Paul continues his work on the book, which, amazingly, is the best Misery novel yet. The second half of the story will be set in Africa, among a violent tribe called the Bourkas. The Bourkas, also called the Bee-People, worship a stone idol behind whose face are rumored to be caves filled with giant bees.

Paul spends his evenings puzzling how to kill Annie. Unlike the imaginary games of Can You?, the real-life version does not allow for outlandish ideas. All his ideas—drugging her, knocking her out with the typewriter—are too improbable. One of the cows outside falls silent, and Paul pictures it lying there dead. His problem, he tells himself, is that he does not want to get his hands dirty, but in this case, he must. He takes a butcher knife from the kitchen and hides it under his mattress, planning to stab Annie as soon as she returns. But when she does, Paul is asleep. He does not notice Annie is back until he feels her slide a needle into his arm.