Pickering's Hunting Knife

Charlie Pickering's hunting knife is the weapon with which the deranged anti-abortion activist attacks Ralph Roberts in the Derry Public Library on October 3, 1993, an assault that nearly kills the elderly insomniac and forces him to use the Bodyguard spray given to him by Gretchen Tillbury. The knife is a serrated blade, carried in a scabbard on Pickering's belt and concealed beneath his Snoopy sweatshirt. It is the physical instrument through which Ed Deepneau's paranoid campaign against the so-called "Centurions" — the enemies of his delusional crusade — nearly succeeds in claiming its first victim, and its appearance marks the point at which Ralph's supernatural perceptions of auras and the "little bald doctors" become inextricably linked with mortal danger.

Appearance and Description

Pickering's knife is a hunting knife with a serrated blade, kept in a scabbard on his belt. When he materializes in the doorway of the Derry Public Library's reading room, he reaches beneath his gray sweatshirt — which bears an image of Snoopy wearing Joe Cool glasses — and produces the weapon, turning it this way and that to admire the edge as the overhead lights throw a thread of light along its serrated blade. The knife is the tool of Pickering's intended murder, and its appearance is the culmination of Ed Deepneau's manipulation of the unstable man.

The Attack

Pickering approaches Ralph from behind as the old man reads a book on dreaming, pressing the knife into Ralph's left side and tracing it slowly down along his ribs. He whispers ecstatically about wanting to see Ralph's guts spilled across the floor, asking what color they will be. The knife's tip punches through Ralph's leather jacket, then through his shirt, drawing blood. Pickering continues to prod and gouge, creating a wound that later requires butterfly clamps and bandaging. The pain is maddening, like "the stinger of a gigantic bee," and Ralph feels the tip spread a thin red net across his chest wall. Only the presence of the Bodyguard spray — placed in his jacket pocket by Dorrance Marstellar — saves him, as he sprays Pickering in the face, causing the man to drop the knife.

Aftermath and Evidence

After the attack, the knife lies on the floor between Ralph's legs, its tip red with blood. It is collected as evidence by Detective John Leydecker, who places it in a sealed plastic bag marked "EVIDENCE" with a yellow tape strip reading "EVIDENCE Aerosol can DATE 3 October 93 and SITE Derry Public Library" — though the knife itself is in a separate bag. The blood on the tip dries to a tacky maroon. The photographs taken by the emergency medical technician show the small dark circle the knife made in Ralph's side, and the beginnings of the spectacular bruise that follows. The knife becomes the central piece of physical evidence in the case against Pickering, who is charged with first-degree assault with a deadly weapon.

Narrative Significance

The knife is more than a weapon; it is the physical manifestation of the violence that Ed Deepneau's madness has unleashed. Pickering, whom Leydecker describes as a "tool" for Deepneau — "like a paring knife you'd use to peel an apple with" — uses this literal knife to act on Deepneau's orders. The attack forces Ralph to confront the reality that his supernatural perceptions have made him a target, and it is the event that leads him to cancel his acupuncture appointment and begin the final trajectory toward his confrontation with Atropos and his sacrifice to save Natalie Deepneau. The knife also serves as a dark parallel to the scissors and scalpel of the "little bald doctors," the tools of death and severance that operate on a different plane of reality.