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Macklin, who was convicted of the murder of his fouryearold stepson nine years ago, was found dead in his small thirdfloor Falmouth apartment late yesterday afternoon. The parolee, who had lived and worked quietly in Falmouth since his release from Shawshank State Prison in 1964, was an apparent suicide. The note he left indicates an extremely confused state of mind, Assistant Falmouth Police Chief Brandon K. Roche said. He refused to divulge the notes contents, but a Police Department source said it consisted of two sentences I saw Eddie last night. He was dead. The Eddie referred to may well have been Macklins stepson, brother of the boy Macklin was convicted of killing in 1958. It was the disappearance of Edward Corcoran which eventually led to Macklins conviction for the beating death of Edwards younger brother, Dorsey. The elder boy has been missing for nine years. In a brief court proceeding in 1966 the boys mother had her son declared legally dead so she could enter into possession of Edward Corcorans savings account. The account contained a sum of sixteen dollars. 3 Eddie Corcoran was dead, all right. He died on the night of June 19th, and his stepfather had nothing at all to do with it. He died as Ben Hanscom sat home watching TV with his mother, as Eddie Kaspbraks mother anxiously felt Eddies forehead for signs of her favorite ailment, phantom fever, as Beverly Marshs stepfathera gent who bore, in temperament at least, a remarkable resemblance to Eddie and Dorsey Corcorans stepfatherlifted a highstepping kick into the girls derrire and told her to get out there and dry those goddam dishes like your mummer told you, as Mike Hanlon got yelled at by some highschool boys (one of whom would some years later sire that fine upstanding young homophobe John Webby Garton) passing in an old Dodge while Mike pulled weeds out of the garden beside the small Hanlon home out on Witcham Road, not far from the farm owned by Henry Bowerss crazy father, as Richie Tozier was sneaking a look at the halfundressed girls in a copy of Gem he had found at the bottom of his fathers socksandunderwear drawer and getting a regular good boner, and as Bill Denbrough was throwing his dead brothers photograph album across the room in horrified unbelief. Although none of them would remember doing so later, all of them looked up at the exact moment Eddie Corcoran died ... as if hearing some distant cry. The News had been absolutely right about one thing Eddies rankcard was just bad enough to make him afraid to go home and face his stepdad. Also, his mother and the old man were fighting a lot this month. That made things even worse. When they got going at it hot and heavy, his mother shouted a lot of mostly incoherent accusations. His stepdad responded to these first with grunts, then yells to shut up, and finally with the enraged bellows of a boar which has gotten a quiver of porcupine needles in its snout. Eddie had never seen the old man use his fists on her, though. Eddie didnt think he quite dared. He had saved his fists for Eddie and Dorsey in the old days, and now that Dorsey was dead, Eddie got his little brothers share as well as his own. These shouting matches came and went in cycles. They were most common at the end of the month, when the bills came in. A policeman, called by a neighbor, might drop by once or twice when things were at their worst and tell them to tone it down. Usually that ended it. His mother was apt to give the cop the finger and dare him to take her in, but his stepdad rarely said boo. His stepdad was afraid of the cops, Eddie thought. He lay low during these periods of stress. It was wiser. If you didnt think so, just look at what had happened to Dorsey. Eddie didnt know the specifics and didnt want to, but he had an idea about Dorsey. He thought that Dorsey had been in the wrong place at the wrong time the garage on the last day of the month. They told Eddie that Dorsey fell off the stepladder in the garageIf I told him once to stay offn it I told him sixty times, his stepdad had saidbut his mother wouldnt look at him except by accident... and when their eyes did meet, Eddie had seen a frightened ratty little gleam in hers that he didnt like. The old man just sat there silently at the kitchen table with a quart of Rheingold, looking at nothing from beneath his heavy lowering eyebrows. Eddie kept out of his reach. When his stepfather was bellowing, he was usuallynot always but usuallyall right. It was when he stopped that you had to be careful. Two nights ago he had thrown a chair at Eddie when Eddie got up to see what was on the other TV channeljust picked up one of the tubular aluminum kitchen chairs, swept it back over his head, and let fly. It hit Eddie in the butt and knocked him over. His butt still ached, but he knew it could have been worse it could have been his head. Then there had been the night when the old man had suddenly gotten up and rubbed a handful of mashed potatoes into Eddies hair for no reason at all. One day last September, Eddie had come in from school and foolishly allowed the screen door to slam shut behind him while his stepdad was taking a nap. Macklin came out of the bedroom in his billowy boxer shorts, hair standing up in corkscrews, cheeks grizzled with two days of weekend beard, breath grizzled with two days of weekend beer. There now, Eddie, he said, I got to take you up for slammin that fuckin door. In Rich Macklins lexicon, taking you up was a euphemism for beating the shit out of you. Which was what he then did to Eddie. Eddie had lost consciousness when the old man threw him into the front hall. His mother had mounted a pair of low coathooks out there, especially for him and Dorsey to hang their coats on. These hooks had rammed hard steel fingers into Eddies lower back, and that was when he passed out. When he came to ten minutes later he heard his mother yelling that she was going to take Eddie to the hospital and he couldnt stop her. After what happened to Dorsey? his stepdad had responded. You want to go to jail, woman? That was the end of her talk about the hospital. She helped Eddie into his room, where he lay shivering on his bed, his forehead beaded with sweat. The only time he left the room during the next three days was when they were both gone. Then he would hobble slowly into the kitchen, groaning softly, and get his stepdads whiskey from under the sink. A few nips dulled the pain. The pain was mostly gone by the fifth day, but he had pissed blood for almost two weeks. And the hammer wasnt in the garage anymore. What about that? What about that, friends and neighbors? Oh, the Craftsman hammerthe ordinary hammerwas still there. It was the Scotti recoilless which was missing. His stepdads special hammer, the one he and Dorsey had been forbidden to touch. If one of you touches that baby, he had told them the day he bought it, youll both be wearing your guts for earmuffs. Dorsey had asked timidly if that hammer was very expensive. The old man told him he was damn tooting. He said it was filled with ballbearings and you couldnt make it bounce back up no matter how hard you brought it down. Now it was gone. Eddies grades werent the best because he had missed a lot of school since his mothers remarriage, but he was not a stupid boy by any means. He thought he knew what had happened to the Scotti recoilless hammer. He thought maybe his stepfather had used it on Dorsey and then buried it in the garden or maybe thrown it in the Canal. It was the sort of thing that happened frequently in the horror comics Eddie read, the ones he kept on the top shelf of his closet. He walked closer to the Canal, which rippled between its concrete sides like oiled silk. A swatch of moonlight glimmered across its dark surface in a boomerang shape. He sat down, swinging his sneakers idly against the concrete in an irregular tattoo. The last six weeks had been quite dry and the water flowed past perhaps nine feet below the worn soles of his sneakers. But if you looked closely at the Canals sides, you could read the various levels to which it sometimes rose quite easily. The concrete was stained a dark brown just above the waters current level. This brown stain slowly faded to yellow, then to a color that was almost white at the level where the heels of Eddies sneakers made contact when he swung them. The water flowed smoothly and silently out of a concrete arch that was cobbled on the inside, past the place where Eddie sat, and then down to the covered wooden footbridge between Bassey Park and Derry High School. The bridges sides and plank footingeven the beams under the roofwere covered with an intaglio of initials, phone numbers, and declarations. Declarations of love; declarations that Soandso was willing to suck or blow; declarations that those discovered sucking or blowing would lose their foreskins or have their assholes plugged with hot tar; occasional eccentric declarations that defied definition. One that Eddie had puzzled over all this spring read SAVE RUSSIAN JEWS! COLLECT VALUABLE PRIZES! What, exactly, did that mean? Anything? And did it matter? Eddie didnt go into the Kissing Bridge tonight; he had no urge to cross over to the highschool side. He thought he would probably sleep in the park, maybe in the dead leaves under the bandstand, but for now it was fine just to sit here. He liked it in the park, and came often when he had to think. Sometimes there were people making out in the groves of trees which dotted the park, but Eddie left them alone and they left him alone. He had heard lurid stories in the playground at school about the queers that cruised in Bassey Park after sundown, and he accepted these stories without question, but he himself had never been bothered. The park was a peaceful place, and he thought the best part of it was right here where he was sitting. He liked it in the middle of summer, when the water was so low it chuckled over the stones and actually broke up into isolated streamlets that twisted and turned and sometimes came together again. He liked it in late March or early April, just after iceout, when he would sometimes stand by the Canal (too cold to sit then; your ass would freeze) for an hour or more, the hood of his old parka, now two years too small for him, pulled up, his hands plunged into his pockets, unaware that his skinny body was shivering and shaking. The Canal had a terrible, irresistible power in the week or two after the ice went out. He was fascinated by the way the water boiled whitely out of the cobbled arch and roared past him, bearing sticks and branches and all manner of human trash along with it. More than once he had envisioned walking beside the Canal in March with his stepdad and giving the bastard a great big motherfucking push. He would scream and fall in, his arms pinwheeling for balance, and Eddie would stand on the concrete parapet and watch him carried off downstream, his head a black bobbing shape in the middle of the unruly whitecapped current. He would stand there, yes, and he would cup his hands around his mouth and scream THAT WAS FOR DORSEY, YOU ROTTEN COCKSUCKER! WHEN YOU GET DOWN TO HELL TELL THE DEVIL THE LAST THING YOU EVER HEARD WAS ME TELLING YOU TO PICK ON SOMEBODY YOUR OWN SIZE! It would never happen, of course, but it was an absolutely grand fantasy. A grand dream to dream as you sat here by the Canal, a g A hand closed around Eddies foot. He had been looking across the Canal toward the school, smiling a sleepy and rather beautiful smile as he imagined his stepfather being carried off in the violent rip of the spring runoff, being carried out of his life forever. The soft yet strong grip startled him so much that he almost lost his balance and tumbled into the Canal. Its one of the queers the big kids are always talking about, he thought, and then he looked down. His mouth dropped open. Urine spilled hotly down his legs and stained his jeans black in the moonlight. It wasnt a queer. It was Dorsey. It was Dorsey as he had been buried, Dorsey in his blue blazer and gray pants, only now the blazer was in muddy tatters, Dorseys shirt was yellow rags, Dorseys pants clung wetly to legs as thin as broomsticks. And Dorseys head was horribly slumped, as if it had been caved in at the back and consequently pushed up in the front. Dorsey was grinning. Eddieeeee, his dead brother croaked, just like one of the dead people who were always coming back from the grave in the horror comics. Dorseys grin widened. Yellow teeth gleamed, and somewhere way back in that darkness things seemed to be squirming. Eddieeee... I came to see you Eddieeeeee.... Eddie tried to scream. Waves of gray shock rolled over him, and he had the curious sensation that he was floating. But it was not a dream; he was awake. The hand on his sneaker was as white as a trouts belly. His brothers bare feet clung somehow to the concrete. Something had bitten one of Dorseys heels off. Come on down Eddieeeee.... Eddie couldnt scream. His lungs didnt have enough air in them to manage a scream. He got out a curious reedy moaning sound. Anything louder seemed beyond him. That was all right. In a second or two his mind would snap and after that nothing would matter. Dorseys hand was small but implacable. Eddies buttocks were sliding over the concrete to the edge of the Canal. Still making that reedy moaning sound, he reached behind himself and grabbed the concrete edging and yanked himself backward. He felt the hand slide away momentarily, heard an angry hiss, and had time to think Thats not Dorsey. I dont know what it is, but its not Dorsey. Then adrenaline flooded his body and he was crawling away, trying to run even before he was on his feet, his breath coming in short shrieky whistles. White hands appeared on the concrete lip of the Canal. There was a wet slapping sound. Drops of water flew upward in the moonlight from dead pallid skin. Now Dorseys face appeared over the edge. Dim red sparks gleamed in his sunken eyes. His wet hair was plastered to his skull. Mud streaked his cheeks like warpaint. Eddies chest finally unlocked. He hitched in breath and turned it into a scream. He got to his feet and ran. He ran looking back over his shoulder, needing to see where Dorsey was, and as a result he ran smack into a large elm tree. It felt as if someonehis old man, for instancehad set off a dynamite charge in his left shoulder. Stars shot and corkscrewed through his head. He fell at the base of the tree as if poleaxed, blood trickling from his left temple. He swam in the waters of semiconsciousness for perhaps ninety seconds. Then he managed to gain his feet again. A groan escaped him as he tried to raise his left arm. It didnt want to come. Felt all numb and far away. So he raised his right and rubbed his fiercely aching head. Then he remembered why he had happened to run fulltilt into the elm tree in the first place and looked around. There was the edge of the Canal, white as bone and straight as string in the moonlight. No sign of the thing from the Canal . . . if there ever had been a thing. He continued turning, working his way slowly through a complete three hundred and sixty degrees. Bassey Park was silent and as still as a blackandwhite photograph. Weeping willows draggled their thin tenebrous arms, and anything could be standing, slumped and insane, within their shelter. Eddie began to walk, trying to look everywhere at once. His sprained shoulder throbbed in painful sync with his heartbeat. Eddieeeee, the breeze moaned through the trees, dont you want to see meeeee, Eddieeeee? He felt flabby corpsefingers caress the side of his neck. He whirled, his hands going up. As his feet tangled together and he fell, he saw that it had only been willowfronds moving in the breeze. He got up again. He wanted to run but when he tried another dynamite charge went off in his shoulder and he had to stop. He knew somehow that he should be getting over his fright by now, calling himself a stupid little baby who got spooked by a reflection or maybe fell asleep without knowing it and had a bad dream. That wasnt happening, though; quite the reverse, in fact. His heart was now beating so fast he could no longer distinguish the separate thuds, and he felt sure it would soon burst in terror. He couldnt run but when he got out of the willows he did manage a limping jogtrot. He fixed his eyes on the streetlight that marked the parks main gate. He headed in that direction, managing a little more speed, thinking Ill make it to the light, and thats all right. Ill make it to the light, and thats all right. Bright light, no more fright, up all night, what a sight Something was following him. Eddie could hear it bludgeoning its way through the willow grove. If he turned he would see it. It was gaining. He could hear its feet, a kind of shuffling, squelching stride, but he would not look back, no, he would look ahead at the light, the light was all right, he would just continue his flight to the light, and he was almost there, almost The smell was what made him look back. The overwhelming smell, as if fish had been left to rot in a huge pile that had become carrionslushy in the summer heat. It was the smell of a dead ocean. It wasnt Dorsey after him now; it was the Creature from the Black Lagoon. The things snout was long and pleated. Green fluid dripped from black gashes like vertical mouths in its cheeks. Its eyes were white and jellylike. Its webbed fingers were tipped with claws like razors. Its respiration was bubbly and deep, the sound of a diver with a bad regulator. As it saw Eddie looking, its greenblack lips wrinkled back from huge fangs in a dead and vacant smile. It shambled after him, dripping, and Eddie suddenly understood. It meant to take him back to the Canal, to carry him down into the dank blackness of the Canals underground passage. To eat him there. Eddie put on a burst of speed. The arcsodium light at the gate drew closer. He could see its halo of bugs and moths. A truck went by, headed for Route 2, the driver working his way up through the gears, and it crossed Eddies desperate, terrified mind that he could be drinking coffee from a paper cup and listening to a Buddy Holly tune on the radio, completely unaware that less than two hundred yards away there was a boy who might be dead in another twenty seconds. The stink. The overwhelming stink of it. Gaining. All around him. It was a park bench he tripped over. Some kids had casually pushed it over earlier that evening, heading toward their homes at a run to beat the curfew. Its seat poked an inch or two out of the grass, one shade of green on another, almost invisible in the moondriven dark. The edge of the seat smacked Eddie in the shins, causing a burst of glassy, exquisite pain. His legs flipped out behind him and he thumped into the grass. He looked behind him and saw the Creature bearing down, its white poachedegg eyes glittering, its scales dripping slime the color of seaweed, the gills up and down its bulging neck and cheeks opening and closing. Ag! Eddie croaked. It seemed to be the only noise he could make. Ag! Ag! Ag! Ag! He crawled now, fingers hooking deep into the turf. His tongue hung out. In the second before the Creatures fishsmelling horny hands closed around his throat, a comforting thought came to him This is a dream; it has to be. Theres no real Creature, no real Black Lagoon, and even if there was, that was in South America or the Florida Everglades or someplace like that. This is only a dream and Ill wake up in my bed or maybe in the leaves under the bandstand and I Then batrachian hands closed around his neck and Eddies hoarse cries were choked off; as the Creature turned him over, the chitinous hooks which sprouted from those hands scrawled bleeding marks like calligraphy into his neck. He stared into its glowing white eyes. He felt the webs between its fingers pressing against his throat like constricting bands of living seaweed. His terrorsharpened gaze noted the fin, something like a roosters comb and something like a hornpouts poisonous backfin, standing atop the Creatures hunched and plated head. As its hands clamped tight, shutting off his air, he was even able to see the way the white light from the arcsodium lamp turned a smoky green as it passed through that membranous headfin. Youre . . . not . . . real, Eddie choked, but clouds of grayness were closing in now, and he realized faintly that it was real enough, this Creature. It was, after all, killing him. And yet some rationality remained, even until the end as the Creature hooked its claws into the soft meat of his neck, as his carotid artery let go in a warm and painless gout that splashed the things reptilian plating, Eddies hands groped at the Creatures back, feeling for a zipper. They fell away only when the Creature tore his head from his shoulders with a low satisfied grunt. And as Eddies picture of what It was began to fade, It began promptly to change into something else. 4 Unable to sleep, plagued by bad dreams, a boy named Michael Hanlon rose soon after first light on the first full day of summer vacation. The light was pale, bundled up in a low, thick mist that would lift by eight oclock, taking the wraps off a perfect summer day. But that was for later. For now the world was all gray and rose, as silent as a cat walking on a carpet. Mike, dressed in corduroys, a teeshirt, and black hightopped Keds, came downstairs, ate a bowl of Wheaties (he didnt really like Wheaties but had wanted the free prize in the boxa Captain Midnight Magic Decoder Ring), then hopped on his bike and pedaled toward town, riding on the sidewalks because of the fog. The fog changed everything, made the most ordinary things like fire hydrants and stopsigns into objects of mysterythings both strange and a trifle sinister. You could hear cars but not see them, and because of the fogs odd acoustic quality, you could not tell if they were far or near until you actually saw them come rolling out of the fog with ghosthalos of moisture ringing their headlamps. He turned right on Jackson Street, bypassing downtown, and then crossed to Main Street by way of Palmer Laneand during his short ride down this little byways oneblock length he passed the house where he would live as an adult. He did not look at it; it was just a small twostory dwelling with a garage and a small lawn. It gave off no special vibration to the passing boy who would spend most of his adult life as its owner and only dweller. At Main Street he turned right and rode up to Bassey Park, still wandering, simply riding and enjoying the stillness of the early day. Once inside the main gate he dismounted his bike, pushed down the kickstand, and walked toward the Canal. He was still, as far as he knew, impelled by nothing more than purest whim. Certainly it did not occur to him to think that his dreams of the night before had anything to do with his current course; he did not even remember exactly what his dreams had beenonly that one had followed another until he had awakened at five oclock, sweaty but shivering, and with the idea that he ought to eat a fast breakfast and then take a bikeride into town. Here in Bassey there was a smell in the fog he didnt like a seasmell, salty and old. He had smelled it before, of course. In the earlymorning fogs you could often smell the ocean in Derry, although the coast was forty miles away. But the smell this morning seemed thicker, more vital. Almost dangerous. Something caught his eye. He bent down and picked up a cheap twoblade pocket knife. Someone had scratched the initials E.C. on the side. Mike looked at it thoughtfully for a moment or two and then pocketed it. Finders keepers, losers weepers. He glanced around. Here, near where he had found the knife, was an overturned park bench. He righted it, setting its iron footings back into the holes they had made over a period of months or years. Beyond the bench he saw a matted place in the grass . . . and leading away from it, two grooves. The grass was springing back up, but those grooves were still fairly clear. They went in the direction of the Canal. And there was blood. (the bird remember the bird remember the) But he did not want to remember the bird and so he pushed the thought away. Dogfight, thats all. One of em must have hurt the other one pretty bad. It was a convincing thought by which he was somehow not convinced. Thoughts of the bird kept wanting to come backthe one he had seen out at the Kitchener Ironworks, one Stan Uris never would have found in his birdbook. Stop it. Just get out of here. But instead of getting out he followed the grooves. As he did he made up a little story in his mind. It was a murder story. Heres this kid, out late, see. Out past the curfew. The killer gets him. And how does he get rid of the body? Drags it to the Canal and dumps it in, of course! Just like an Alfred Hitchcock Presents! The marks he was following could have been made by a dragging pair of shoes or sneakers, he supposed. Mike shivered and looked around uncertainly. The story was somehow a little too real. And suppose that it wasnt a man who did it but a monster. Like out of a horror comic or a horror book or a horror movie or (a bad dream) a fairy tale or something. He decided he didnt like the story. It was a stupid story. He tried to push it out of his mind but it wouldnt go. So what? Let it stay. It was dumb. Riding into town this morning had been dumb. Following these two matted grooves in the grass was dumb. His dad would have a lot of chores for him to do around the place today. He ought to get back and start in or when the hottest part of the afternoon rolled around he would be up the barn loft pitching hay. Yes, he ought to get back. And thats just what he was going to do. Sure you are, he thought. Want to bet? Instead of going back to his bike and getting on and riding home and starting his chores, he followed the grooves in the grass. There were more drops of drying blood here and there. Not much, though. Not as much as there had been in that matted place back there by the park bench he had set to rights. Mike could hear the Canal now, running quiet. A moment later he saw the concrete edge materialize out of the fog. Here was something else in the grass. My goodness, its certainly your day for finding things, his mind said with dubious geniality, and then a gull screamed somewhere and Mike flinched, thinking again of the bird he had seen that day, that day just this spring. Whatever that is in the grass, I dont even want to look at it. And that was oh so very true, but here he was, already bending over it, hands planted just above his knees, to see what it was. A tattered bit of cloth with a drop of blood on it. The seagull screamed again. Mike stared at the bloody scrap of cloth and remembered what had happened to him in the spring. 5 Each year during April and May the Hanlon farm woke up from its winter doze. Mike would let himself know that spring had come again not when the first crocuses showed under his moms kitchen windows or when kids started bringing immies and croakers to school or even when the Washington Senators kicked off the baseball season (usually getting themselves shellacked in the process), but only when his father hollered for Mike to help him push their mongrel truck out of the barn. The front half was an old ModelA Ford car, the back end a pickup truck with a tailgate which was the remainder of the old henhouse door. If the winter hadnt been too cold, the two of them could often get it going by pushing it down the driveway. The trucks cab had no doors; likewise there was no windshield. The seat was half of an old sofa that Will Hanlon had scrounged from the Derry dump. The stickshift ended in a glass doorknob. They would push it down the driveway, one on each side, and when it got rolling good, Will would jump in, turn on the switch, retard the spark, step down on the clutch, punch the shift into first gear with his big hand clamped over the doorknob. Then he would holler Put me over the hump! Hed pop the clutch and the old Ford engine would cough, choke, chug, backfire . . . and sometimes actually start to run, rough at first, then smoothing out. Will would roar down the road toward Rhulin Farms, turn around in their driveway (if he had gone the other way, Henry Bowerss crazy father Butch probably would have blown his head off with a shotgun), and then roar back, the unmuffled engine blatting stridently while Mike jumped up and down with excitement, cheering, and his mom stood in the kitchen doorway, wiping her hands on a dishtowel and pretending a disgust she didnt really feel. Other times the truck wouldnt rollstart and Mike would have to wait until his father came back from the barn, carrying the crank and muttering under his breath. Mike was quite sure that some of the words so muttered were swears, and he would be a little frightened of his daddy then. (It wasnt until much later, during one of those interminable visits to the hospital room where Will Hanlon lay dying, that he found out his father muttered because he was afraid of the crank once it had kicked back viciously, flown out of its socket, and torn the side of his mouth open.) Stand back, Mikey, he would say, slipping the crank into its socket at the base of the radiator. And when the A was finally running, hed say that next year he was going to trade it for a Chevrolet, but he never did. That old AFord hybrid was still in back of the home place, up to its axles and henhouse tailgate in weeds. When it was running, and Mike was sitting in the passenger seat, smelling hot oil and blue exhaust, excited by the keen breeze that washed in through the glassless hole where the windshield had once been, he would think Springs here again. Were all waking up. And in his soul he would raise a silent cheer that shook the walls of that mostly cheerful room. He felt love for everything around him, and most of all for his dad, who would grin over at him and holler Hold on, Mikey! We gone wind this baby up! We gone make some birds run for cover! Then he would tear up the driveway, the As rear wheels spitting back black dirt and gray clods of clay, both of them jouncing up and down on the sofaseat inside the open cab, laughing like stark naturalborn fools. Will would run the A through the high grass of the back field, which was kept for hay, toward either the south field (potatoes), the west field (corn and beans), or the east field (peas, squash, and pumpkins). As they went, birds would burst up out of the grass before the truck, squawking in terror. Once a partridge flew up, a magnificent bird as brown as lateautumn oaks, the explosive coughing whirr of its wings audible even over the pounding engine. Those rides were Mike Hanlons door into spring. The years work began with the rock harvest. Every day for a week they would take the A out and load the bed with rocks which might break a harrowblade when the time came to turn the earth and plant. Sometimes the truck would get stuck in the mucky spring earth and Will would mutter darkly under his breath . . . more swears, Mike surmised. He knew some of the words and expressions; others, such as son of a whore, puzzled him. He had come across the word in the Bible, and so far as he could tell, a whore was a woman who came from a place called Babylon. He had once set out to ask his father, but the A had been in mud up to her coilsprings, there had been thunderclouds on his fathers brow, and he had decided to wait for a better time. He ended up asking Richie Tozier later that year and Richie told him his father had told him a whore was a woman who got paid for having sex with men. Whats having sex? Mike had asked, and Richie had wandered away holding his head. |
On one occasion Mike had asked his father why, since they harvested rocks every April, there were always more of them the following April. They had been standing at the dumpingoff place near sunset on the last day of that years rock harvest. A beaten dirt track, not quite serious enough to be called a road, led from the bottom of the west field to this gully near the bank of the Kenduskeag. The gully was a jumbled wasteland of rocks that had been dragged off Wills land through the years. Looking down at this badlands, which he had made first alone and then with the help of his son (somewhere under the rocks, he knew, were the rotting remains of the stumps he had yanked out one at a time before any of the fields could be tilled), Will had lighted a cigarette and said, My daddy used to tell me that God loved rocks, houseflies, weeds, and poor people above all the rest of His creations, and thats why He made so many of them. But every year its like they come back. Yeah, I think they do, Will said. Thats the only way I know to explain it. A loon cried from the far side of the Kenduskeag in a dusky sunset that had turned the water a deep orangered. It was a lonely sound, so lonely that it made Mikes tired arms tighten with gooseflesh. I love you, Daddy, he said suddenly, feeling his love so strongly that tears stung his eyes. Why, I love you too, Mikey, his father said, and hugged him tight in his strong arms. Mike felt the rough fabric of his fathers flannel shirt against his cheek. Now what do you say we go on back? We got just time to get a bath each before the good woman puts supper on the table. Ayuh, Mike said. Ayuh yourself, Will Hanlon said, and they both laughed, feeling tired but feeling good, arms and legs worked but not overworked, their hands rockroughened but not hurting too bad. Springs here, Mike thought that night, drowsing off in his room while his mother and father watched The Honeymooners in the other room. Springs here again, thank You God, thank You very much. And turning to sleep, sinking down, he had heard the loon call again, the distance of its marshes blending into the desire of his dreams. Spring was a busy time, but it was a good time. Following the rock harvest, Will would park the A in the high grass back of the house and drive the tractor out of the barn. There would be harrowing then, his father driving the tractor, Mike either riding behind and holding on to the iron seat or walking alongside, picking up any rocks they had missed and throwing them aside. Then came planting, and following the planting came summers work hoeing . . . hoeing . . . hoeing. His mother would refurbish Larry, Moe, and Curly, their three scarecrows, and Mike would help his father put mooseblowers on top of each strawfilled head. A mooseblower was a can with both ends cut off. You tied a length of heavily waxed and rosined string tightly across the middle of the can and when the wind blew through it a wonderfully spooky sound resulteda kind of whining croak. Cropeating birds decided soon enough that Larry, Moe, and Curly were no threats, but the mooseblowers always frightened them off. Starting in July, there was picking as well as hoeingpeas and radishes first, then the lettuce and the tomatoes that had been started in the shedboxes, then the corn and beans in August, more corn and beans in September, then the pumpkins and the squash. Somewhere in the midst of all that came the new potatoes, and then, as the days shortened and the air sharpened, he and his dad would take in the mooseblowers (and sometime during the winter they would disappear; it seemed they had to make new ones each spring). The day after, Will would call Norman Sadler (who was as dumb as his son Moose but infinitely more goodhearted), and Normie would come over with his potatodigger. For the next three weeks all of them would work picking potatoes. In addition to the family, Will would hire three or four highschool boys to help pick, paying them a quarter a barrel. The AFord would cruise slowly up and down the rows of the south field, the biggest field, always in low gear, the tailgate down, the back filled with barrels, each marked with the name of the person picking into it, and at the end of the day Will would open his old creased wallet and pay each of the pickers cash money. Mike was paid, and so was his mother; that money was theirs, and Will Hanlon never once asked either of them what they did with it. Mike had been given a fivepercent interest in the farm when he was five years oldold enough, Will had told him then, to hold a hoe and to tell the difference between witchgrass and peaplants. Each year he had been given another one percent, and each year, on the day after Thanksgiving, Will would compute the farms profits and deduct Mikes share . . . but Mike never saw any of that money. It went into his college account and was to be touched under absolutely no other circumstances. At last the day would come when Normie Sadler drove his potatodigger back home; by then the air would have most likely turned gray and cold and there would be frost on the drift of orange pumpkins piled against the side of the barn. Mike would stand in the dooryard, his nose red, his dirty hands stuffed into his jeans pockets, and watch as his father drove first the tractor and then the AFord back into the barn. He would think Were getting ready to go to sleep again. Spring . . . vanished. Summer . . . gone. Harvesttime . . . done. All that was left now was the butt end of autumn leafless trees, frozen ground, a lacing of ice along the banks of the Kenduskeag. In the fields, crows would sometimes land on the shoulders of Moe, Larry, and Curly, and stay as long as they liked. The scarecrows were voiceless, threatless. Mike would not exactly be dismayed by the thought of another year endingat nine and ten he was still too young to make mortal metaphorsbecause there was plenty to look forward to sledding in McCarron Park (or on Rhulin Hill out here in Derrytown if you were brave, although that was mostly for big kids), iceskating, snowball fights, snowfort building. There was time to think about snowshoeing out for a Christmas tree with his daddy, and time to think about the Nordica downhill skis he might or might not get for Christmas. Winter was good . . . but watching his father drive the A back into the barn (spring vanished summer gone harvesttime done) always made him feel sad, the way the squadrons of birds heading south for the winter made him feel sad, or the way a certain slant of light could sometimes make him feel like crying for no good reason. Were getting ready to go to sleep again.... It was not all school and chores, chores and school; Will Hanlon had told his wife more than once that a boy needed time to go fishing, even if it wasnt fishing he was really doing. When Mike came home from school he first put his books on the TV in the parlor, second made himself some kind of snack (he was particularly partial to peanutbutterandonion sandwiches, a taste that made his mother raise her hands in helpless horror), and third studied the note his father had left him, telling Mike where he, Will, was and what Mikes chores werecertain rows to be weeded or picked, baskets to be carried, produce to be rotated, the barn to be swept, whatever. But on at least one schoolday a weekand sometimes twothere would be no note. And on these days Mike would go fishing, even if it wasnt really fishing he was doing. Those were great days . . . days when he had no particular place to go and consequently felt no urge to get there in a hurry. Once in awhile his father left him another sort of note No chores, one might say. Go over to Old Cape look at trolley tracks. Mike would go over to the Old Cape area, find the streets with the tracks still embedded in them, and inspect them closely, marvelling to think of things like trains that had run right through the middle of the streets. That night he and his father might talk about them, and his dad would show him pictures from his Derry album of the trolleys actually running a funny pole went from the roof of the trolley up to an electrical wire, and there were cigarette ads on the side. Another time he had sent Mike to Memorial Park, where the Standpipe was, to look at the birdbath, and once they had gone to the courthouse together to look at a terrible machine that Chief Borton had found in the attic. This gadget was called a trampchair. It was castiron, and there were manacles built into the arms and legs. Rounded knobs stuck out of the back and seat. It reminded Mike of a photograph he had seen in some booka photograph of the electric chair at Sing Sing. Chief Borton let Mike sit in the trampchair and try on the manacles. After the first ominous novelty of wearing the manacles wore off, Mike looked questioningly at his father and Chief Borton, not sure why this was supposed to be such a horrible punishment for the vags (Bortons word for them) that had drifted into town in the twenties and thirties. The knobs made the chair a little uncomfortable to sit in, sure, and the manacles on your wrists and ankles made it hard to shift to a more comfortable position, but Well, youre just a kid, Chief Borton said, laughing. What do you weigh? Seventy, eighty pounds? Most of the vags Sheriff Sully posted into that chair in the old days would go twice that. Theyd feel a bit oncomfortable after an hour or so, really oncomfortable after two or three, and right bad after four or five. After seven or eight hours theyd staat bellerin, and after sixteen or seventeen theyd staat cryin, mostly. And by the time their twentyfourhour tour was up, theyd be willin to swear before God and man that the next time they came riding the rods up New England way theyd give Derry a wide berth. So far as I know, most of em did. Twentyfour hours in the trampchair was a helluva persuader. Suddenly there seemed to be more knobs in the chair, digging more deeply into his buttocks, spine, the small of his back, even the nape of his neck. Can I get out now, please? he said politely, and Chief Borton laughed again. There was a moment, one panicked instant of time, when Mike thought the Chief would only dangle the key to the manacles in front of Mikes eyes and say, Sure Ill let you out ... when your twentyfour hours is up. Why did you take me there, Daddy? he asked on the way home. Youll know when youre older, Will had replied. You dont like Chief Borton, do you? No, his father had replied in a voice so curt that Mike hadnt dared ask any more. But Mike enjoyed most of the places in Derry his father sent or took him to, and by the time Mike was ten Will had succeeded in conveying his own interest in the layers of Derrys history to his son. Sometimes, as when he had been trailing his fingers over the slightly pebbled surface of the stand in which the Memorial Park birdbath was set, or when he had squatted down to look more closely at the trolley tracks which grooved Mont Street in the Old Cape, he would be struck by a profound sense of time . . . time as something real, as something that had unseen weight, the way sunlight was supposed to have weight (some of the kids in school had laughed when Mrs. Greenguss told them that, but Mike had been too stunned by the concept to laugh; his first thought had been, Light has weight? Oh my Lord, thats terrible!) ... time as something that would eventually bury him. The first note his father left him in that spring of 1958 was scribbled on the back of an envelope and held down with a saltshaker. The air was springwarm, wonderfully sweet, and his mother had opened all the windows. No chores, the note read. If you want to, ride your bike out to Pasture Road. Youll see a lot of tumbled masonry and old machinery out in the field on your left. Have a look around, bring back a souvenir. Dont go near the cellarhole! And be back before dark. You know why. Mike knew why, all right. He told his mother where he was going and she frowned. Why dont you see if Randy Robinson wants to go with you? Yeah, okay, Ill stop by and ask him, Mike said. He did, too, but Randy had gone up to Bangor with his father to buy seedling potatoes. So Mike rode his bike over to Pasture Road alone. It was a goodish ridea little over four miles. Mike reckoned it was three oclock by the time he leaned his bike against an old wooden slatfence on the left side of Pasture Road and climbed into the field beyond. He would have maybe an hour to explore and then he would have to start home again. Ordinarily, his mother would not be upset with him as long as he was back by six, when she put dinner on the table, but one memorable episode had taught him that wasnt the case this year. On that one occasion when he had been late for dinner, she had been nearly hysterical. She took after him with a dishrag, whopping him with it as he stood openmouthed in the kitchen entryway, his wicker creel with the rainbow trout in it at his feet. Dont you ever scare me like that! she had screamed. Dont you ever! Dont you ever! Evereverever! Each ever had been punctuated by another dishrag swat. Mike had expected his father to step in and put a stop to it, but his father hadnt done so.... Perhaps he knew that if he did she would turn her wildcat anger on him as well. Mike had learned the lesson; one whopping with the dishrag was all it took. Home before dark. Yes maam, righto. He walked across the field toward the titanic ruins standing in the center. This was, of course, the remains of the Kitchener Ironworkshe had ridden past it but had never thought to actually explore it, and he had never heard any kids saying that they had. Now, stooping to examine a few tumbled bricks that had formed a rough cairn, he thought he could understand why. The field was dazzlingly bright, washed by sun from the spring sky (occasionally, as a cloud passed before the sun, a great shutter of shadow would travel slowly across the field), but there was something spooky about it all the samea brooding silence that was broken only by the wind. He felt like an explorer who has found the last remnants of some fabulous lost city. Up ahead and to the right, he saw the rounded side of a massive tile cylinder rising out of the high field grass. He ran over to it. It was the Ironworks main smokestack. He peered into its bore, and felt a fresh chill worm up his spine. It was big enough so he could have walked into it if he had wanted. But he didnt want to; God knew what strange guck there might be, clinging to the smokeblackened inner tiles, or what nasty bugs or beasts might have taken up residence inside. The wind gusted. When it blew across the mouth of the fallen stack it made a sound eerily like the sound of the wind vibrating the waxed strings he and his dad put in the mooseblowers every spring. He stepped back nervously, suddenly thinking about the movie he and his father had watched last night on the Early Show. It had been called Rodan, and watching it had seemed like great fun at the time, his father laughing and shouting Git that bird, Mikey! every time Rodan made its appearance, Mike shooting with his finger until his mom popped her head in and told them to hush up before they gave her a headache with the noise. It didnt seem so funny now. In the movie Rodan had been released from the bowels of the earth by these Japanese coalminers who had been digging the worlds deepest tunnel. And looking into the black bore of this pipe, it was all too easy to imagine that bird crouched at the far end, leathery batlike wings folded over its back, staring at the small, round boyface looking into the darkness, staring, staring with its goldringed eyes.... Shivering, Mike pulled back. He walked aways down the smokestack, which had sunken into the earth to half of its circumference. The land rose slightly, and on impulse he scrambled his way up on top. The stack was a lot less scary on the outside, its tiled surface sunwarm. He got to his feet and strolled along, holding his arms out (the surface was really too wide for him to need to worry about falling off, but he was pretending he was a tightwirewalker in the circus), liking the way the wind blew through his hair. At the far end he jumped down and began to examine stuff more bricks, twisted molds, hunks of wood, pieces of rusty machinery. Bring back a souvenir, his fathers note had said he wanted a good one. He wandered closer to the mills yawning cellarhold, looking at the debris, being careful not to cut himself on the broken glass. There was a lot of it around. Mike was not unmindful of the cellarhold and his fathers warning to stay out of it; neither was he unmindful of the death that had been dealt out on this spot fiftyodd years before. He supposed that if there was a haunted place in Derry, this was it. But either in spite of that or because of it, he was determined to stay until he found something really good to take back and show his father. He moved slowly and soberly toward the cellarhold, changing his course to parallel its ragged side, when a warning voice inside whispered that he was getting too close, that a bank weakened by the spring rains could crumble under his heels and pitch him into that hole, where God only knew how much sharp iron might be waiting to impale him like a bug, leaving him to die a rusty twitching death. He picked up a windowsash and tossed it aside. Here was a dipper big enough for a giants table, its handle rippled and warped by some unimaginable flash of heat. Here was a piston too big for him to even budge, let alone lift. He stepped over it. He stepped over it and What if I find a skull? he thought suddenly. The skull of one of the kids who were killed here while they were hunting for chocolate Easter eggs back in nineteenwheneveritwas? He looked around the sunwashed empty field, nastily shocked by the idea. The wind blew a low conchnote in his ears and another shadow cruised silently across the field, like the shadow of a giant bat . . . or bird. He became aware all over again of how quiet it was here, and how strange the field looked with its straggling piles of masonry and its beached iron hulks leaning this way and that. It was as if some horrid battle had been fought here long ago. Dont be such a dip, he replied uneasily to himself. They found everything there was to find fifty years ago. After it happened. And even if they didnt, some other kidor grownupwould have found . . . the rest . . . since then. Or do you think youre the only person who ever came here hunting for souvenirs? No ... no, I dont think that. But ... But what? that rational side of his mind demanded, and Mike thought it was talking just a little too loud, a little too fast. Even if there was still something to find, it would have decayed long ago. So ... what? Mike found a splintered desk drawer in the weeds. He glanced at it, tossed it aside, and moved a little closer to the cellarhold, where the stuff was thickest. Surely he would find something there. But what if there are ghosts? Thats but what. What if I see hands coming over the edge of that cellarhold, and what if they start to come up, kids in the remains of their Easter Sunday clothes, clothes that are all rotted and torn and marked with fifty years of spring mud and fall rain and caked winter snow? Kids with no heads (he had heard at school that, after the explosion, a woman had found the head of one of the victims in a tree in her back yard), kids with no legs, kids flayed open like codfish, kids just like me who would maybe come down and play . . . down there where its dark ... under the leaning iron girders and the big old rusty cogs.... Oh, stop it, for the Lords sake! But a shudder wrenched its way up his back and he decided it was time to take somethinganythingand get the dickens out of here. He reached down, almost at random, and came up with a geartoothed wheel about seven inches in diameter. He had a pencil in his pocket and he used it, quickly, to dig the dirt out of the teeth. Then he slipped his souvenir in his pocket. He would go now. He would go, yes But his feet moved slowly in the wrong direction, toward the cellarhold, and he realized with a dismal sort of horror that he needed to look down inside. He had to see. He gripped a spongy supportbeam leaning out of the earth and swayed forward, trying to see down and inside. He couldnt quite do it. He had come to within fifteen feet of the edge, but that was still a little too far to see the bottom of the cellarhold. I dont care if I see the bottom or not. Im going back now. Ive got my souvenir. I dont need to look down into any crummy old hole. And Daddys note said to stay away from it. But the unhappy, almost feverish curiosity that had gripped him would not let go. He approached the cellarhold step by queasy step, aware that as soon as the wooden beam was out of his reach there would be no more grabholds, also aware that the ground here was indeed squelchy and crumbly. In places along the edge he could see depressions, like graves that had fallen in, and knew that they were the sites of previous caveins. Heart thudding in his chest like the hard measured strides of a soldiers boots, he reached the edge and looked down. Nested in the cellarhold, the bird looked up. Mike was not at first sure what he was seeing. All the nerves and pathways in his body seemed frozen, including those which conducted thoughts. It was not just the shock of seeing a monster bird, a bird whose breast was as orange as a robins and whose feathers were the unremarkable fluffy gray of a sparrows feathers; most of it was the shock of the utterly unexpected. He had expected monoliths of machinery halfsubmerged in stagnant puddles and black mud; instead he was looking down into a giant nest which filled the cellarhold from end to end and side to side. It had been made out of enough timothy grass to make a dozen bales of hay, but this grass was silvery and old. The bird sat in the middle of it, its brightly ringed eyes as black as fresh, warm tar, and for an insane moment before his paralysis broke, Mike could see himself reflected in each of them. Then the ground suddenly began to shift and run out from beneath his feet. He heard the tearing sound of shallow roots giving way and realized he was sliding. With a yell he threw himself backward, pinwheeling his arms for balance. He lost it and thumped heavily to the littered ground. Some hard, dull chunk of metal pressed painfully into his back, and he had time to think of the trampchair before he heard the whirring, explosive sound of the birds wings. He scrambled to his knees, crawled, looked back over his shoulder, and saw it rising out of the cellarhold. Its scaly talons were a dusky orange. Its beating wings, each more than ten feet across, blew the scraggy timothy grass this way and that, patternlessly, like the wind generated by helicopter rotors. It uttered a buzzing, chirruping scream. A few loose feathers slipped from its wings and spiraled back down into the cellarhold. Mike gained his feet again and began to run. He pounded across the field, not looking back now, afraid to look back. The bird did not look like Rodan, but he sensed it was the spirit of Rodan, risen from the cellarhold of the Kitchener Ironworks like a horrible birdinthebox. He stumbled, went to one knee, got up, and ran on. That weird chirruping buzzing screech came again. A shadow covered him and when he looked up he saw the thing it had passed less than five feet over his head. Its beak, dirty yellow, opened and closed, revealing a pink lining inside. It whirled back toward Mike. The wind it generated washed across his face, bringing a dry unpleasant smell with it attic dust, dead antiques, rotting cushions. He jigged to his left, and now he saw the fallen smokestack again. He sprinted for it, running allout, his arms pumping in short jabbing strokes at his sides. The bird screamed, and he heard its fluttering wings. They sounded like sails. Something slammed into the back of his head. Warm fire traced its way up the nape of his neck. He felt it spread as blood began to trickle down the back of his shirtcollar. The bird whirled around again, meaning to pick him up with its talons and carry him away like a hawk with a fieldmouse. Meaning to carry him back to its nest. Meaning to eat him. As it flew at him, swooping down, its black, horribly alive eyes fixed on him, Mike cut sharply right. The bird missed himbarely. The dusty smell of its wings was overpowering, unbearable. Now he was running parallel to the fallen smokestack, its tiles blurring by. He could see where it ended. If he could reach the end and buttonhook to the left, get inside, he might be safe. He thought the bird was too big to squeeze inside. He came very close to not making it. The bird flew at him again, pulling up as it closed in, its wings flapping and pushing air in a hurricane, its scaly talons now angled toward him and descending. It screamed again, and this time Mike thought he heard triumph in its voice. He lowered his head, put his arm up, and rammed straight forward. The talons closed and for a moment the bird had him by the forearm. The grip was like the clutch of incredibly strong fingers tipped with tough nails. They bit like teeth. The birds flapping wings were a thunder in his ears; he was dimly aware of feathers falling around him, some brushing past his cheeks like phantom kisses. The bird rose then, and for just a moment Mike felt himself pulled upward, first straight, then on tiptoe . . . and for one freezing second he felt the toes of his Keds lose contact with the earth. Let me GO! he screamed at it, and twisted his arm. For a moment the talons held on, and then the sleeve of his shirt ripped. He thumped back down. The bird squalled. Mike ran again, brushing through the things tailfeathers, gagging at that dry smell. It was like running through a showercurtain of feathers. Still coughing, eyes stinging from both tears and whatever vile dust coated the birds feathers, he stumbled into the fallen smokestack. There was no thought now of what might be lurking inside. He ran into the darkness, his gasping sobs taking on a flat echo. He went back perhaps twenty feet and then turned toward the bright circle of daylight. His chest was rising and falling in quick jerks. He was suddenly aware that, if he had misjudged either the size of the bird or the size of the smokestacks muzzle, he had killed himself as surely as if he had put his fathers shotgun to his head and pulled the trigger. There was no way out. This wasnt just a pipe; it was a blind alley. The other end of the stack was buried in the earth. The bird squalled again, and suddenly the light at the end of the smokestack was blotted out as it lighted on the ground outside. He could see its yellow scaly legs, each as thick as a mans calf. Then it cocked its head down and looked inside. Mike found himself again staring into those hideously bright freshtar eyes with their gold weddingrings of iris. The birds beak opened and closed, opened and closed, and each time it snapped shut he heard an audible click, like the sound you hear in your own ears when you snap your teeth together hard. Sharp, he thought. Its beak is sharp. I guess I knew birds had sharp beaks, but I never really thought about it until now. It squawked again. The sound was so loud in the tile throat of the stack that Mike clapped his hands to his ears. The bird began to force itself into the mouth of the stack. No! Mike cried. No, you cant! The light faded as more of the birds body pressed its way into the stacks bore (Oh my Lord, why didnt I remember it was mostly feathers? Why didnt I remember it could squeeze?). The light faded . . . faded . . . was gone. Now there was only an inky blackness, the suffocating atticsmell of the bird, and the rustling sound of its feathers. Mike fell on his knees and began to grope on the curved floor of the smokestack, his hands spread wide, feeling. He found a piece of broken tile, its sharp edges furred with what felt like moss. He cocked his arm back and pegged it. There was a thump. The bird uttered its buzzing, chirruping sound again. Get out of here! Mike screamed. There was silence . . . and then that crackly, rustling sound began again as the bird resumed forcing itself into the pipe. Mike felt along the floor, found other pieces of tile, and began to throw one after another. They thumped and thudded off the bird and then clinked to the tile sleeve of the smokestack. Please, God, Mike thought incoherently. Please God, please God, please God It came to him that he ought to retreat down the smokestacks bore. He had run in through what had been the stacks base; it stood to reason that it would narrow as he backed up. He could retreat, yes, and listen to that low dusty rustle as the bird worked its way in after him. He could retreat, and if he was lucky he might get beyond the point where the bird could continue to advance. But what if the bird got stuck? If that happened, he and the bird would die in here together. They would die in here together and rot in here together. In the dark. Please, God! he screamed, and was totally unaware that he had cried out aloud. He threw another piece of tile, and this time his throw was more powerfulhe felt, he told the others much later, as if someone were behind him at that moment, and that someone had given his arm a tremendous push. This time there was no feathery thud; instead there was a splatting sound, the sound a kids hand might make slapping into the surface of a bowl of halfsolidified JellO. This time the bird screamed not in anger but in real pain. The tenebrous whirr of its wings filled the smokestack; stinking air streamed past Mike in a hurricane, flapping his clothes, making him cough and gag and retreat as dust and moss flew. Light appeared again, gray and weak at first, then brightening and shifting as the bird retreated from the stacks muzzle. Mike burst into tears, fell to his knees again, and began grubbing madly for more pieces of tile. Without any conscious thought, he ran forward with both hands full of tiling (in this light he could see the pieces were splotched with bluegray moss and lichen, like the surface of slate gravestones), until he was nearly at the mouth of the stack. He intended to keep the bird from coming back in if he could. It bent down, cocking its head the way a trained bird on a perch will sometimes cock its head, and Mike saw where his last shot had struck home. The birds right eye was nearly gone. Instead of that glittering bubble of fresh tar, there was a crater filled with blood. Whitishgray goo dripped from the corner of the socket and trickled along the side of the birds beak. Tiny parasites wriggled and squirmed in this pussy discharge. It saw him and lunged forward. Mike began to throw chunks of tile at it. They struck its head and beak. It withdrew for a moment and then lunged again, beak opening, revealing that pink lining again, revealing something else that caused Mike to freeze for a moment, his own mouth dropping open. The birds tongue was silver, its surface as crazycracked as the surface of a volcanic land which has first baked and then slagged off. And on this tongue, like weird tumbleweeds that had taken temporary root there, were a number of orange puffs. Mike threw the last of his tiles directly into that gaping maw and the bird withdrew again, screaming its frustration, rage, and pain. For a moment Mike could see its reptilian talons.... Then its wings ruffled the air and it was gone. A moment later he lifted his facea face that was graybrown under the dirt, dust, and bits of moss that the birds windmachine wings had blown at himtoward the clicking sound of its talons on the tile. The only clean places on Mikes face were the tracks that had been washed clean by his tears. |
The bird walked back and forth overhead Taktaktaktak. Mike retreated a bit, gathered up more chunks of tile, and heaped them as close to the mouth of the stack as he dared. If the thing came back, he wanted to be able to fire at it from pointblank range. The light outside was still bright now that it was May, it wouldnt get dark for a long time yetbut suppose the bird just decided to wait? Mike swallowed, the dry sides of his throat rubbing together for a moment. Overhead Taktaktak. He had a fine pile of ammunition now. In the dim light, here beyond the place where the angle of the sun made a shadowspiral inside the pipe, it looked like a pile of broken crockery swept together by a housewife. Mike rubbed the palms of his dirty hands along the sides of his jeans and waited to see what would happen next. A space of time passed before something didwhether five minutes or twentyfive, he could not tell. He was only aware of the bird walking back and forth overhead like an insomniac pacing the floor at three in the morning. Then its wings fluttered again. It landed in front of the smokestacks opening. Mike, on his knees just behind his pile of tiling, began to peg missiles at it before it could even bend its head down. One of them slammed into a plated yellow leg and drew a trickle of blood so dark it seemed almost as black as the birds eyes. Mike screamed in triumph, the sound thin and almost lost under the birds own enraged squawk. Get out of here! Mike cried. Im going to keep hitting you until you get out of here, I swear to God I will! The bird flew up to the top of the smokestack and resumed its pacing. Mike waited. Finally its wings ruffled again as it took off. Mike waited, expecting the yellow feet, so like hens feet, to appear again. They didnt. He waited longer, convinced it had to be some kind of a trick, realizing at last that that wasnt why he was waiting at all. He was waiting because he was scared to go out, scared to leave the safety of this bolthole. Never mind! Never mind stuff like that! Im not a rabbit! He took as many chunks of tile as he could handle comfortably, then put some more inside his shirt. He stepped out of the smokestack, trying to look everywhere at once and wishing madly for eyes in the back of his head. He saw only the field stretching ahead and around him, littered with the exploded rusting remains of the Kitchener Ironworks. He wheeled around, sure he would see the bird perched on the lip of the stack like a vulture, a oneeyed vulture now, only wanting the boy to see him before it attacked for the final time, using that sharp beak to jab and rip and strip. But the bird was not there. It was really gone. Mikes nerve snapped. He uttered a breaking scream of fear and ran for the weatherbeaten fence between the field and the road, dropping the last pieces of tile from his hands. Most of the others fell out of his shirt as the shirt pulled free of his belt. He vaulted over the fence onehanded, like Roy Rogers showing off for Dale Evans on his way back from the corral with Pat Brady and the rest of the buckaroos. He grabbed the handlebars of his bike and ran beside it forty feet up the road before getting on. Then he pedaled madly, not daring to look back, not daring to slow down, until he reached the intersection of Pasture Road and Outer Main Street, where there were lots of cars passing back and forth. When he got home, his father was changing the plugs on the tractor. Will observed that Mike looked powerful musty and dusty. Mike hesitated for just a split second and then told his father that hed taken a tumble from his bike on the way home, swerving to avoid a pothole. Did you break anything, Mikey? Will asked, observing his son a little more carefully. No, sir. Sprains? Huhuh. Sure? Mike nodded. Did you pick yourself up a souvenir? Mike reached into his pocket and found the gearwheel. He showed it to his father, who looked at it briefly and then plucked a tiny crumb of tiling from the pad of flesh just below Mikes thumb. He seemed more interested in this. From that old smokestack? Will asked. Mike nodded. You go inside there? Mike nodded again. See anything in there? Will asked, and then, as if to make a joke of the question (which hadnt sounded like a joke at all), he added Buried treasure? Smiling a little, Mike shook his head. Well, dont tell your mother you was muckin about in there, Will said. Shed shoot me first and you second. He looked even more closely at his son. Mikey, are you all right? Huh? You look a little peaky around the eyes. I guess I might be a little tired, Mike said. Its eight or ten miles there and back again, dont forget. You want some help with the tractor, Daddy? No, Im about done screwing it up for this week. You go on in and wash up. Mike started away, and then his father called to him once more. Mike looked back. I dont want you going around that place again, he said, at least not until all this trouble is cleared up and they catch the man whos doing it ... you didnt see anybody out there, did you? No one chased you, or hollered you down? I didnt see any people at all, Mike said. Will nodded and lit a cigarette. I think I was wrong to send you there. Old places like that . . . sometimes they can be dangerous. Their eyes locked briefly. Okay, Daddy, Mike said. I dont want to go back anyway. It was a little spooky. Will nodded again. Less said the better, I reckon. You go and get cleaned up now. And tell her to put on three or four extra sausages. Mike did. 6 Never mind that now, Mike Hanlon thought, looking at the grooves which went up to the concrete edge of the Canal and stopped there. Never mind that, it might just have been a dream anyhow, and There were splotches of dried blood on the lip of the Canal. Mike looked at these, and then he looked down into the Canal. Black water flowed smoothly past. Runners of dirty yellow foam clung to the Canals sides, sometimes breaking free to flow downstream in lazy loops and curves. For a momentjust a momenttwo clots of this foam came together and seemed to form a face, a kids face, its eyes turned up in an avatar of terror and agony. Mikes breath caught, as if on a thorn. The foam broke apart, became meaningless again, and at that moment there was a loud splash on his right. Mike snapped his head around, shrinking back a little, and for a moment he believed he saw something in the shadows of the outflow tunnel where the Canal resurfaced after its course under downtown. Then it was gone. Suddenly, cold and shuddering, he dug in his pocket for the knife he had found in the grass. He threw it into the Canal. There was a small splash, a ripple that began as a circle and was then tugged into the shape of an arrowhead by the current . . . then nothing. Nothing except the fear that was suddenly suffocating him and the deadly certainty that there was something near, something watching him, gauging its chances, biding its time. He turned, meaning to walk back to his biketo run would be to dignify those fears and undignify himselfand then that splashing sound came again. It was a lot louder this second time. So much for dignity. Suddenly he was running as fast as he could, beating his buns for the gate and his bike, jamming the kickstand up with one heel and pedaling for the street as fast as he could. That seasmell was all at once too thick . . . much too thick. It was everywhere. And the water dripping from the wet branches of the trees seemed much too loud. Something was coming. He heard dragging, lurching footsteps in the grass. He stood on the pedals, giving it everything, and shot out onto Main Street without looking back. He headed for home as fast as he could, wondering what in hell had possessed him to come in the first place . . . what had drawn him. And then he tried to think about the chores, the whole chores, and nothing but the chores. After awhile he actually succeeded. And when he saw the headline in the paper the next day (MISSING BOY PROMPTS NEW FEARS), he thought about the pocket knife he had thrown into the Canalthe pocket knife with the initials E.C. scratched on the side. He thought about the blood he had seen on the grass. And he thought about those grooves which stopped at the edge of the Canal. CHAPTER 7 The Dam in the Barrens 1 Seen from the expressway at quarter to five in the morning, Boston seems a city of the dead brooding over some tragedy in its pasta plague, perhaps, or a curse. The smell of salt, heavy and cloying, comes off the ocean. Runners of earlymorning fog obscure much of what movement would be seen otherwise. Driving north along Storrow Drive, sitting behind the wheel of the black 84 Cadillac he picked up from Butch Carrington at Cape Cod Limousine, Eddie Kaspbrak thinks you can feel this citys age; perhaps you can get that feeling of age nowhere else in America but here. Boston is a sprat compared with London, an infant compared with Rome, but by American standards at least it is old, old. It kept its place on these low hills three hundred years ago, when the Tea and Stamp Taxes were unthought of, Paul Revere and Patrick Henry unborn. Its age, its silence, and the foggy smell of the seaall of these things make Eddie nervous. When Eddies nervous he reaches for his aspirator. He sticks it in his mouth and triggers a cloud of revivifying spray down his throat. There are a few people in the streets hes passing, and a pedestrian or two on the walkways of the overpassesthey give lie to the impression that he has somehow wandered into a Lovecrafty tale of doomed cities, ancient evils, and monsters with unpronounceable names. Here, ganged around a bus stop with a sign reading KENMORE SQUARE CITY CENTER, he sees waitresses, nurses, city employees, their faces naked and puffed with sleep. Thats right, Eddie thinks, now passing under a sign which reads TOBIN BRIDGE. Thats right, stick to the buses. Forget the subways. The subways are a bad idea; I wouldnt go down there if I were you. Not down below. Not in the tunnels. This is a bad thought to have; if he doesnt get rid of it he will soon be using the aspirator again. Hes glad for the heavier traffic on the Tobin Bridge. He passes a monument works. Painted on the brick side is a slightly unsettling admonishment SLOW DOWN! WE CAN WAIT! Here is a green reflectorized sign which reads TO 95 MAINE, N.H., ALL NORTHERN NEW ENGLAND POINTS. He looks at it and suddenly a bonedeep shudder wracks his body. His hands momentarily weld themselves to the wheel of the Cadillac. He would like to believe it is the onset of some sickness, a virus or perhaps one of his mothers phantom fevers, but he knows better. It is the city behind him, poised silently on the straightedge that runs between day and night, and what that sign promises ahead of him. Hes sick, all right, no doubt about that, but its not a virus or a phantom fever. He has been poisoned by his own memories. Im scared, Eddie thinks. That was always what was at the bottom of it. Just being scared. That was everything. But in the end I think we turned that around somehow. We used it. But how? He cant remember. He wonders if any of the others can. For all their sakes he certainly hopes so. A truck drones by on his left. Eddie has still got his lights on and now he hits his brights momentarily as the truck draws safely ahead. He does this without thinking. It has become an automatic function, just part of driving for a living. The unseen driver in the truck flashes his running lights in return, quickly, twice, thanking Eddie for his courtesy. If only everything could be that simple and that clear, he thinks. He follows the signs to 195. The northbound traffic is light, although he observes that the southbound lanes into the city are starting to fill up, even at this early hour. Eddie floats the big car along, preguessing most of the directional signs and getting into the correct lane long before he has to. It has been yearsliterally yearssince he has guessed wrong enough to be swept past an exit he wanted. He makes his lanechoices as automatically as he flashed okay to cut back in to the trucker, as automatically as he once found his way through the tangle of paths in the Derry Barrens. The fact that he has never before in his life driven out of downtown Boston, one of the most confusing cities in America to drive in, does not seem to matter much at all. He suddenly remembers something else about that summer, something Bill said to him one day YYouve ggot a cccuhhompass in your head, EEEddie. How that had pleased him! It pleases him again as the 84 Dorado shoots back onto the turnpike. He slides the limos speed up to a copsafe fiftyseven miles an hour and finds some quiet music on the radio. He supposes he would have died for Bill back then, if that had been required; if Bill had asked him, Eddie would simply have responded Sure, Big Bill ... you got a time in mind yet? Eddie laughs at thisnot much of a sound, just a snort, but the sound of it startles him into a real laugh. He laughs seldom these days, and he certainly did not expect to find many chucks (Richies word, meaning chuckles, as in You had any good chucks today, Eds?) on this black pilgrimage. But, he supposes, if God is dirtymean enough to curse the faithful with what they want most in life, Hes maybe quirky enough to deal you a good chuck or two along the way. Had any good chucks lately, Eds? he says out loud, and laughs again. Man, he had hated it when Richie called him Eds ... but he had sort of liked it, too. The way he thought Ben Hanscom got to like Richie calling him Haystack. It was something . . . like a secret name. A secret identity. A way to be people that had nothing to do with their parents fears, hopes, constant demands. Richie couldnt do his beloved Voices for shit, but maybe he did know how important it was for creeps like them to sometimes be different people. Eddie glances at the change lined up neatly on the Dorados dashboardlining up the change is another of those automatic tricks of the trade. When the tollbooths come up, you never want to have to dig for your silver, never want to find that youve gotten in an automatictoll lane with the wrong change. Among the coins are two or three Susan B. Anthony silver dollars. They are coins, he reflects, that you probably only find in the pockets of chauffeurs and taxidrivers from the New York area these days, just as the only place you are apt to see a lot of twodollar bills is at a racetrack payoff window. He always keeps a few on hand because the robot tolltaker baskets on the George Washington and the Triboro Bridges take them. Another of those lights suddenly comes on in his head silver dollars. Not these fake copper sandwiches but real silver dollars, with Lady Liberty dressed in her gauzy robes stamped upon them. Ben Hanscoms silver dollars. Yes, but wasnt it Bill or Ben or Beverly who once used one of those silver cartwheels to save their lives? He is not quite sure of this, is, in fact, not quite sure of anything . . . or is it just that he doesnt want to remember? It was dark in there, he thinks suddenly. I remember that much. It was dark in there. Boston is well behind him now and the fog is starting to bum off. Ahead is MAINE, N.H., ALL NORTHERN NEW ENGLAND POINTS. Derry is ahead, and there is something in Derry which should be twentyseven years dead and yet is somehow not. Something with as many faces as Lon Chaney. But what is it really? Didnt they see it at the end as it really was, with all its masks cast aside? Ah, he can remember so much . . . but not enough. He remembers that he loved Bill Denbrough; he remembers that well enough. Bill never made fun of his asthma. Bill never called him little sissy queerboy. He loved Bill like he would have loved a big brother . . . or a father. Bill knew stuff to do. Places to go. Things to see. Bill was never up against it. When you ran with Bill you ran to beat the devil and you laughed . . . but you hardly ever ran out of breath. And hardly ever running out of breath was great, so fucking great, Eddie would tell the world. When you ran with Big Bill, you got your chucks every day. Sure, kid, EVery day, he says in a Richie Tozier Voice, and laughs again. It had been Bills idea to make the dam in the Barrens, and it was, in a way, the dam that had brought them all together. Ben Hanscom had been the one to show them how the dam could be builtand they had built it so well that theyd gotten in a lot of trouble with Mr. Nell, the cop on the beatbut it had been Bills idea. And although all of them except Richie had seen very odd thingsfrightening thingsin Derry since the turn of the year, it had been Bill who had first found the courage to say something out loud. That dam. That damn dam. He remembered Victor Criss Tata, boys. It was a real baby dam, believe me. Youre better off without it. A day later, Ben Hanscom was grinning at them, saying We could We could flood We could flood out the 2 whole Barrens if we wanted to. Bill and Eddie looked at Ben doubtfully and then at the stuff Ben had brought along with him some boards (scrounged from Mr. McKibbons back yard, but that was okay, since Mr. McKibbon had probably scavenged them from someone elses), a sledgehammer, a shovel. I dunno, Eddie said, glancing at Bill. When we tried yesterday, it didnt work very good. The current kept washing our sticks away. Thisll work, Ben said. He also looked to Bill for the final decision. Well, lets ggive it a tttry, Bill said. I ccalled RRRRichie Tozier this mmorning. Hes ggonna be ohover llater, he ssaid. Maybe him and Stuhhuhhanley will want to hhelp. Stanley who? Ben asked. Uris, Eddie said. He was still looking cautiously at Bill, who seemed somehow different todayquieter, less enthusiastic about the idea of the dam. Bill looked pale today. Distant. Stanley Uris? I guess I dont know him. Does he go to Derry Elementary? Hes our age but he just finished the fourth grade, Eddie said. He started school a year late because he was sick a lot when he was a little kid. You think you took chong yesterday, you just oughtta be glad youre not Stan. Someones always rackin Stan to the dogs an back. Hes Juhjuhhooish, Bill said. Luhlots of kkids dont luhhike him because hhes Jewish. Oh yeah? Ben asked, impressed. Jewish, huh? He paused and then said carefully Is that like being Turkish, or is it more like, you know, Egyptian? I gguess its more like Turhurhurkish, Bill said. He picked up one of the boards Ben had brought and looked at it. It was about six feet long and three feet wide. My dddad says most JJews have big nuhnoses and lots of mmmoney, but StuhStuhStuh But Stans got a regular nose and hes always broke, Eddie said. Yeah, Bill said, and broke into a real grin for the first time that day. Ben grinned. Eddie grinned. Bill tossed the board aside, got up and brushed off the seat of his jeans. He walked to the edge of the stream and the other two boys joined him. Bill shoved his hands in his back pockets and sighed deeply. Eddie was sure Bill was going to say something serious. He looked from Eddie to Ben and then back to Eddie again, not smiling now. Eddie was suddenly afraid. But all Bill said then was, You got your ahahaspirator, EEddie? Eddie slapped his pocket. Im loaded for bear. Say, howd it work with the chocolate milk? Ben asked. Eddie laughed. Worked great! he said. He and Ben broke up while Bill looked at them, smiling but puzzled. Eddie explained and Bill nodded, grinning again. EEEddies muhhum is wwworried that hhes ggonna break and shshe wuhhont be able to gget a rererefund. Eddie snorted and made as if to push him into the stream. Watch it, fuckface, Bill said, sounding uncannily like Henry Bowers. Ill twist your head so far around youll be able to watch when you wipe yourself. Ben collapsed, shrieking with laughter. Bill glanced at him, still smiling, hands still in the back pockets of his jeans, smiling, yeah, but a little distant again, a little vague. He looked at Eddie and then cocked his head toward Ben. Kids suhsuhsoft, he said. Yeah, Eddie agreed, but he felt somehow that they were only going through the motions of having a good time. Something was on Bills mind. He supposed Bill would spill it when he was ready; the question was, did Eddie want to hear what it was? Kids mentally retarded. Retreaded, Ben said, still giggling. YYou gggonna shshow us how to bbuild a dam or aare you gggonna sihit there on your bbig cccan all dday? Ben got to his feet again. He looked first at the stream, flowing past them at moderate speed. The Kenduskeag was not terribly wide this far up in the Barrens, but it had defeated them yesterday just the same. Neither Eddie nor Bill had been able to figure out how to get a foothold on the current. But Ben was smiling, the smile of one who contemplates doing something new . . . something that will be fun but not very hard. Eddie thought He knows howI really think he does. Okay, he said. You guys want to take your shoes off, because youre gonna get your little footsies wet. The mindmother in Eddies head spoke up at once, her voice as stern and commanding as the voice of a traffic cop Dont you dare do it, Eddie! Dont you dare! Wet feet, thats one wayone of the thousands of waysthat colds start, and colds lead to pneumonia, so dont you do it! Bill and Ben were sitting on the bank, pulling off their sneakers and socks. Ben was fussily rolling up the legs of his jeans. Bill looked up at Eddie. His eyes were clear and warm, sympathetic. Eddie was suddenly sure Big Bill knew exactly what he had been thinking, and he was ashamed. YYou cccomin? Yeah, sure, Eddie said. He sat down on the bank and undressed his feet while his mother ranted inside his head . . . but her voice was growing steadily more distant and echoey, he was relieved to note, as if someone had stuck a heavy fishhook through the back of her blouse and was now reeling her away from him down a very long corridor. 3 It was one of those perfect summer days which, in a world where everything was on track and on the beam, you would never forget. A moderate breeze kept the worst of the mosquitoes and blackflies away. The sky was a bright, crisp blue. Temperatures were in the low seventies. Birds sang and went about their birdybusiness in the bushes and secondgrowth trees. Eddie had to use his aspirator once, and then his chest lightened and his throat seemed to widen magically to the size of a freeway. He spent the rest of the morning with it stuffed forgotten into his back pocket. Ben Hanscom, who had seemed so timid and unsure the day before, became a confident general once he was fully involved in the actual construction of the dam. Every now and then he would climb the bank and stand there with his muddy hands on his hips, looking at the work in progress and muttering to himself. Sometimes he would run a hand through his hair, and by eleven oclock it was standing up in crazy, comical spikes. Eddie felt uncertainty at first, then a sense of glee, and finally an entirely new feelingone that was at the same time weird, terrifying, and exhilarating. It was a feeling so alien to his usual state of being that he was not able to put a name to it until that night, lying in bed and looking at the ceiling and replaying the day. Power. That was what that feeling had been. Power. It was going to work, by God, and it was going to work better than he and Billmaybe even Ben himselfhad dreamed it could. He could see Bill getting involved, tooonly a little at first, still mulling over whatever it was he had on his mind, and then, bit by bit, committing himself fully. Once or twice he clapped Ben on one meaty shoulder and told him he was unbelievable. Ben flushed with pleasure each time. Ben got Eddie and Bill to set one of the boards across the stream and hold it as he used the sledgehammer to seat it in the streambed. Thereits in, but youll have to hold it or the currentll just pull it loose, he told Eddie, so Eddie stood in the middle of the stream holding the board while water sluiced over its top and made his hands into wavering starfish shapes. Ben and Bill located a second board two feet downstream of the first. Ben used the sledge again to seat it and Bill held it while Ben began to fill up the space between the two boards with sandy earth from the streambank. At first it only washed away around the ends of the boards in gritty clouds and Eddie didnt think it was going to work at all, but when Ben began adding rocks and muddy gook from the streambed, the clouds of escaping silt began to diminish. In less than twenty minutes he had created a heaped brown canal of earth and stones between the two boards in the middle of the stream. To Eddie it looked like an optical illusion. If we had real cement . . . instead of just . . . mud and rocks, theyd have to move the whole city . . . over to the Old Cape side by the middle of next week, Ben said, slinging the shovel aside at last and sitting on the bank until he got his breath back. Bill and Eddie laughed, and Ben grinned at them. When he grinned, there was a ghost of the handsome man he would become in the lines of his face. Water had begun to pile up behind the upstream board now. Eddie asked what they were going to do about the water escaping around the sides. Let it go. It doesnt matter. It doesnt? Nope. Why not? I cant explain exactly. You gotta let some out, though. How do you know? Ben shrugged. I just do, the shrug said, and Eddie was silenced. When he was rested, Ben got a third boardthe thickest of the four or five he had carried laboriously across town to the Barrensand placed it carefully against the downstream board, wedging one end firmly into the streambed and socking the other against the board Bill had been holding, creating the strut he had put in his little drawing the day before. Okay, he said, standing back. He grinned at them. You guys should be able to let go now. The gook in between the two boards will take most of the water pressure. The strut will take the rest. Wont the water wash it away? Eddie asked. Nope. The water is just gonna push it in deeper. And if youre ruhruhwrong, we gget to kkkill yuhyou, Bill said. Thats cool, Ben said amiably. Bill and Eddie stepped back. The two boards that formed the basis of the dam creaked a little, tilted a little . . . and that was all. Hot shit! Eddie screamed, excited. Its gggreat, Bill said, grinning. Yeah, Ben said. Lets eat. 4 They sat on the bank and ate, not talking much, watching the water stack up behind the dam and sluice around the ends of the boards. They had already done something to the geography of the streambanks, Eddie saw the diverted current was cutting scalloped hollows into them. As he watched, the new course of the stream undercut the bank enough on the far side to cause a small avalanche. Upstream of the dam the water formed a roughly circular pool, and at one place it had actually overflowed the bank. Bright, reflecting rills ran off into the grass and the underbrush. Eddie slowly began to realize what Ben had known from the first the dam was already built. The gaps between the boards and the banks were sluiceways. Ben had not been able to tell Eddie this because he did not know the word. Above the boards the Kenduskeag had taken on a swelled look. The chuckling sound of shallow water babbling its way over stones and gravel was now gone; all the stones upstream of the dam were underwater. Every now and then more sod and dirt, undercut by the widening stream, would fall into the water with a splash. Downstream of the dam the watercourse was nearly empty; thin trickles ran restlessly down its center, but that was about all. Stones which had been underwater for God knew how long were drying in the sun. Eddie looked at these drying stones with mild wonder . . . and that weird other feeling. They had done this. They. He saw a frog hopping along and thought maybe old Mr. Froggy was wondering just where the water had gone. Eddie laughed out loud. Ben was neatly stowing his empty wrappers in the lunchbag he had brought. Both Eddie and Bill had been amazed by the size of the repast Ben had laid out with businesslike efficiency two PBJ sandwiches, one bologna sandwich, a hardcooked egg (complete with a pinch of salt twisted up in a small piece of waxed paper), two figbars, three large chocolate chip cookies, and a RingDing. What did your ma say when she saw how bad you got racked? Eddie asked him. Hmmmm? Ben looked up from the spreading pool of water behind the dam and belched gently against the back of his hand. Oh! Well, I knew shed be groceryshopping yesterday afternoon, so I was able to beat her home. I took a bath and washed my hair. Then I threw away the jeans and the sweatshirt I was wearing. I dont know if shell notice theyre gone or not. Probably not the sweatshirt, I got lots of sweatshirts, but I guess I ought to buy myself a new pair of jeans before she gets nosing through my drawers. The thought of wasting his money on such a nonessential item cast momentary gloom across Bens face. WWWhat about the way yuhyou wwere bbruised up? I told her I was so excited to be out of school that I ran out the door and fell down the steps, Ben said, and looked both amazed and a little hurt when Eddie and Bill began laughing. Bill, who had been chowing up a piece of his mothers devils food cake, blew out a brown jet of crumbs and then had a coughing fit. Eddie, still howling, clapped him on the back. Well, I almost did fall down the steps, Ben said. Only it was because Victor Criss pushed me, not because I was running. Id be as hhot as a tuhtuhtamale in a swuhheatshirt like that, Bill said, finishing the last bite of his cake. Ben hesitated. For a moment it seemed he would say nothing. Its better when youre fat, he said finally. Sweatshirts, I mean. Because of your gut? Eddie asked. Bill snorted. Because of your tihtihtih Yeah, my tits. So what? Yeah, Bill said mildly. SSo what? There was a moment of awkward silence and then Eddie said, Look how dark the waters getting when it goes around that side of the dam. Oh, cripes! Ben shot to his feet. Currents pulling out the fill! Jeez, I wish we had cement! The damage was quickly repaired, but even Eddie could see what would happen without someone there to almost constantly shovel in fresh fill erosion would eventually cause the upstream board to collapse against the downstream board, and then everything would fall over. We can shore up the sides, Ben said. That wont stop the erosion, but itll slow it down. If we use sand and mud, wont it just go on washing away? Eddie asked. Well use chunks of sod. Bill nodded, smiled, and made an O with the thumb and forefinger of his right hand. Lets gggo. Ill ddig em and yyou shshow me where to pput em ihin, Big Ben. From behind them a stridently cheery voice called My Gawd, someone put the Ypool down in the Barrens, bellybutton lint and all! Eddie turned, noticing the way Ben tightened up at the sound of a strange voice, the way his lips thinned. Standing above them and aways upstream, on the path Ben had crossed the day before, were Richie Tozier and Stanley Uris. Richie came bopping down to the stream, glanced at Ben with some interest, and then pinched Eddies cheek. Dont do that! I hate it when you do that, Richie. Ah, you love it, Eds, Richie said, and beamed at him. So what do you say? You havin any good chucks, or what? 5 The five of them knocked off around four oclock. They sat much higher on the bankthe place where Bill, Ben, and Eddie had eaten lunch was now underwaterand stared down at their handiwork. Even Ben found it a little difficult to believe. He felt a sense of tired accomplishment which was mixed with uneasy fright. He found himself thinking of Fantasia, and how Mickey Mouse had known enough to get the brooms started . . . but not enough to make them stop. |
Fucking incredible, Richie Tozier said softly, and pushed his glasses up on his nose. Eddie glanced over at him, but Richie was not doing one of his numbers now; his face was thoughtful, almost solemn. On the far side of the stream, where the land first rose and then tilted shallowly downhill, they had created a new piece of bogland. Bracken and holly bushes stood in a foot of water. Even as they sat here they could see the bog sending out fresh pseudopods, spreading steadily westward. Behind the dam the Kenduskeag, shallow and harmless just this morning, had become a still, swollen band of water. By two oclock the widening pool behind the dam had taken so much embankment that the spillways had grown almost to the size of rivers themselves. Everyone but Ben had gone on an emergency expedition to the dump in search of more materials. Ben stuck around, methodically sodding up leaks. The scavengers had returned not only with boards but with four bald tires, the rusty door of a 1949 Hudson Hornet, and a big piece of corrugatedsteel siding. Under Bens leadership they had built two wings on the original dam, blocking off the waters escape around the sides againand, with the wings raked back at an angle against the current, the dam worked even better than before. Stopped that sucker cold, Richie said. Youre a genius, man. Ben smiled. Its not so much. I got some Winstons, Richie said. Who wants one? He produced the crumpled redandwhite pack from his pants pocket and passed it around. Eddie, thinking of the hell a cigarette would raise with his asthma, refused. Stan also refused. Bill took one, and, after a moments thought, Ben took one, too. Richie produced a book of matches with the words ROITAN on the outside, and lit first Bens cigarette, then Bills. He was about to light his own when Bill blew out the match. Thanks a lot, Denbrough, you wet, Richie said. Bill smiled apologetically. TheTheThree on a muhmuhhatch, he said. BBad luhluhluck. Bad luck for your folks when you were born, Richie said, and lit his cigarette with another match. He lay down and crossed his arms beneath his head. The cigarette jutted upward between his teeth. Winston tastes good, like a cigarette should. He turned his head slightly and winked at Eddie. Aint that right, Eds? Ben, Eddie saw, was looking at Richie with a mixture of awe and wariness. Eddie could understand that. He had known Richie Tozier for four years, and he still didnt really understand what Richie was about. He knew that Richie got As and Bs in his schoolwork, but he also knew that Richie regularly got Cs and Ds in deportment. His father really racked him about it and his mother just about cried every time Richie brought home those poor conduct grades, and Richie would swear to do better, and maybe he even would . . . for a quarter or two. The trouble with Richie was that he couldnt keep still for more than a minute at a time and he couldnt keep his mouth shut at all. Down here in the Barrens that didnt get him in much trouble, but the Barrens werent NeverNever Land and they couldnt be the Wild Boys for more than a few hours at a stretch (the idea of a Wild Boy with an aspirator in his back pocket made Eddie smile). The trouble with the Barrens was that you always had to leave. Out there in the wider world, Richies bullshit was always getting him in troublewith adults, which was bad, and with guys like Henry Bowers, which was even worse. His entrance earlier today was a perfect example. Ben Hanscom had no more than started to say hi when Richie had fallen on his knees at Bens feet. He then began a series of gigantic salaams, his arms outstretched, his hands fwapping against the muddy bank every time he bowed again. At the same time he had begun to speak in one of his Voices. Richie had about a dozen different Voices. His ambition, he had told Eddie one rainy afternoon when they were in the little raftered room over the Kaspbrak garage reading Little Lulu comic books, was to become the worlds greatest ventriloquist. He was going to be even greater than Edgar Bergen, he said, and he would be on The Ed Sullivan Show every week. Eddie admired this ambition but foresaw problems with it. First, all of Richies Voices sounded pretty much like Richie Tozier. This was not to say Richie could not be very funny from time to time; he could be. When referring to verbal zingers and loud farts, Richies terminology was the same he called it Getting Off A Good One, and he got off Good Ones of both types frequently . . . usually in inappropriate company, however. Second, when Richie did ventriloquism, his lips moved. Not just a little, on the p and bsounds, but a lot, and on all the sounds. Third, when Richie said he was going to throw his voice, it usually didnt go very far. Most of his friends were too kindor too bemused with Richies sometimes enchanting, often exhausting charmto mention these little failings to him. Salaaming frantically in front of the startled and embarrassed Ben Hanscom, Richie was speaking in what he called his Nigger Jim Voice. Lawksamussy, its be Haystack Calhoun! Richie screamed. Dont fall on me, Mistuh Haystack, suh! Youse gwineter cream me if you do! Lawksamussy, lawksamussy! Three hunnert pounds of swaingin meat, eightyeight inches from tit to tit, Haystack be smellin jest like a loader panther shit! Ise gwineter leadjer inter de raing, Mistuh Haystack, suh! Ise sho enuf gwineter leadjer! Jest dontchoo be fallin on dis yere black boy! DDont wuhworry, Bill said. Its jjjust RuhRuhRichie. Hes cccrazy. Richie bounced to his feet. I heard that, Denbrough. You better leave me alone or Ill sic Haystack here on you. BBest pppart of you rran down your fuhfuhhathers llleg, Bill said. True, Richie said, but look how much good stuff was left. How ya doin, Haystack? Richie Tozier is my name, doing Voices is my game. He popped his hand out. Thoroughly confused, Ben reached for it. Richie pulled his hand back. Ben blinked. Relenting, Richie shook. My names Ben Hanscom, in case youre interested, Ben said. Seen you around school, Richie said. He swept a hand at the spreading pool of water. This must have been your idea. These wet ends couldnt light a firecracker with a flamethrower. Speak for yourself, Richie, Eddie said. Ohyou mean it was your idea, Eds? Jesus, Im sorry. He fell down in front of Eddie and began salaaming wildly again. Get up, stop it, youre splattering mud on me! Eddie cried. Richie jumped to his feet a second time and pinched Eddies cheek. Cute, cute, cute! Richie exclaimed. Stop it, I hate that! Fess up, Edswho built the dam? BBBen shshowed us, Bill said. Good deal. Richie turned and discovered Stanley Uris standing behind him, hands in his pockets, watching quietly as Richie put on his show. This heres Stan the Man Uris, Richie told Ben. Stans a Jew. Also, he killed Christ. At least thats what Victor Criss told me one day. I been after Stan ever since. I figure if hes that old, he ought to be able to buy us some beer. Right, Stan? I think that must have been my father, Stan said in a low, pleasant voice, and that broke them all up, Ben included. Eddie laughed until he was wheezing and tears were running down his face. A Good One! Richie cried, striding around with his arms thrown up over his head like a football referee signalling that the extra point was good. Stan the Man Gets Off A Good One! Great Moments in History! YowzaYowzaYOWza! Hi. Stan said to Ben, seeming to take no notice of Richie at all. Hello, Ben replied. We were in the same class in second grade. You were the kid who never said anything, Stan finished, smiling a little. Right. Stan wouldnt say shit if he had a mouthful, Richie said. Which he FREEquently doesyowzayowzaYOW ShShShut uhup, Richie, Bill said. Okay, but first I have to tell you one more thing, much as I hate to. I think youre losing your dam. Valleys gonna flood, pardners. Lets get the women and children out first. And without bothering to roll up his pantsor even to remove his sneakersRichie jumped into the water and began to slam sods into place on the nearside wing of the dam, where the persistent current was pulling fill out in muddy streamers again. A piece of Red Cross adhesive tape was wrapped around one of the bows of his glasses, and the loose end flapped against his cheekbone as he worked. Bill caught Eddies eye, smiled a little, and shrugged. It was just Richie. He could drive you bugshit ... but it was still sort of nice to have him around. They worked on the dam for the next hour or so. Richie took Bens commandswhich had become rather tentative again, with two more kids to generalwith perfect willingness, and fulfilled them at a manic pace. When each mission was completed he reported back to Ben for further orders, executing a backhand British salute and snapping the soggy heels of his sneakers together. Every now and then he would begin to harangue the others in one of his Voices the German Commandant, Toodles the English Butler, the Southern Senator (who sounded quite a bit like Foghorn Leghorn and who would, in the fullness of time, evolve into a character named Buford Kissdrivel), the MovieTone Newsreel Narrator. The work did not just go forward; it sprinted forward. And now, shortly before five oclock, as they sat resting on the bank, it seemed that what Richie had said was true they had stopped the sucker cold. The car door, the piece of corrugated steel, and the old tires had become the second stage of the dam, and it was backstopped by a huge sloping hill of earth and stones. Bill, Ben, and Richie smoked; Stan was lying on his back. A stranger might have thought he was just looking at the sky, but Eddie knew better. Stan was looking into the trees on the other side of the stream, keeping an eye out for a bird or two he could write up in his bird notebook that night. Eddie himself just sat crosslegged, feeling pleasantly tired and rather mellow. At that moment the others seemed to him like the greatest bunch of guys to chum with a fellow could ever hope to have. They felt right together; they fitted neatly against each others edges. He couldnt explain it to himself any better than that, and since it didnt really seem to need any explaining, he decided he ought to just let it be. He looked over at Ben, who was holding his halfsmoked cigarette clumsily and spitting frequently, as if he didnt like the taste of it much. As Eddie watched, Ben stubbed it out and covered the long butt with dirt. Ben looked up, saw Eddie watching him, and looked away, embarrassed. Eddie glanced at Bill and saw something on Bills face that he didnt like. Bill was looking across the water and into the trees and bushes on the far side, his eyes gray and thoughtful. That brooding expression was back on his face. Eddie thought Bill looked almost haunted. As if reading his thought, Bill looked around at him. Eddie smiled, but Bill didnt smile back. He put his cigarette out and looked around at the others. Even Richie had withdrawn into the silence of his own thoughts, an event which occurred about as seldom as a lunar eclipse. Eddie knew that Bill rarely said anything important unless it was perfectly quiet, because it was so hard for him to speak. And he suddenly wished he had something to say, or that Richie would start in with one of his Voices. He was suddenly sure Bill was going to open his mouth and say something terrible, something which would change everything. Eddie reached automatically for his aspirator, pulled it out of his back pocket, and held it in his hand. He did this without even thinking about it. CCan I tell you ggguys suhhomething? Bill asked. They all looked at him. Crack a joke, Richie! Eddie thought. Crack a joke, say something really outrageous, embarrass him, I dont care, just shut him up. Whatever it is, I dont want to hear it, I dont want things to change, I dont want to be scared. In his mind a tenebrous, croaking voice whispered Ill do it for a dime. Eddie shuddered and tried to unthink that voice, and the sudden image it called up in his mind the house on Neibolt Street, its front yard overgrown with weeds, gigantic sunflowers nodding in the untended garden off to one side. Sure, Big Bill, Richie said. Whats up? Bill opened his mouth (more anxiety on Eddies part), closed it (blessed relief for Eddie), and then opened it again (renewed anxiety). IIIf you guhguhguys 11laugh, IIll never hhang around with you again, Bill said. Its cuhcuhcrazy, but I swear Im not muhhaking it up. It rrreally happened. We wont laugh, Ben said. He looked around at the others. Will we? Stan shook his head. So did Richie. Eddie wanted to say, Yes we will too, Billy, well laugh our heads off and say youre really stupid, so why dont you shut up right now? But of course he could not say any such thing. This was, after all, Big Bill. He shook his head miserably. No, he wouldnt laugh. He had never felt less like laughing in his life. They sat there above the dam Ben had showed them how to make, looking from Bills face to the expanding pool and the likewise expanding bog beyond it and then back to Bills face again, listening silently as he told them about what had happened when he opened Georges photograph albumhow Georgies school photograph had turned its head and winked at him, how the book had bled when he threw it across the room. It was a long, painful recital, and by the time he finished Bill was redfaced and sweating. Eddie had never heard him stutter so badly. At last, though, the tale was told. Bill looked around at them, both defiant and afraid. Eddie saw an identical expression on the faces of Ben, Richie, and Stan. It was solemn, awed fear. It was not in the slightest tinctured by disbelief. An urge came to him then, an urge to spring to his feet and shout What a crazy story! You dont believe that crazy story, do you, and even if you do, you dont believe we believe it, do you? School pictures cant wink! Books cant bleed! Youre out of your mind, Big Bill! But he couldnt very well do so, because that expression of solemn fear was also on his own face. He couldnt see it but he could feel it. Come back here, kid, the hoarse voice whispered. Ill blow you for free. Come back here! No, Eddie moaned at it. Please, go away, I dont want to think about that. Come back here, kid. And now Eddie saw something elsenot on Richies face, at least he didnt think so, but on Stans and Bens for sure. He knew what that something else was; knew because that expression was on his own face, too. Recognition. Ill blow you for free. The house at 29 Neibolt Street was just outside the Derry trainyards. It was old and boarded up, its porch gradually sinking back into the ground, its lawn an overgrown field. An old trike, rusting and overturned, hid in that long grass, one wheel sticking up at an angle. But on the left side of the porch there was a huge bald patch in the lawn and you could see dirty cellar windows set into the houses crumbling brick foundation. It was in one of those windows that Eddie Kaspbrak first saw the face of the leper six weeks ago. 6 On Saturdays, when Eddie could find no one to play with, he often went down to the trainyards. No real reason; he just liked to go out there. He would ride his bike out Witcham Street and then cut to the northwest along Route 2 where it crossed Witcham. The Neibolt Street Church School stood on the corner of Route 2 and Neibolt Street a mile or so farther on. It was a shabbyneat woodframe building with a large cross on top and the words SUFFER THE LITTLE CHILDREN TO COME UNTO ME Written over the front door in gilt letters two feet high. Sometimes, on Saturdays, Eddie heard music and singing coming from inside. It was gospel music, but whoever was playing the piano sounded more like Jerry Lee Lewis than a regular church piano player. The singing didnt sound very religious to Eddie, either, although there was lots of stuff in it about beautiful Zion and being washed in the blood of the lamb and what a friend we have in Jesus. The people singing seemed to be having much too good a time for it to really be sacred singing, in Eddies opinion. But he liked the sound of it all the samethe way he liked to hear Jerry Lee hollering out Whole Lotta Shakin Goin On. Sometimes he would stop for awhile across the street, leaning his bike against a tree and pretending to read on the grass, actually jiving along to the music. Other Saturdays the Church School would be shut up and silent and he would ride out to the trainyard without stopping, out to where Neibolt Street ended in a parking lot with weeds growing up through the cracks in the asphalt. There he would lean his bike against the wooden fence and watch the trains go by. There were a lot of them on Saturdays. His mother told him that in the old days you could catch a GSWM passenger train at what was then Neibolt Street Station, but the passenger trains had stopped running around the time the Korean War was starting up. If you got on the northbound train you went to Brownsville Station, she said, and from Brownsville you could catch a train that would take you all the way across Canada if you wanted, all the way to the Pacific. The southbound train would take you to Portland and then on down to Boston, and from South Station the country was yours. But the passenger trains have gone the way of the trolley lines now, I guess. No one wants to ride a train when they can just jump in a Ford and go. You may never even ride one. But great long freights still came through Derry. They headed south loaded down with pulpwood, paper, and potatoes, and north with manufactured goods for those towns of what Maine people sometimes called the Big NorthernBangor, Millinocket, Machias, Presque Isle, Houlton. Eddie particularly liked to watch the northbound carcarriers with their loads of gleaming Fords and Chevies. Ill have me a car like one of those someday, he promised himself. Like one of those or even better. Maybe even a Cadillac! There were six tracks in all, swooping into the station like strands of cobweb tending toward the center Bangor and Great Northern Lines from the north, the Great Southern and Western Maine from the west, the Boston and Maine from the south, and Southern Seacoast from the east. One day two years before, when Eddie had been standing near the latter line and watching a train go through, a drunken trainman had thrown a crate out of a slowmoving boxcar at him. Eddie ducked and flinched backward, although the crate landed in the cinders ten feet away. There were things inside it, live things that clicked and moved. Last run, boy! the drunken trainman had shouted. He pulled a flat brown bottle from one of the pockets of his denim jacket, tipped it up, drank, then flipped it into the cinders, where it smashed. The trainman pointed at the crate. Take em home to yer mum! Compliments of the SouthernFuckingSeacoastBoundforWelfare Line! He had reeled forward to shout these last words as the train pulled away, gathering speed now, and for one alarming moment Eddie thought he was going to tumble right out. When the train was gone, Eddie went to the box and bent cautiously over it. He was afraid to get too close. The things inside were slithery and crawly. If the trainman had yelled that they were for him, Eddie would have left them right there. But he had said take em home to your Mom, and, like Ben, when someone said Mom, Eddie jumped. He scrounged a hank of rope from one of the empty quonset warehouses and tied the crate onto the package carrier of his bike. His mother had peered inside the crate even more warily than Eddie himself, and then she screamedbut with delight rather than terror. There were four lobsters in the crate, big twopounders with their claws pegged. She cooked them for supper and had been extremely grumpy with Eddie when he wouldnt eat any. What do you think the Rockefellers are eating this evening at their place in Bar Harbor? she asked indignantly. What do you think the swells are eating at Twentyone and Sardis in New York City? Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches? Theyre eating lobster, Eddie, same as we are! Now come ongive it a try. But Eddie wouldntat least that was what his mother said. Maybe it was true, but inside it felt more to Eddie like couldnt than wouldnt. He kept thinking of the way they had slithered inside the crate, and the clicking sounds their claws had made. She kept telling him how delicious they were and what a treat he was missing until he started to gasp for breath and had to use his aspirator. Then she left him alone. Eddie retreated to his bedroom and read. His mother called up her friend Eleanor Dunton. Eleanor came over and the two of them read old copies of Photoplay and Screen Secrets and giggled over the gossip columns and gorged themselves on cold lobster salad. When Eddie got up for school the next morning, his mother was still in bed, snoring away and letting frequent farts that sounded like long, mellow cornet notes (she was Getting Off Some Good Ones, Richie would have said). There was nothing left in the bowl where the lobster salad had been except a few tiny blots of mayonnaise. That was the last Southern Seacoast train Eddie ever saw, and when he later saw Mr. Braddock, the Derry trainmaster, he asked him hesitantly what had happened. Cumpny went broke, Mr. Braddock said. Thats all there was to it. Dont you read the papers? Its hapnin all over the damn country. Now get out of here. This aint no place for a kid. After that Eddie would sometimes walk along track 4, which had been the Southern Seacoast track, and listen as a mental conductor chanted names inside his head, reeling them off in a lovely Downeast monotone, those names, those magic names Camden, Rockland, Bar Harbor (pronounced Baa Haabaa), Wiscasset, Bath, Portland, Ogunquit, the Berwicks; he would walk down track 4 heading east until he got tired, and the weeds growing up between the crossties made him feel sad. Once he had looked up and seen seagulls (probably just fat old dumpgulls who didnt give a shit if they ever saw the ocean, but that had not occurred to him then) wheeling and crying overhead, and the sound of their voices had made him cry a little, too. There had once been a gate at the entrance to the trainyards, but it had blown over in a windstorm and no one had bothered to replace it. Eddie came and went pretty much as he liked, although Mr. Braddock would kick him out if he saw him (or any other kid, for that matter). There were truckdrivers who would chase you sometimes (but not very far) because they thought you were hanging around just so you could hawk somethingand sometimes kids did. Mostly, though, the place was quiet. There was a guardbooth but it was empty, its glass windows broken by stones. There had been no fulltime security service since 1950 or so. Mr. Braddock shooed the kids away by day and a nightwatchman drove through four or five times a night in an old Studebaker with a searchlight mounted outside the vent window and that was all. There were tramps and hobos sometimes, though. If anything about the trainyards scared Eddie, they didmen with unshaven cheeks and cracked skin and blisters on their hands and coldsores on their lips. They rode the rails for awhile and then climbed down for awhile and spent some time in Derry and then got on another train and went somewhere else. Sometimes they had missing fingers. Usually they were drunk and wanted to know if you had a cigarette. One of these fellows had crawled out from under the porch of the house at 29 Neibolt Street one day and had offered to give Eddie a blowjob for a quarter. Eddie had backed away, his skin like ice, his mouth as dry as lintballs. One of the hobos nostrils had been eaten away. You could look right into the red, scabby channel. I dont have a quarter, Eddie said, backing toward his bike. Ill do it for a dime, the hobo croaked, coming toward him. He was wearing old green flannel pants. Yellow puke was stiffening across the lap. He unzipped his fly and reached inside. He was trying to grin. His nose was a red horror. I ... I dont have a dime, either, Eddie said, and suddenly thought Oh my God hes got leprosy! If he touches me Ill catch it too! His control snapped and he ran. He heard the hobo break into a shuffling run behind him, his old stringtied shoes slapping and flapping across the riotous lawn of the empty saltbox house. Come back here, kid! Ill blow you for free. Come back here! Eddie had leaped on his bike, wheezing now, feeling his throat closing up to a pinhole. His chest had taken on weight. He hit the pedals and was just picking up speed when one of the hobos hands struck the package carrier. The bike shimmied. Eddie looked over his shoulder and saw the hobo running along behind the rear wheel (!!GAINING!!), his lips drawn back from the black stumps of his teeth in an expression which might have been either desperation or fury. In spite of the stones lying on his chest Eddie had pedaled even faster, expecting that one of the hobos scabcrusted hands would close over his arm at any moment, pulling him from his Raleigh and dumping him in the ditch, where God knew what would happen to him. He hadnt dared look around until he had flashed past the Church School and through the Route 2 intersection. The bo was gone. Eddie held this terrible story inside him for almost a week and then confided it to Richie Tozier and Bill Denbrough one day when they were reading comics over the garage. He didnt have leprosy, you dummy, Richie said. He had the Syph. Eddie looked at Bill to see if Richie was ribbing himhe had never heard of a disease called the Sift before. It sounded like something Richie might have made up. Is there such a thing as the Sift, Bill? Bill nodded gravely. Only its the SuhSuhSyph, not the Sift. Its sshort for syphilis. Whats that? Its a disease you get from fucking, Richie said. You know about fucking, dont you, Eds? Sure, Eddie said. He hoped he wasnt blushing. He knew that when you got older, stuff came out of your penis when it was hard. Vincent Boogers Taliendo had filled him in on the rest one day at school. What you did when you fucked, according to Boogers, was you rubbed your cock against a girls stomach until it got hard (your cock, not the girls stomach). Then you rubbed some more until you started to get the feeling. When Eddie asked what that meant, Boogers had only shaken his head in a mysterious way. Boogers said that you couldnt describe it, but youd know it as soon as you got it. He said you could practice by lying in the bathtub and rubbing your cock with Ivory soap (Eddie had tried this, but the only feeling he got was the need to urinate after awhile). Anyway, Boogers went on, after you got the feeling, this stuff came out of your penis. Most kids called it come, Boogers said, but his big brother had told him that the really scientific word for it was jizzum. And when you got the feeling, you had to grab your cock and aim it real fast so you could shoot the jizzum into the girls bellybutton as soon as it came out. It went down into her stomach and made a baby there. Do girls like that? Eddie had asked Boogers Taliendo. He himself was sort of appalled. I guess they must, Boogers had replied, looking mystified himself. Now listen up, Eds, Richie said, because there may be questions later. Some women have got this disease. Some men, too, but mostly its women. A guy can get it from a woman Or another ggguy if theyre kwuhkwuhqueer, Bill added. Right. The important thing is you get the Syph from screwing someone whos already got it. What does it do? Eddie asked. Makes you rot, Richie said simply. Eddie stared at him, horrified. Its bad, I know, but its true, Richie said. Your nose is the first thing to go. Some guys with the Syph, their noses fall right off. Then their cocks. PuhPuhPuhleeze, Bill said. I just aaate. Hey, man, this is science, Richie said. So whats the difference between leprosy and the Syph? Eddie asked. You dont get leprosy from fucking, Richie said promptly, and then went off into a gale of laughter that left both Bill and Eddie mystified. 7 Following that day the house at 29 Neibolt Street had taken on a kind of glow in Eddies imagination. Looking at its weedy yard and its slumped porch and the boards nailed across its windows, he would feel an unhealthy fascination take hold of him. And six weeks ago he had parked his bike on the gravelly verge of the street (the sidewalk ended four houses farther back) and walked across the lawn toward the porch of that house. His heart had been beating hard in his chest, and his mouth had that dry taste againlistening to Bills story of the dreadful picture, he knew that what he had felt when approaching that house was about the same as what Bill had felt going into Georges room. He did not feel as if he was in control of himself. He felt pushed. It did not seem as if his feet were moving; instead the house itself, brooding and silent, seemed to draw closer to where he stood. Faintly, he could hear a diesel engine in the trainyardthat and the liquidmetallic slam of couplings being made. They were shunting some cars onto sidings, picking up others. Making a train. His hand gripped his aspirator, but, oddly, his asthma had not closed down as it had on the day he fled from the hobo with the rotted nose. There was only that sense of standing still and watching the house slide stealthily toward him, as if on a hidden track. Eddie looked under the porch. There was no one there. It was not really surprising. This was spring, and hobos showed up most frequently in Derry from late September to early November. During those six weeks or so a man could pick up daywork on one of the outlying farms if he looked even halfdecent. There were potatoes and apples to pick, snowfence to string, barn and shed roofs which needed to be patched before December came along, whistling up winter. No hobos under the porch, but plenty of sign they had been there. Empty beer cans, empty beer bottles, empty liquor bottles. A dirtcrusted blanket lay against the brick foundation like a dead dog. There were drifts of crumpled newspapers and one old shoe and a smell like garbage. There were thick layers of old leaves under there. Not wanting to do it but unable to help himself, Eddie had crawled under the porch. He could feel his heartbeat slamming in his head now, driving white spots of light across his field of vision. The smell was worse underneathbooze and sweat and the dark brown perfume of decaying leaves. The old leaves didnt even crackle under his hands and knees. They and the old newspapers only sighed. Im a hobo, Eddie thought incoherently. Im a hobo and I ride the rods. Thats what I do. Aint got no money, aint got no home, but I got me a bottle and a dollar and a place to sleep. Ill pick apples this week and potatoes the week after that and when the frost locks up the ground like money inside a bank vault, why, Ill hop a GSWM box that smells of sugarbeets and Ill sit in the corner and pull some hay over me if there is some and Ill drink me a little drink and chew me a little chew and sooner or later Ill get to Portland or Beantown, and if I dont get busted by a railroad security dick Ill hop one of those Bama Star boxes and head down south and when I get there Ill pick lemons or limes or oranges. And if I get vagged Ill build roads for tourists to ride on. Hell,I done it before, aint I? Im just a lonesome old hobo, aint got no money, aint got no home, but I got me one thing; I got me a disease thats eating me up. My skins cracking open, my teeth are falling out, and you know what? I can feel myself turning bad like an apple thats going soft, I can feel it happening, eating from the inside to the out, eating, eating, eating me. Eddie pulled the stiffening blanket aside, tweezing at it with his thumb and forefinger, grimacing at its matted feel. |
One of those low cellar windows was directly behind it, one pane broken, the other opaque with dirt. He leaned forward, now feeling almost hypnotized. He leaned closer to the window, closer to the cellardarkness, breathing in that smell of age and must and dryrot, closer and closer to the black, and surely the leper would have caught him if his asthma hadnt picked that exact moment to kick up. It cramped his lungs with a weight that was painless yet frightening; his breath at once took on the familiar hateful whistling sound. He drew back, and that was when the face appeared. Its coming was so sudden, so startling (and yet at the same time so expected), that Eddie could not have screamed even if he hadnt been having an asthma attack. His eyes bulged. His mouth creaked open. It was not the hobo with the flayed nose, but there were resemblances. Terrible resemblances. And yet ... this thing could not be human. Nothing could be so eaten up and remain alive. The skin of its forehead was split open. White bone, coated with a membrane of yellow mucusy stuff, peered through like the lens of a bleary searchlight. The nose was a bridge of raw gristle above two red flaring channels. One eye was a gleeful blue. The other socket was filled with a mass of spongy brownblack tissue. The lepers lower lip sagged like liver. It had no upper lip at all; its teeth poked out in a sneering ring. It shot one hand out through the broken pane. It shot the other through the dirty glass to the left, shattering it to fragments. Its questing, clutching hands crawled with sores. Beetles crawled and lumbered busily to and fro. Mewling, gasping, Eddie hunched his way backward. He could hardly breathe. His heart was a runaway engine in his chest. The leper appeared to be wearing the ragged remains of some strange silvery suit. Things were crawling in the straggles of its brown hair. How bout a blowjob, Eddie? the apparition croaked, grinning with its remains of a mouth. It lilted, Bobby does it for a dime, he will do it anytime, fifteen cents for overtime. It winked. Thats me, EddieBob Gray. And now that weve been properly introduced ... One of its hands splatted against Eddies right shoulder. Eddie screamed thinly. Thats all right, the leper said, and Eddie saw with dreamlike terror that it was crawling out of the window. The bony shield behind its peeling forehead snapped the thin wooden strip between the two panes. Its hands clawed through the leafy, mulchy earth. The silver shoulders of its suit ... costume ... whatever it was ... began to push through the gap. That one glaring blue eye never left Eddies face. Here I come, Eddie, thats all right, it croaked. Youll like it down here with us. Some of your friends are down here. Its hand reached out again, and in some corner of his panicmaddened, screaming mind, Eddie was suddenly, coldly sure that if that thing touched his bare skin, he would begin to rot, too. The thought broke his paralysis. He skittered backward on his hands and knees, then turned and lunged for the far end of the porch. Sunlight, falling in narrow dusty beams through the cracks between the porch boards, striped his face from moment to moment. His head pushed through the dusty cobwebs that settled in his hair. He looked back over his shoulder and saw that the leper was halfway out. It wont do you any good to run, Eddie, it called. Eddie had reached the far end of the porch. There was a latticework skirt here. The sun shone through it, printing diamonds of light on his cheeks and forehead. He lowered his head and slammed into it with no hesitation at all, tearing the entire skirt free with a scream of rusted hapenny nails. There was a tangle of rosebushes beyond and Eddie tore through these, stumbling to his feet as he did so, not feeling the thorns that scrawled shallow cuts along his arms and cheeks and neck. He turned and backed away on buckling legs, pulling his aspirator out of his pocket, triggering it. Surely it hadnt really happened? He had been thinking about that hobo and his mind had ... well, had just (put on a show) shown him a movie, a horror movie, like one of those Saturdaymatinee pictures with Frankenstein and Wolfman that they had sometimes at the Bijou or the Gem or the Aladdin. Sure, that was all. He had scared himself! What an asshole! There was even time to utter a shaky laugh at the unsuspected vividness of his imagination before the rotting hands shot out from under the porch, clawing at the rosebushes with mindless ferocity, pulling at them, stripping them, printing beads of blood on them. Eddie shrieked. The leper was crawling out. It was wearing a clown suit, he sawa clown suit with big orange buttons down the front. It saw Eddie and grinned. Its halfmouth dropped open and its tongue lolled out. Eddie shrieked again, but no one could have heard one boys breathless shriek under the pounding of the diesel engine in the trainyard. The lepers tongue had not just dropped from its mouth; it was at least three feet long and had unrolled like a partyfavor. It came to an arrowpoint which dragged in the dirt. Foam, thicksticky and yellowish, coursed along it. Bugs crawled over it. The rosebushes, which had been showing the first touches of spring green when Eddie broke through them, now turned a dead and lacy black. Blowjob, the leper whispered, and tottered to its feet. Eddie raced for his bike. It was the same race as before, only it now had the quality of a nightmare, where you can only move with the most agonizing slowness no matter how hard you try to go fast ... and in those dreams didnt you always hear or feel something, some It, gaining on you? Didnt you always smell Its stinking breath, as Eddie was smelling it now? Fo a moment he felt a wild hope perhaps this really was a nightmare. Perhaps he would awake in his own bed, bathed in sweat, shaking, maybe even crying ... but alive. Safe. Then he pushed the thought away. Its charm was deadly, its comfort fatal. He did not try to mount his bike immediately; he ran with it instead, head down, pushing the handlebars. He felt as if he was drowning, not in water but inside his own chest. Blowjob, the leper whispered again. Come back anytime, Eddie. Bring your friends. Its rotting fingers seemed to touch the back of his neck, but perhaps that was only a dangling strand of cobweb from under the porch, caught in his hair and brushing against his shrinking flesh. Eddie leaped onto his bike and pedaled away, not caring that his throat had closed up tight as Tillie again, not giving two sucks for his asthma, not looking back. He didnt look back until he was almost home, and of course there was nothing behind him when he finally did but two kids headed over to the park to play ball. That night, lying straight as a poker in bed, one hand folded tightly around his aspirator, looking into the shadows, he heard the leper whisper It wont do you any good to run, Eddie. 8 Wow, Richie said respectfully. It was the first thing any of them had said since Bill Denbrough finished his story. HHave you gggot aanother suhsuhhiggarette, RRRichie? Richie gave him the last one in the pack he had hawked almost empty from his dads desk drawer. He even lit it for Bill. You didnt dream it, Bill? Stan asked suddenly. Bill shook his head. NNNo duhdream. Real, Eddie said in a low voice. Bill looked at him sharply. WhWhWhat? Real, I said. Eddie looked at him almost resentfully. It really happened. It was real. And before he could stop himselfbefore he even knew he was going to do itEddie found himself telling the story of the leper that had come crawling out of the basement at 29 Neibolt Street. Halfway through the telling he began to gasp and had to use his aspirator. And at the end he burst into shrill tears, his thin body shaking. They all looked at him uncomfortably, and then Stan put a hand on his back. Bill gave him an awkward hug while the others glanced away, embarrassed. Thats aall right, EEddie. Its oookay. I saw it too, Ben Hanscom said suddenly. His voice was flat and harsh and scared. Eddie looked up, his face still naked with tears, his eyes red and rawlooking. What? I saw the clown, Ben said. Only he wasnt like you saidat least not when I saw him. He wasnt all gooshy. He was ... he was dry. He paused, ducked his head, and looked at his hands, which lay palely on his elephantine thighs. I think he was the mummy. Like in the movies? Eddie asked. Like that but not like that, Ben said slowly. In the movies he looks fake. Its scary, but you can tell its a putup job, you know? All those bandages, they look too neat, or something. But this guy ... he looked the way a real mummy would look, I think. If you actually found one in a room under a pyramid, I mean. Except for the suit. Wuhwuhwuhhut suhhoot? Ben looked at Eddie. A silver suit with big orange buttons down the front. Eddies mouth dropped open. He shut it and said, If youre kidding, say so. I still ... I still dream about that guy under the porch. Its not a joke, Ben said, and began to tell the story. He told it slowly, beginning with his volunteering to help Mrs. Douglas count and store books and ending with his own bad dreams. He spoke slowly, not looking at the others. He spoke as if deeply ashamed of his own behavior. He didnt raise his head again until the story was over. You must have dreamed it, Richie said finally. He saw Ben wince and hurried on Now dont take it personal, Big Ben, but you got to see that balloons cant, like, float against the wind Pictures cant wink, either, Ben said. Richie looked from Ben to Bill, troubled. Accusing Ben of dreaming awake was one thing; accusing Bill was something else. Bill was their leader, the guy they all looked up to. No one said so out loud; no one needed to. But Bill was the idea man, the guy who could think of something to do on a boring day, the guy who remembered games the others had forgotten. And in some odd way they all sensed something comfortingly adult about Billperhaps it was a sense of accountability, a feeling that Bill would take the responsibility if responsibility needed to be taken. The truth was, Richie believed Bills story, crazy as it was. And perhaps he didnt want to believe Bens ... or Eddies, for that matter. Nothing like that ever happened to you, huh? Eddie asked Richie. Richie paused, began to say something, shook his head, paused again, then said Scariest thing Ive seen lately was Mark Prenderlist takin a leak in McCarron Park. Ugliest hogger you ever saw. Ben said, What about you, Stan? No, Stan said quickly, and looked somewhere else. His small face was pale, his lips pressed together so tightly they were white. WWWas there suhhomething, SStStan? Bill asked. No, I told you! Stan got to his feet and walked to the embankment, hands in his pockets. He stood watching the water course over the top of the original dam and pile up behind the second watergate. Come on, now, Stanley! Richie said in a shrill falsetto. This was another of his Voices Granny Grunt. When speaking in his Granny Grunt Voice, Richie would hobble around with one fist against the small of his back, and cackle a lot. He still, however, sounded more like Richie Tozier than anyone else. Fess up, Stanley, tell your old Granny about the baaaaad clown and Ill give you a chockerchip cookie. You just tell Shut up! Stan yelled suddenly, whirling on Richie, who fell back a step or two, astonished. Just shut up! Yowza, boss, Richie said, and sat down. He looked at Stan Uris mistrustfully. Bright spots of color flamed in Stans cheeks, but he still looked more scared than mad. Thats okay, Eddie said quietly. Never mind, Stan. It wasnt a clown, Stanley said. His eyes flicked from one of them to the next to the next to the next. He seemed to struggle with himself. YYYou can ttell, Bill said, also speaking quietly. WWe dddid. It wasnt a clown. It was Which was when the carrying, whiskeyroughened tones of Mr. Nell interrupted, making them all jump as if they had been shot Jaysus Christ on a jumpedup chariotdriven crutch! Look at this mess! Jaysus Christ! CHAPTER 8 Georgies Room and the House on Neibolt Street 1 Richard Tozier turns off the radio, which has been blaring out Madonnas Like a Virgin on WZON (a station which declares itself to be Bangors AM stereo rocker! with a kind of hysterical frequency), pulls over to the side of the road, shuts down the engine of the Mustang the Avis people rented him at Bangor International, and gets out. He hears the pull and release of his own breath in his ears. He has seen a sign which has caused the flesh of his back to break out in hard ridges of gooseflesh. He walks to the front of the car and puts one hand on its hood. He hears the engine ticking softly to itself as it cools. He hears a jay scream briefly and then shut up. There are crickets. And as far as the soundtrack goes, thats it. He has seen the sign, he passes it, and suddenly he is in Derry again. After twentyfive years Richie Trashmouth Tozier has come home. He has Burning agony suddenly needles into his eyes, breaking his thought cleanly off. He utters a strangled little shout and his hands fly up to his face. The only time he felt anything even remotely like this burning pain was when he got an eyelash caught under one of his contacts in collegeand that was only in one eye. This terrible pain is in both. Before he can reach even halfway to his face, the pain is gone. He lowers his hands again slowly, thoughtfully, and looks down Route 7. He left the turnpike at the EtnaHaven exit, wanting, for some reason he doesnt understand, not to come in by the turnpike, which was still under construction in the Derry area when he and his folks shook the dust of this weird little town from their heels and headed out for the Midwest. Nothe turnpike would have been quicker, but it would have been wrong. So he had driven along Route 9 through the sleeping nestle of buildings that was Haven Village, then turned off on Route 7. And as he went the day grew steadily brighter. Now this sign. It was the same sort of sign which marked the borders of more than six hundred Maine towns, but how this one had squeezed his heart! Beyond that an Elks sign; a Rotary Club sign; and completing the trinity, a sign proclaiming the fact that DERRY LIONS ROAR FOR THE UNITED FUND! Past that one there is just Route 7 again, continuing on in a straight line between bulking banks of pine and spruce. In this silent light as the day steadies itself those trees look as dreamy as bluegray cigarette smoke stacked on the moveless air of a sealed room. Derry, he thinks. Derry, God help me. Derry. Stone the crows. Here he is on Route 7. Five miles up, if time or tornado has not carried it away in the intervening years, will be the Rhulin Farms, where his mother bought all of their eggs and most of their vegetables. Two miles beyond that Route 7 became Witcham Road and of course Witcham Road eventually became Witcham Street, can you gimme hallelujah world without end amen. And somewhere along there between the Rhulin Farms and town he would drive past the Bowers place and then the Hanlon place. A mile or so after Hanlons he would see the first glitter of the Kenduskeag and the first spreading tangle of poison green. The lush lowlands that had been known for some reason as the Barrens. I really dont know if I can face all of that, Richie thinks. I mean, lets tell the truth here, folks. I just dont know if I can. The whole previous night has passed in a dream for him. As long as he continued travelling, moving forward, making miles, the dream went on. But now he has stoppedor rather the sign has stopped himand he has awakened to a strange truth the dream was the reality. Derry is the reality. It seems he just cannot stop remembering, he thinks the memories will eventually drive him mad, and now he bites down on his lip and puts his hands together palm to palm, tight, as if to keep himself from flying apart. He feels that he will fly apart, and soon. There seems to be some mad part of him which actually looks forward to what may be coming, but most of him only wonders how hes going to get through the next few days. He And now his thoughts break off again. A deer is walking out into the road. He can hear the light thud of its springsoft hoofs on the tar. Richies breath stops in midexhale, then slowly starts again. He looks, dumbfounded, part of him thinking that he never saw anything like this on Rodeo Drive. Nohed needed to come back home to see something like this. Its a doe (Doe, a deer, a female deer, a Voice chants merrily in his head). Shes come out of the woods on the right and pauses in the middle of Route 7, front legs on one side of the broken white line, rear legs on the other. Her dark eyes regard Rich Tozier mildly. He reads interest in those eyes but no fear. He looks at her in wonder, thinking shes an omen or a portent or some sort of Madame Azonka shit like that. And then, quite unexpectedly, a memory of Mr. Nell comes to him. What a start he had given them that day, busting in on them in the wake of Bills story and Bens story and Eddies story! The whole bunch of them had damn near gone up to heaven. Now, looking at the deer, Rich draws in a deep breath and finds himself speaking in one of his Voices... but for the first time in twentyfive years or more it is the Voice of the Irish Cop, one he had incorporated into his repertoire after that memorable day. It comes rolling out of the morning silence like a great big bowling ballit is louder and bigger than Richie would ever have believed Jaysus Christ on a jumpedup chariotdriven crutch! Whats a nice girrul like you doin out in this wilderness, deer? Jaysus Christ! You be gettin on home before I decide to tell Father OStaggers on ye! Before the echoes have died away, before the first shocked jay can begin scolding him for his sacrilege, the doe flicks her tail at him like a truce flag and disappears into the smokylooking firs on the left side of the road, leaving only a small pile of steaming pellets behind to show that, even at thirtyseven, Richie Tozier is still capable of Getting Off A Good One from time to time. Richie begins to laugh. He is only chuckling at first, and then his own ludicrousness strikes himstanding here in the dawnlight of a Maine morning, thirtyfour hundred miles from home, shouting at a deer in the accents of an Irish cop. The chuckles become a string of giggles, the giggles become guffaws, the guffaws become howls, and he is finally reduced to holding on to his car while tears roll down his face and he wonders dimly if hes going to wet his pants or what. Every time he starts to get control of himself his eyes fix on that little clump of pellets and he goes off into fresh gales. Snorting and snickering, he is at last able to get back into the drivers seat and restart the Mustangs engine. An Orinco chemicalfertilizer truck snores by in a blast of wind. After it passes him, Rich pulls out and heads for Derry again. He feels better now, in control... or maybe its just that hes moving again, making miles, and the dream has reasserted itself. He starts thinking about Mr. Nell againMr. Nell and that day by the dam. Mr. Nell had asked them who thought this little trick up. He can see the five of them looking uneasily at each other, and remembers how Ben finally stepped forward, cheeks pale and eyes downcast, face trembling all over as he fought grimly to keep from blabbering. Poor kid probably thought he was going to get fivetoten in Shawshank for backflooding the drains on Witcham Street, Rich thinks now, but he had owned up to it just the same. And by doing that he had forced the rest of them to come forward and back him up. It was either that or consider themselves bad guys. Cowards. All the things their TV heroes were not. And that had welded them together, for better or worse. Had apparently welded them together for the last twentyseven years. Sometimes events are dominoes. The first knocks over the second, the second knocks over the third, and there you are. When, Richie wonders, did it become too late to turn back? When he and Stan showed up and pitched in, helping to build the dam? When Bill told them how the school picture of his brother had turned its head and winked? Maybe... but to Rich Tozier it seems that the dominoes really began to fall when Ben Hanscom stepped forward and said I showed them 2 how to do it. Its my fault. Mr. Nell simply stood there looking at him, lips pressed together, hands on his creaking black leather belt. He looked from Ben to the spreading pool behind the dam and then back to Ben again, his face that of a man who cant believe what he is seeing. He was a burly Irishman, his hair a premature white, combed back in neat waves beneath his peaked blue cap. His eyes were bright blue, his nose bright red. There were small nests of burst capillaries in his cheeks. He was a man of no more than medium height, but to the five boys arrayed before him he looked at least eight feet tall. Mr. Nell opened his mouth to speak, but before he could, Bill Denbrough had stepped up beside Ben. IhIhIhIt wwuhwuhwas mmy iiiiidea, he finally managed to say. He heaved in a gigantic, gulping breath and as Mr. Nell stood there regarding him impassively, the sun tossing back imperial flashes from his badge, Bill managed to stutter out the rest of what he needed to say it wasnt Bens fault; Ben just happened to come along and show them how to do better what they were already doing badly. Me too, Eddie said abruptly, and stepped up on Bens other side. Whats this me too? Mr. Nell asked. Is that yer name or yer address, buckaroo? Eddie flushed brightlythe color went all the way up to the roots of his hair. I was with Bill before Ben even came, he said. That was all I meant. Richie stepped up next to Eddie. The idea that a Voice or two might cheer Mr. Nell up a little, get him thinking jolly thoughts, popped into his head. On second thought (and second thoughts were, for Richie, extremely rare and wonderful things), maybe a Voice or two might only make things worse. Mr. Nell didnt look like he was in what Richie sometimes thought of as a chuckalicious mood. In fact, Mr. Nell looked like maybe chucks were the last thing on his mind. So he just said, I was in on it too, in a low voice, and then made his mouth shut up. And me, Stan said, stepping next to Bill. Now the five of them were standing before Mr. Nell in a line. Ben looked from one side to the other, more than dazedhe was almost stupefied by their support. For a moment Richie thought ole Haystack was going to burst into tears of gratitude. Jaysus, Mr. Nell said again, and although he sounded deeply disgusted, his face suddenly looked as if it might like to laugh. A sorrier bunch of boyos I aint niwer seen. If yer folks knew where you were, I guess thered be some hot bottoms tonight. I aint sure there wont be anyway. Richie could hold back no longer; his mouth simply fell open and then ran away like the gingerbread man, as it so often did. Hows things back in the auld country, Mr. Nell? it bugled. Ah, yer a sight for sore eyes, sure an begorrah, yer a lovely man, a credit to the auld sod Ill be a credit to the seat of yer pants in about three seconds, my dear little friend, Mr. Nell said dryly. Bill turned on him, snarled For GGGods ssake RRRichie shuhshuhhut UP! Good advice, Master William Denbrough, Mr. Nell said. Ill bet Zack doesnt know youre down here in the Barns playing amongst the floating turdies, does he? Bill dropped his eyes, shook his head. Wild roses burned in his cheeks. Mr. Nell looked at Ben. I dont recall your name, son. Ben Hanscom, sir, Ben whispered. Mr. Nell nodded and looked back at the dam again. This was your idea? How to build it, yeah. Bens whisper was now nearly inaudible. Well, yer a hell of an engineer, big boy, but you dont know Jack Shit about these here Barns or the Derry drainage system, do you? Ben shook his head. Not unkindly, Mr. Nell told him, Theres two parts to the system. One part carries solid human wasteshit, if Id not be offendin yer tender ears. The other part carries gray waterwater flushed from toilets or run down the drains from sinks and washinmachines and showers; its also the water that runs down the gutters into the city drains. Well, yeve caused no problems with the solidwaste removal, thank Godall of that gets pumped into the Kenduskeag a bit farther down. Theres probably some almighty big patties down that way half a mile dryin in the sun thanks to what you done, but you can be pretty sure that there aint shit stickin to anyones ceiling because of it. But as for the gray water ... well, theres no pumps for gray water. That all runs downhill in what the engineer boyos call gravity drains. And Ill bet you know where all them gravity drains end up, dont you, big boy? Up there, Ben said. He pointed to the area behind the dam, the area they had in large part submerged. He did this without looking up. Big tears were beginning to course slowly down his cheeks. Mr. Nell pretended not to notice. Thats right, my large young friend. All them gravity drains feed into streams that feed into the upper Barrens. In fact, a good many of them little streams that come tricklin down are gray water and gray water only, comin out of drains you cant even see, theyre so deepburied in the underbrush. The shit goes one way and everythin else goes the other, God praise the clever mind o man, and did it ever cross yer minds that youd spent the whole livelong day paddlin around in Derrys pee an old washwater? Eddie suddenly began to gasp and had to use his aspirator. What you did was back water up into about six o the eight central catchbasins that serve Witcham and Jackson and Kansas and four or five little streets that run between em. Mr. Nell fixed Bill Denbrough with a dry glance. One of em serves yer own hearth an home, young Master Denbrough. So there we are, with sinks that wont drain, washinmachines that wont drain, outflow pipes pourin merrily into cellars Ben let out a dry barking sob. The others turned toward him and then looked away. Mr. Nell put a large hand on the boys shoulder. It was callused and hard, but at the moment it was also gentle. Now, now. No need to take on, big boy. Maybe it aint that bad, at least not yet; could be I exaggerated just a mite to make sure you took my point. They sent me down to see if a tree blew down across the stream. That happens from time to time. Theres no need for anyone but me and you five to know it wasnt just that. Weve got more important things to worry about in town these days than a little backedup water. Ill say on my report that I located the blowdown and some boys came along and helped me shift it out o the way o the water. Not that Ill mention ye by name. Yell not be gettin any citations for dambuilding in the Barns. He surveyed the five of them. Ben was furiously wiping his eyes with his handkerchief; Bill was looking thoughtfully at the dam; Eddie was holding his aspirator in one hand; Stan stood close by Richie with one hand on Richies arm, ready to squeezehardif Richie should show the slightest sign of having anything to say other than thank you very much. You boys got no business at all in a dirty place like this, Mr. Nell went on. Theres probably sixty different kinds o disease breeding down here. Breeding came out braidin, as in what a girl may do with her hair in the morning. Dump down one way, streams full of piss an gray water, muck an slop, bugs an brambles, quickmud ... you got no business at all in a dirty place like this. Four clean city parks for you boyos to be playin ball in all the day long and I catch you down here. Jaysus Christ! WuhWuhWe 111like it dddown hhere, Bill said suddenly and defiantly. WhWhen wwwe cuhhum down hhere, nuhhohobody gives us aaany stuhstuhhatic. Whatd he say? Mr. Nell asked Eddie. He said when we come down here nobody gives us any static, Eddie said. His voice was thin and whistling, but it was also unmistakably firm. And hes right. When guys like us go to the park and say we want to play baseball, the other guys say sure, you want to be second base or third? Richie cackled. Eddie Gets Off A Good One! And ... You Are There! Mr. Nell swung his head to look at him. Richie shrugged. Sorry. But hes right. And Bills right, too. We like it down here. Richie thought Mr. Nell would become angry again at that, but the whitehaired cop surprised himsurprised them allwith a smile. Ayuh, he said. I liked it down here meself as a boy, so I did. And Ill not forbid ye. But hark to what Im tellin you now. He levelled a finger at them and they all looked at him soberly. If ye come down here to play, ye come in a gang like ye are now. Together. Do you understand me? They nodded. That means together all the time. No hideanseek games where yer split up one an one an one. You all know whats goin on in this town. All the same, I dont forbid you to come down here, mostly because yed be down here anyway. But for yer own good, here or anywhere around, gang together. He looked at Bill. Do you disagree with me, young Master Bill Denbrough? NNNo, sir, Bill said. WWell stay tuhtuhtuh Thats good enough for me, Mr. Nell said. Yer hand on it. Bill stuck out his hand and Mr. Nell shook it. Richie shook off Stan and stepped forward. Sure an begorrah, Mr. Nell, yer a prince among men, yare! A foine man! A foine, foine man! He stuck out his own hand, seized the Irishmans huge paw, and flagged it furiously, grinning all the time. To the bemused Mr. Nell the boy looked like a hideous parody of Franklin D. Roosevelt. Thank you, boy, Mr. Nell said, retrieving his hand. Ye want to work on that a bit. As of now, ye sound about as Irish as Groucho Marx. The other boys laughed, mostly in relief. Even as he was laughing, Stan shot Richie a reproachful look Grow up, Richie! Mr. Nell shook hands all around, gripping Bens last of all. Yeve nothing to be ashamed of but bad judgment, big boy. As for that there ... did you see how to do it in a book? Ben shook his head. Just figured it out? Yes, sir. Well if that dont beat Harry! Yell do great things someday, Ive no doubt. But the Barrens isnt the place to do em. He looked around thoughtfully. No great thing will ever be done here. Nasty place. He sighed. Tear it down, dear boys. Tear it right down. I believe Ill just sit me down in the shade o this bush here and bide a wee as you do it. He looked ironically at Richie as he said this last, as if inviting another manic outburst. Yes, sir, Richie said humbly, and that was all. Mr. Nell nodded, satisfied, and the boys fell to work, once again turning to Benthis time to show them the quickest way to tear down what he had shown them how to build. Meanwhile, Mr. Nell removed a brown bottle from inside his tunic and helped himself to a large gulp. He coughed, then blew out breath in an explosive sigh and regarded the boys with watery, benign eyes. And what might ye have in yer bottle, sor? Richie asked from the place where he was standing kneedeep in the water. Richie, cant you ever shut up? Eddie hissed. This? Mr. Nell regarded Richie with mild surprise and looked at the bottle again. It had no label of any kind on it. This is the cough medicine of the gods, my boy. Now lets see if you can bend yer back anywhere near as fast as you can wag yer tongue. 3 Bill and Richie were walking up Witcham Street together later on. Bill was pushing Silver; after first building and then tearing down the dam, he simply did not have the energy it would have taken to get Silver up to cruising speed. Both boys were dirty, dishevelled, and pretty well used up. Stan had asked them if they wanted to come over to his house and play Monopoly or Parcheesi or something, but none of them wanted to. It was getting late. Ben, sounding tired and depressed, said he was going to go home and see if anybody had returned his library books. |
He had some hope of this, since the Derry Library insisted on writing in the borrowers street address as well as his name on each books pocket card. Eddie said he was going to watch The Rock Show on TV because Neil Sedaka was going to be on and he wanted to see if Neil Sedaka was a Negro. Stan told Eddie not to be so stupid, Neil Sedaka was white, you could tell he was white just listening to him. Eddie claimed you couldnt tell anything by listening to them; until last year he had been positive Chuck Berry was white, but when he was on Bandstand he turned out to be a Negro. My mother still thinks hes white, so thats one good thing, Eddie said. If she finds out hes a Negro, she probably wont let me listen to his songs anymore. Stan bet Eddie four funnybooks that Neil Sedaka was white, and the two of them set off together for Eddies house to settle the issue. And here were Bill and Richie, headed in a direction which would bring them to Bills house after awhile, neither of them talking much. Richie found himself thinking about Bills story of the picture that had turned its head and winked. And in spite of his tiredness, an idea came to him. It was crazy ... but it also held a certain attraction. Billy me boy, he said. Lets stop for awhile. Take five. Im dead. No such 11luck, Bill said, but he stopped, laid Silver carefully down on the edge of the green Theological Seminary lawn, and the two boys sat on the wide stone steps which led up to the rambling red Victorian structure. What a ddday, Bill said glumly. There were dark purplish patches under his eyes. His face looked white and used. You better call your house when wwe get to muhmine. So your ffolks dont go bbbananas. Yeah. You bet. Listen, Bill Richie paused for a moment, thinking about Bens mummy, Eddies leper, and whatever Stan had almost told them. For a moment something swam in his own mind, something about that Paul Bunyan statue out by the City Center. But that had only been a dream, for Gods sake. He pushed away such irrelevant thoughts and plunged. Lets go up to your house, what do you say? Take a look in Georgies room. I want to see that picture. Bill looked at Richie, shocked. He tried to speak but could not; his stress was simply too great. He settled for shaking his head violently. Richie said, You heard Eddies story. And Bens. Do you believe what they said? I dont nuhnuhknow. I thhink they mmmust have suhseen suhhomething. Yeah. Me too. All the kids thatve been killed around here, I think all of them would have had stories to tell, too. The only difference between Ben and Eddie and those other kids is that Ben and Eddie didnt get caught. Bill raised his eyebrows but showed no great surprise. Richie had supposed Bill would have taken it that far himself. He couldnt talk so good, but he was no dummy. So now dig on this awhile, Big Bill, Richie said. A guy could dress up in a clown suit and kill kids. I dont know why hed want to, but nobody can tell why crazy people do things, right? RuhRuhRuh Right. Its not that much different than the Joker in a Batman funnybook. Just hearing his ideas out loud excited Richie. He wondered briefly if he was actually trying to prove something or just throwing up a smokescreen of words so he could see that room, that picture. In the end it probably didnt matter. In the end maybe just seeing Bills eyes light up with their own excitement was enough. BBBut whwhwhere does the pihhicture fit iiin? What do you think, Billy? In a low voice, not looking at Richie, Bill said he didnt think it had anything to do with the murders. I think it was Juh juhGeorgies gghost. A ghost in a picture? Bill nodded. Richie thought about it. The idea of ghosts gave his childs mind no trouble at all. He was sure there were such things. His parents were Methodists, and Richie went to church every Sunday and to Thursdaynight Methodist Youth Fellowship meetings as well. He knew a great deal of the Bible already, and he knew the Bible believed in all sorts of weird stuff. According to the Bible, God Himself was at least onethird Ghost, and that was just the beginning. You could tell the Bible believed in demons, because Jesus threw a bunch of them out of this guy. Real chuckalicious ones, too. When Jesus asked the guy who had them what his name was, the demons answered and told Him to go join the Foreign Legion. Or something like that. The Bible believed in witches, or else why would it say Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live? Some of the stuff in the Bible was even better than the stuff in the horror comics. People getting boiled in oil or hanging themselves like Judas Iscariot; the story about how wicked King Ahaz fell off the tower and all the dogs came and licked up his blood; the mass babymurders that had accompanied the births of both Moses and Jesus Christ; guys who came out of their graves or flew into the air; soldiers who witched down walls; prophets who saw the future and fought monsters. All of that was in the Bible and every word of it was trueso said Reverend Craig and so said Richies folks and so said Richie. He was perfectly willing to credit the possibility of Bills explanation; it was the logic which troubled him. But you said you were scared. Why would Georges ghost want to scare you, Bill? Bill put a hand to his mouth and wiped it. The hand was trembling slightly. HHes probably muhmuhmad at mmme. For ggetting him kihhilled. It was my fuhfuhfault. I ssent him out with the buhbuhbuh He was incapable of getting the word out, so he rocked his hand in the air instead. Richie nodded to show he understood what Bill meant ... but not to indicate agreement. I dont think so, he said. If you stabbed him in the back or shot him, that would be different. Or even if you, like, gave him a loaded gun that belonged to your dad to play with and he shot himself with it. But it wasnt a gun, it was just a boat. You didnt want to hurt him; in factRichie raised one finger and waggled it at Bill in a lawyerly wayyou just wanted the kid to have a little fun, right? Bill thought backthought desperately hard. What Richie had just said had made him feel better about Georges death for the first time in months, but there was a part of him which insisted with quiet firmness that he was not supposed to feel better. Of course it was your fault, that part of him insisted; not entirely, maybe, but at least partly. If not, how come theres that cold place on the couch between your mother and father? If not, how come no one ever says anything at the supper table anymore? Now its just knives and forks rattling until you cant take it anymore and ask if you can be ehehehexcused, please. It was as if he were the ghost, a presence that spoke and moved but was not quite heard or seen, a thing vaguely sensed but still not accepted as real. He did not like the thought that he was to blame, but the only alternative he could think of to explain their behavior was much worse that all the love and attention his parents had given him before had somehow been the result of Georges presence, and with George gone there was nothing for him ... and all of that had happened at random, for no reason at all. And if you put your ear to that door, you could hear the winds of madness blowing outside. So he went over what he had done and felt and said on the day Georgie had died, part of him hoping that what Richie had said was true, part of him hoping just as hard it was not. He hadnt been a saint of a big brother to George, that much was certain. They had had fights, plenty of them. Surely there had been one that day? No. No fight. For one thing, Bill himself had still been feeling too punk to work up a really good quarrel with George. He had been sleeping, dreaming something, dreaming about some (turtle) funny little animal, he couldnt remember just what, and he had awakened to the sound of the diminishing rain outside and George muttering unhappily to himself in the dining room. He asked George what was wrong. George came in and said he was trying to make a paper boat from the directions in his Best Book of Activities but it kept coming out wrong. Bill told George to bring his book. And sitting next to Richie on the steps leading up to the seminary, he remembered how Georgies eyes lit up when the paper boat came out right, and how good that look had made him feel, like Georgie thought he was a real hot shit, a straight shooter, the guy who could do it until it got done. Making him feel, in short, like a big brother. The boat had killed George, but Richie was rightit hadnt been like handing George a loaded gun to play with. Bill hadnt known what was going to happen. No way he could. He drew a deep, shuddering breath, feeling something like a rocksomething he hadnt even known was therego rolling off his chest. All at once he felt better, better about everything. He opened his mouth to tell Richie this and burst into tears instead. Alarmed, Richie put an arm around Bills shoulders (after taking a quick glance around to make sure no one who might mistake them for a couple of fagolas was looking). Youre okay, he said. Youre okay, Billy, right? Come on. Turn off the waterworks. I didnt wuhwuhwant hhim tto ggget kuhhilled! Bill sobbed. THTHAT WUHWUHWASNT ON MY MMMMIND AT UHUHALL! Christ, Billy, I know it wasnt, Richie said. If youd wanted to scrub him, you woulda pushed him downstairs or something. Richie patted Bills shoulder clumsily and gave him a hard little hug before letting go. Come on, quit bawlin, okay? You sound like a baby. Little by little Bill stopped. He still hurt, but this hurt seemed cleaner, as if he had cut himself open and taken out something that was rotting inside him. And that feeling of relief was still there. II didnt wwant him to get kuhkuhkilled, Bill repeated, and ihif yyyou ttell anybody I wwas cccryin, Ill bbbust your nnnose. I wont tell, Richie said, dont worry. He was your brother, for gosh sake. If my brother got killed, Id cry my fuckin head off. YuhYuhYou ddont have a buhbrother. Yeah, but if I did. YYou wwwould? Course. Richie paused, fixing Bill with a wary eye, trying to decide if Bill was really over it. He was still wiping his red eyes with his snotrag, but Richie decided he probably was. All I meant was that I dont know why George would want to haunt you. So maybe the pictures got something to do with ... well, with that other. The clown. MuhMuhMaybe GGGeorge dddoesnt nuhnuhknow. Maybe hhe ththinks Richie understood what Bill was trying to say and waved it aside. After you croak you know everything people ever thought about you, Big Bill. He spoke with the indulgent air of a great teacher correcting a country bumpkins fatuous ideas. Its in the Bible. It says, Yea, even though we cant see too much in the mirror right now, we will see through it like it was a window after we die. Thats in First Thessalonians or Second Babylonians, I forget which. It means I suhsuhsee what it mmmeans, Bill said. So what do you say? Huh? Lets go up to his room and take a look. Maybe well get a clue about whos killing all the kids. Im ssscared to. I am too, Richie said, thinking it was just more sand, something to say that would get Bill moving, and then something heavy turned over in his midsection and he discovered it was true he was scared green. 4 The two boys slipped into the Denbrough house like ghosts. Bills father was still at work. Sharon Denbrough was in the kitchen, reading a paperback at the kitchen table. The smell of suppercodfishdrifted out into the front hall. Richie called home so his mom would know he wasnt dead, just at Bills. Someone there? Mrs. Denbrough called as Richie put the phone down. They froze, eyeing each other guiltily. Then Bill called MMe, Mom. And RRRRR Richie Tozier, maam, Richie yelled. Hello, Richie, Mrs. Denbrough called back, her voice disconnected, almost not there at all. Would you like to stay for supper? Thanks, maam, but my moms gonna pick me up in half an hour or so. Tell her I said hello, wont you? Yes maam, I sure will. CCome on, Bill whispered. Thats enough ssmall talk. They went upstairs and down the hall to Bills room. It was boyneat, which meant it would have given the mother of the boy in question only a mild headache to look at. The shelves were stuffed with a helterskelter collection of books and comics. There were more comics, plus a few models and toys and a stack of 45s, on the desk. There was also an old Underwood office model typewriter on it. His folks had given it to him for Christmas two years ago, and Bill sometimes wrote stories on it. He did this a bit more frequently since Georges death. The pretending seemed to ease his mind. There was a phonograph on the floor across from the bed with a pile of folded clothes stacked on the lid. Bill put the clothes in the drawers of his bureau and then took the records from the desk. He shuffled through them, picking half a dozen. He put them on the phonographs fat spindle and turned the machine on. The Fleetwoods started singing Come Softly Darling. Richie held his nose. Bill grinned in spite of his thumping heart. ThThey ddont luhluhhike rock and rroll, he said. They ggave me this wuhone for my bbbirthday. Also two PPat BBBoone records and TuhTuhTommy Sands. I keep LLLittle RuhRichard and Scuhhreamin JJay Hawkins for when theyre not hhere. But if she hears the mmmusic shell ththink were iin mmy room. CCCome oon. Georges room was across the hall. The door was shut. Richie looked at it and licked his lips. They dont keep it locked? he whispered to Bill. Suddenly he found himself hoping it was locked. Suddenly he was having trouble believing this had been his idea. Bill, his face pale, shook his head and turned the knob. He stepped in and looked back at Richie. After a moment Richie followed. Bill shut the door behind them, muffling the Fleetwoods. Richie jumped a little at the soft snick of the latch. He looked around, fearful and intensely curious at the same time. The first thing he noticed was the dry mustiness of the airNo ones opened a window in here for a long time, he thought. Heck, no ones breathed in here for a long time. Thats really what it feels like. He shuddered a little at the thought and licked his lips again. His eye fell on Georges bed, and he thought of George sleeping now under a comforter of earth in Mount Hope Cemetery. Rotting there. His hands not folded because you needed two hands to do the old folding routine, and George had been buried with only one. A little sound escaped Richies throat. Bill turned and looked at him enquiringly. Youre right, Richie said huskily. Its spooky in here. I dont see how you could stand to come in alone. HHe was my bruhbrother, Bill said simply. Sometimes I wwwant to, is aall. There were posters on the wallslittlekid posters. One showed Tom Terrific, the cartoon character on Captain Kangaroos program. Tom was springing over the head and clutching hands of Crabby Appleton, who was, of course, Rotten to the Core. Another showed Donald Ducks nephews, Huey, Louie, and Dewie, marching off into the wilderness in their Junior Woodchucks coonskin caps. A third, which George had colored himself, showed Mr. Do holding up traffic so a bunch of little kids headed for school could cross the street. MR. DO SAYS WAIT FOR THE CROSSING GUARD!, it said underneath. Kid wasnt too cool about staying in the lines, Richie thought, and then shuddered. The kid was never going to get any better at it, either. Richie looked at the table by the window. Mrs. Denbrough had stood up all of Georges rankcards there, halfopen. Looking at them, knowing there would never be more, knowing that George had died before he could stay in the lines when he colored, knowing his life had ended irrevocably and eternally with only those few kindergarten and firstgrade rankcards, all the idiot truth of death crashed home to Richie for the first time. It was as if a large iron safe had fallen into his brain and buried itself there. I could die! his mind screamed at him suddenly in tones of betrayed horror. Anybody could! Anybody could! Boy oh boy, he said in a shaky voice. He could manage no more. Yeah, Bill said in a nearwhisper. He sat down on Georges bed. Look. Richie followed Bills pointing finger and saw the photo album lying closed on the floor. MY PHOTOGRAPHS, Richie read. GEORGE ELMER DENBROUGH, AGE 6. Age 6! his mind shrieked in those same tones of shrill betrayal. Age 6 forever! Anybody could! Shit! Fucking anybody! It was ohohopen, Bill said. BBefore. So it closed, Richie said uneasily. He sat down on the bed beside Bill and looked at the photo album. Lots of books close on their own. The pppages, maybe, but nnot the cuhcuhcover. It cclosed itself. He looked at Richie solemnly, his eyes very dark in his pale, tired face. BBut it wuhwuhwants yyou to ohopen it up again. Thats what I ththink. Richie got up and walked slowly over to the photograph album. It lay at the base of a window screened with light curtains. Looking out, he could see the apple tree in the Denbrough back yard. A swing rocked slowly back and forth from one gnarled, black limb. He looked down at Georges book again. A dried maroon stain colored the thickness of the pages in the middle of the book. It could have been old ketchup. Sure; it was easy enough to see George looking at his photo album while eating a hot dog or a big sloppy hamburger; he takes a big bite and some ketchup squirts out onto the book. Little kids were always doing spasmoid stuff like that. It could be ketchup. But Richie knew it was not. He touched the album briefly and then drew his hand away. It felt cold. It had been lying in a place where the strong summer sunlight, only slightly filtered by those light curtains, would have been falling on it all day, but it felt cold. Well, Ill just leave it alone, Richie thought. I dont want to look in his stupid old album anyway, see a lot of people I dont know. I think maybe Ill tell Bill I changed my mind, and we can go to his room and read comic books for awhile and then Ill go home and eat supper and go to bed early because Im pretty tired, and when I wake up tomorrow morning Im sure Ill be sure that stuff was just ketchup. Thats just what Ill do. Yowza. So he opened the album with hands that seemed a thousand miles away from him, at the end of long plastic arms, and he looked at the faces and places in Georges album, the aunts, the uncles, the babies, the houses, the old Fords and Studebakers, the telephone lines, the mailboxes, the picket fences, the wheelruts with muddy water in them, the Ferris wheel at the Esty County Fair, the Standpipe, the ruins of the Kitchener Ironworks His fingers flipped faster and faster and suddenly the pages were blank. He turned back, not wanting to but unable to help himself. Here was a picture of downtown Derry, Main Street and Canal Street from around 1930, and beyond it there was nothing. Theres no school picture of George in here, Richie said. He looked at Bill with a mixture of relief and exasperation. What kind of line were you handing me, Big Bill? WWWhat? This picture of downtown in the olden days is the last one in the book. All the rest of the pages are blank. Bill got off the bed and joined Richie. He looked at the picture of downtown Derry as it had been almost thirty years ago, oldfashioned cars and trucks, oldfashioned streetlights with clusters of globes like big white grapes, pedestrians by the Canal caught in midstride by the click of a shutter. He turned the page and, just as Richie had said, there was nothing. No, waitnot quite nothing. There was one studio corner, the sort of item you use to mount photographs. It wwwas here, he said, and tapped the studio corner. LLook. Jeepers! What do you think happened to it? I ddont nuhnuhknow. Bill had taken the album from Richie and was now holding it on his own lap. He turned back through the pages, looking for Georges picture. He gave up after a minute, but the pages did not. They turned themselves, flipping slowly but steadily, with big deliberate riffling sounds. Bill and Richie looked at each other, wideeyed, and then back down. It arrived at that last picture again and the pages stopped turning. Here was downtown Derry in sepia tones, the city as it had been long before either Bill or Richie had been born. Say! Richie said suddenly, and took the album back from Bill. There was no fear in his voice now, and his face was suddenly full of wonder. Holy shit! WWhat? What ihihis it? Us! Thats what it is! Holyjeezlycrow, look! Bill took one side of the book. Bent over it, sharing it, they looked like boys at choir practice. Bill drew in breath sharply, and Richie knew he had seen it too. Caught under the shiny surface of this old blackandwhite photograph two small boys were walking along Main Street toward the point where Main and Center intersectedthe point where the Canal went underground for a mile and a half or so. The two boys showed up clearly against the low concrete wall at the edge of the Canal. One was wearing knickers. The other was wearing something that looked almost like a sailor suit. A tweed cap was perched on his head. They were turned in threequarter profile toward the camera, looking at something on the far side of the street. The boy in the knickers was Richie Tozier, beyond a doubt. And the boy in the sailor suit and the tweed cap was Stuttering Bill. They stared at themselves in a picture almost three times as old as they were, hypnotized. The inside of Richies mouth suddenly felt as dry as dust and as smooth as glass. A few steps ahead of the boys in the picture there was a man holding the brim of his fedora, his topcoat frozen forever as it flapped out behind him in a sudden gust of wind. There were ModelTs on the street, a PierceArrow, Chevrolets with running boards. IIII ddont buhbuhbelieve Bill began, and that was when the picture began to move. The ModelT that should have remained eternally in the middle of the intersection (or at least until the chemicals in the old photo finally dissolved completely) passed through it, a haze of exhaust puffing out of its tailpipe. It went on toward UpMile Hill. A small white hand shot out of the drivers side window and signalled a left turn. It swung onto Court Street and passed beyond the photos white border and so out of sight. The PierceArrow, the Chevrolets, the Packardsthey all began to roll along, dodging their separate ways through the intersection. After twentyeight years or so the skirt of the mans topcoat finally finished its flap. He settled his hat more firmly on his head and walked on. The two boys completed their turn, coming fullface, and a moment later Richie saw what they had been looking at as a mangy dog came trotting across Center Street. The boy in the sailor suitBillraised two fingers to the corners of his mouth and whistled. Stunned beyond any ability to move or think, Richie realized he could hear the whistle, could hear the cars irregular sewingmachine engines. The sounds were faint, like sounds heard through thick glass, but they were there. The dog glanced toward the two boys, then trotted on. The boys glanced at each other and laughed like chipmunks. They started to walk on, and then the Richie in knickers grabbed Bills arm and pointed toward the Canal. They turned in that direction. No, Richie thought, dont do that, dont They went to the low concrete wall and suddenly the clown popped up over its edge like a horrible jackinthebox, a clown with Georgie Denbroughs face, his hair slicked back, his mouth a hideous grin full of bleeding greasepaint, his eyes black holes. One hand clutched three balloons on a string. With the other he reached for the boy in the sailor suit and seized his neck. NuhNuhNO! Bill cried, and reached for the picture. Reached into the picture. Stop it, Bill! Richie shouted, and grabbed for him. He was almost too late. He saw the tips of Bills fingers go through the surface of the photograph and into that other world. He saw the fingertips go from the warm pink of living flesh to the mummified cream color that passed for white in old photos. At the same time they became small and disconnected. It was like the peculiar optical illusion one sees when one thrusts a hand into a glass bowl of water the part of the hand underwater seems to be floating, disembodied, inches away from the part which is still out of the water. A series of diagonal cuts slashed across Bills fingers at the point where they ceased being his fingers and became photofingers; it was as if he had stuck his hand into the blades of a fan instead of into a picture. Richie seized his forearm and gave a tremendous yank. They both fell over. Georges album hit the floor and snapped itself shut with a dry clap. Bill stuck his fingers in his mouth. Tears of pain stood in his eyes. Richie could see blood running down his palm to his wrist in thin streams. Let me see, he said. HuHurts, Bill said. He held his hand out to Richie, palm down. There were ladderlike slashcuts running up his index, second, and third fingers. The pinky had barely touched the surface of the photograph (if it had a surface), and although that finger had not been cut, Bill told Richie later that the nail had been neatly clipped, as if with a pair of manicurists scissors. Jesus, Bill, Richie said. BandAids. That was all he could think of. God, they had been luckyif he hadnt pulled Bills arm when he did, his fingers might have been amputated instead of just badly cut. We got to fix those up. Your mother can Nehnehnever mmind mmy muhhuther, Bill said. He grabbed the photo album again, spilling drops of blood on the floor. Dont open that again! Richie cried, grabbing frantically at Bills shoulder. Jesus Christ, Billy, you almost lost your fingers! Bill shook him off. He flipped through the pages, and there was a grim determination on his face that scared Richie more than anything else. Bills eyes looked almost mad. His wounded fingers printed Georges album with new bloodit didnt look like ketchup yet, but when it had a little time to dry it would. Of course it would. And here was the downtown scene again. The ModelT stood in the middle of the intersection. The other cars were frozen in the places where they had been before. The man walking toward the intersection held the brim of his fedora; his coat once more belled out in midflap. The two boys were gone. There were no boys in the picture anywhere. But Look, Richie whispered, and pointed. He was careful to keep the tip of his finger well away from the picture. An arc showed just over the low concrete wall at the edge of the Canalthe top of something round. Something like a balloon. 5 They got out of Georges room just in time. Bills mother was a voice at the foot of the stairs and a shadow on the wall. Have you boys been wrestling? she asked sharply. I heard a thud. Just a lihlihlittle, MMom. Bill threw a sharp glance at Richie. Be quiet, it said. Well, I want you to stop it. I thought the ceiling was going to come right down on my head. WWWe will. They heard her go back toward the front of the house. Bill had wrapped his handkerchief around his bleeding hand; it was turning red and in a moment would start to drip. The boys went down to the bathroom, where Bill held his hand under the faucet until the bleeding stopped. Cleaned, the cuts looked thin but cruelly deep. Looking at their white lips and the red meat just inside them made Richie feel sick to his stomach. He wrapped them with BandAids as fast as he could. HHHurts like hell, Bill said. Well whyd you want to go and put your hand in there, you wet end? Bill looked solemnly at the rings of BandAids on his fingers, then up at Richie. IIIt was the cluhhown, he said. It wwwas the cclown pretending to be JuhjuhGeorge. Thats right, Richie said. Like it was the clown pretending to be the mummy when Ben saw it. Like it was the clown pretending to be that sick bum Eddie saw. The luhluhleper. Right. But ihis it rrreally a cluhcluhclown? Its a monster, Richie said flatly. Some kind of monster. Some kind of monster right here in Derry. And its killing kids. 6 On a Saturday, not long after the incident of the dam in the Barrens, Mr. Nell, and the picture that moved, Richie, Ben, and Beverly Marsh came face to face with not one monster but twoand they paid to do it. Richie did, anyway. These monsters were scary but not really dangerous; they stalked their victims on the screen of the Aladdin Theater while Richie, Ben, and Bev watched from the balcony. One of the monsters was a werewolf, played by Michael Landon, and he was cool because even when he was the werewolf he still had sort of a ducks ass haircut. The other was this smashedup hotrodder, played by Gary Conway. He was brought back to life by a descendant of Victor Frankenstein, who fed all parts he didnt need to a bunch of alligators he kept in the basement. Also on the program a Movie Tone Newsreel that showed the latest Paris fashions and the latest Vanguard rocket explosions at Cape Canaveral, two Warner Brothers cartoons, one Popeye cartoon, and a Chilly Willy cartoon (for some reason the hat Chilly Willy wore always cracked Richie up), and PREVUES OF COMING ATTRACTIONS. The coming attractions included two pictures Richie immediately put on his gottasee list I Married a Monster from Outer Space and The Blob. Ben was very quiet during the show. Ole Haystack had nearly been spotted by Henry, Belch, and Victor earlier, and Richie assumed that was all that was troubling him. Ben, however, had forgotten all about the creeps (they were sitting close to the screen down below, chucking popcorn boxes at each other and hooting). Beverly was the reason for his silence. Her nearness was so overwhelming that he was almost ill with it. His body would break out in goosebumps and then, if she should so much as shift in her seat, his skin would flash hot, as if with a tropical fever. When her hand brushed his reaching for the popcorn, he trembled with exaltation. He thought later that those three hours in the dark next to Beverly had been both the longest and shortest hours of his life. Richie, unaware that Ben was in deep throes of calflove, was feeling just as fine as paint. In his book the only thing any better than a couple of Francis the Talking Mule pictures was a couple of horror pictures in a theater filled with kids, all of them yelling and screaming at the gory parts. He certainly did not connect any of the goingsons in the two lowbudget AmericanInternational pictures they were watching with what was going on in town ... not then, at least. He had seen the Twin Shock Show Saturday Matinee ad in the News on Friday morning and had almost immediately forgotten how badly he had slept the night beforeand how he had finally gotten up and turned on the light in his closet, a real baby trick for sure, but he hadnt been able to get a wink of sleep until hed done it. But by the following morning things had seemed normal again ... well, almost. He began to think that maybe he and Bill had just shared a hallucination. Of course the cuts on Bills fingers werent a hallucination, but maybe theyd just been papercuts from some of the sheets in Georgies album. Pretty thick paper. Could of been. Maybe. Besides, there was no law saying he had to spend the next ten years thinking about it, was there? Nope. And so, following an experience that might well have sent an adult running for the nearest headshrinker, Richie Tozier got up, ate a giant pancake breakfast, saw the ad for the two horror movies on the Amusements page of the paper, checked his funds, found them a little low (well ... nonexistent might actually have been a better word), and began to pester his father for chores. His dad, who had come to the table already wearing his white dentists tunic, put down the Sports pages and poured himself a second cup of coffee. He was a pleasantlooking man with a rather thin face. |
He wore steelrimmed spectacles, was developing a bald spot at the back of his head, and would die of cancer of the larynx in 1973. He looked at the ad to which Richie was pointing. Horror movies, Wentworth Tozier said. Yeah, Richie said, grinning. Feel like you have to go, Wentworth Tozier said. Yeah! Feel like youll probably die in convulsions of disappointment if you dont get to see those two trashy movies. Yeah, yeah, I would! I know I would! Graaaag! Richie fell out of his chair onto the floor, clutching his throat, his tongue sticking out. This was Richies admittedly peculiar way of turning on the charm. Oh God, Richie, will you please stop it? his mother asked him from the stove, where she was frying him a couple of eggs to top off the pancakes. Gee, Rich, his father said as Richie got back into his chair. I guess I must have forgotten to pay you your allowance on Monday. Thats the only reason I can think of for you needing more money on Friday. Well ... Gone? Well ... Thats an extremely deep subject for a boy with such a shallow mind, Wentworth Tozier said. He put his elbow on the table and then cupped his chin on the palm of his hand, regarding his only son with what appeared to be deep fascination. Whered it go? Richie immediately fell into the Voice of Toodles the English Butler. Why, I spent it, didnt I, guvnor? Pippip, cheerio, and all that rot! My part of the war effort. All got to do our bit to beat back the bloody Hun, dont we? Bit of a sticky wicket, aywot? Bit of a wet hedgehog, wotwot? Bit of a Bit of a pile of bullshit, Went said amiably, and reached for the strawberry preserves. Spare me the vulgarity at the breakfast table, if you please, Maggie Tozier said to her husband as she brought Richies eggs over to the table. And to Richie I dont know why you want to fill your head up with such awful junk anyway. Aw, Mom, Richie said. He was outwardly crushed, inwardly jubilant. He could read both of his parents like bookswellworn and wellloved booksand he was pretty sure he was going to get what he wanted chores and permission to go to the show Saturday afternoon. Went leaned forward toward Richie and smiled widely. I think I have you right where I want you, he said. Is that right, Dad? Richie said, and smiled back ... a trifle uneasily. Oh yes. You know our lawn, Richie? You are familiar with our lawn? Indeed I am, guvnor, Richie said, becoming Toodles againor trying to. Bit shaggy, aywot? Wotwot, Went agreed. And you, Richie, will remedy that condition. I will? You will. Mow it, Richie. Okay, Dad, sure, Richie said, but a terrible suspicion had suddenly blossomed in his mind. Maybe his dad didnt mean just the front lawn. Wentworth Toziers smile widened to a predatory sharks grin. All of it, O idiot child of my loins. Front. Back. Sides. And when you finish, I will cross your palm with two green pieces of paper with the likeness of George Washington on one side and a picture of a pyramid oertopped with the EverWatching Oculary on the other. I dont get you, Dad, Richie said, but he was afraid he did. Two bucks. Two bucks for the whole lawn? Richie cried, genuinely wounded. Its the biggest lawn on the block! Jeez, Dad! Went sighed and picked the paper up again. Richie could read the front page headline MISSING BOY PROMPTS NEW FEARS. He thought briefly of George Denbroughs strange scrapbookbut that had surely been a hallucination ... and even if it hadnt been, that was yesterday and this was today. Guess you didnt want to see those movies as bad as you thought, Went said from behind the paper. A moment later his eyes appeared over the top, studying Richie. Studying him a trifle smugly, in truth. Studying him the way a man with four of a kind studies his poker opponent over the fan of his cards. When the Clark twins do it all, you give them two dollars each! Thats true, Went admitted. But as far as I know, they dont want to go to the movies tomorrow. Or if they do, they must have funds sufficient to the occasion, because they havent popped by to check the state of the herbiage surrounding our domicile lately. You, on the other hand, do want to go and find yourself lacking the funds to do so. That pressure you feel in your midsection may be the five pancakes and two eggs you ate for breakfast, Richie, or it may just be the barrel I have you over. Wotwot? Wents eyes submerged behind the paper again. Hes blackmailing me, Richie said to his mother, who was eating dry toast. She was trying to lose weight again. This is blackmail, I just hope you know that. Yes, dear, I know that, his mother said. Theres egg on your chin. Richie wiped the egg off his chin. Three bucks if I have it all done when you get home tonight? he asked the newspaper. His fathers eyes appeared again briefly. Twofifty. Oh, man, Richie said. You and Jack Benny. My idol, Went said from behind the paper. Make up your mind, Richie. I want to read these box scores. Deal, Richie said, and sighed. When your folks had you by the balls, they really knew how to squeeze. It was pretty chuckalicious, when you thought it over. As he mowed, he practiced his Voices. 7 He finishedfront, back, and sidesby three oclock Friday afternoon, and began Saturday with two dollars and fifty cents in his jeans. Pretty damn near a fortune. He called Bill up, but Bill told him glumly that he had to go up to Bangor and take some kind of speechtherapy test. Richie sympathized and then added in his best Stuttering Bill Voice GGGive em hhhell, BuhBuhBig BihBill. Your ffface and my buhbuhbutt, TTTozier, Bill said, and hung up. He called Eddie Kaspbrak next, but Eddie sounded even more depressed than Billhis mother had gotten them each a fullday buspass, he said, and they were going to visit Eddies aunts in Haven and Bangor and Hampden. All three of them were fat, like Mrs. Kaspbrak, and all three of them were single. Theyll all pinch my cheek and tell me how much Ive grown, Eddie said. Thats cause they know how cute you are, Edsjust like me. I saw what a cutie you were the first time I met you. Sometimes youre really a turd, Richie. It takes one to know one, Eds, and you know em all. You gonna be down in the Barrens next week? I guess so, if you guys are. Want to play guns? Maybe. But ... I think me and Big Bill have got something to tell you. What? Its really Bills story, I guess. Ill see you. Enjoy your aunts. Very funny. His third call was to Stan the Man, but Stan was in dutch with his folks for breaking their picture window. He had been playing flyingsaucer with a pieplate and it took a bad bank. Keerash. He had to do chores all weekend, and probably next weekend, too. Richie commiserated and then asked Stan if he would be coming down to the Barrens next week. Stan said he guessed so, if his father didnt decide to ground him, or something. Jeez, Stan, it was just a window, Richie said. Yeah, but a big one, Stan said, and hung up. Richie started to leave the living room, then thought of Ben Hanscom. He thumbed through the telephone book and found a listing for an Arlene Hanscom. Since she was the only lady Hanscom among the four listed, Richie figured it had to be Bens number and called. Id like to go, but I already spent my allowance, Ben said. He sounded depressed and ashamed by the admissionhe had, in fact, spent it all on candy, soda, chips, and beefjerky strips. Richie, who was rolling in dough (and who didnt like to go to the movies alone), said I got plenty of money. You can gimme owesies. Yeah? Really? Youd do that? Sure, Richie said, puzzled. Why not? Okay! Ben said happily. Okay, thatd be great! Two horror movies! Did you say one was a werewolf picture? Yeah. Man, I love werewolf pictures! Jeez, Haystack, dont wet your pants. Ben laughed. Ill see you out in front of the Aladdin, okay? Yeah, great. Richie hung up and looked at the phone thoughtfully. It suddenly occurred to him that Ben Hanscom was lonely. And that in turn made him feel rather heroic. He was whistling as he ran upstairs to get some comics to read before the show. 8 The day was sunny, breezy, and cool. Richie jived along Center Street toward the Aladdin, popping his fingers and singing Rockin Robin under his breath. He was feeling good. Going to the movies always made him feel goodhe loved that magic world, those magic dreams. He felt sorry for anyone who had dull duties to discharge on such a dayBill with his speech therapy, Eddie with his aunts, poor old Stan the Man who would be spending the afternoon scraping down the frontporch steps or sweeping the garage because the pieplate hed been throwing around swept right when it was supposed to sweep left. Richie had his yoyo tucked in his back pocket and now he took it out and tried again to get it to sleep. This was an ability Richie lusted to acquire, but so far, no soap. The crazy lil fucker just wouldnt do it. Either it went down and popped right back up or it went down and dropped dead at the end of its string. Halfway up Center Street Hill he saw a girl in a beige pleated skirt and a white sleeveless blouse sitting on a bench outside Shooks Drug Store. She was eating what looked like a pistachio icecream cone. Bright redauburn hair, its highlights seeming coppery or sometimes almost blonde, hung down to her shoulderblades. Richie knew only one girl with hair of that particular shade. It was Beverly Marsh. Richie liked Bev a lot. Well, he liked her, but not that way. He admired her looks (and knew he wasnt alonegirls like Sally Mueller and Greta Bowie hated Beverly like fire, still too young to understand how they could have everything else so easily ... and still have to compete in the matter of looks with a girl who lived in one of those slummy apartments on Lower Main Street), but mostly he liked her because she was tough and had a really good sense of humor. Also, she usually had cigarettes. He liked her, in short, because she was a good guy. Still, he had once or twice caught himself wondering what color underwear she was wearing under her small selection of rather faded skirts, and that was not the sort of thing you wondered about the other guys, was it? And, Richie had to admit, she was one hell of a pretty guy. Approaching the bench where she sat eating her ice cream, Richie belted an invisible topcoat around his middle, pulled down an invisible slouch hat, and pretended to be Humphrey Bogart. Adding the correct Voice, he became Humphrey Bogartat least to himself. To others he would have sounded like Richie Tozier with a mild headcold. Hello, shweetheart, he said, gliding up to the bench where she was sitting and looking out at the traffic. No sensh waitin for a bus here. The Nazish have cut off our retreat. The last plane leavesh at midnight. You be on it. He needsh you, shweetheart. So do I ... but Ill get along shomehow. Hi, Richie, Bev said, and when she turned toward him he saw a purpleblackish bruise on her right cheek, like the shadow of a crows wing. He was again struck by her good looks ... only it occurred to him now that she might actually be beautiful. It had never really occurred to him until that moment that there might be beautiful girls outside of the movies, or that he himself might know one. Perhaps it was the bruise that allowed him to see the possibility of her beautyan essential contrast, a particular flaw which first drew attention to itself and then somehow defined the rest the grayblue eyes, the naturally red lips, the creamy unblemished childs skin. There was a tiny spray of freckles across her nose. See anything green? she asked, tossing her head pertly. You, shweetheart, Richie said. Youve turned green ash limberger cheese. But when we get you out of Cashablanca, youre going into the finesht hoshpital money can buy. Well turn you white again. I shwear it on my mothersh name. Youre an asshole, Richie. That doesnt sound like Humphrey Bogart at all. But she smiled a little as she said it. Richie sat down next to her. You going to the movies? I dont have any money, she said. Can I see your yoyo? He handed it over. I oughtta take it back, he told her. Its supposed to sleep but it doesnt. I got japped. She poked her finger through the loop of string and Richie pushed his glasses up on the bridge of his nose so he could watch what she was doing better. She turned her hand over, palm toward the sky, the Duncan yoyo tucked neatly into the valley of flesh formed by her cupped hand. She rolled the yoyo off her index finger. It went down to the end of its string and fell asleep. When she twitched her fingers in a comeon gesture it promptly woke up and climbed its string to her palm again. Oh bugdung, look at that, Richie said. Thats kid stuff, Bev said. Watch this. She snapped the yoyo down again. She let it sleep for a moment and then walked the dog with it in a smart series of snap jerks up the string to her hand again. Oh, stop it, Richie said. I hate showoffs. Or how about this? Bev asked, smiling sweetly. She got the yoyo going back and front, making the red wooden Duncan look like a BoLo Bouncer Richie had had once. She finished with two Around the Worlds (almost hitting a shuffling old lady, who glared at them). The yoyo ended up in her cupped palm, its string neatly rolled around its spindle. Bev handed it back to Richie and sat down on the bench again. Richie sat down next to her, his jaw hanging agape in perfectly unaffected admiration. Bev looked at him and giggled. Shut your mouth, youre drawing flies. Richie shut his mouth with a snap. Besides, that last part was just luck. First time in my life I did two Around the Worlds in a row without fizzing out. Kids were walking past them now, on their way to the show. Peter Gordon walked by with Marcia Fadden. They were supposed to be going together, but Richie figured it was just that they lived next door to each other on West Broadway and were such a couple of assholes that they needed each others support and attention. Peter Gordon was already getting a pretty good crop of acne, although he was only twelve. He sometimes hung around with Bowers, Criss, and Huggins, but he wasnt quite brave enough to try anything on his own. He glanced over at Richie and Bev sitting together on the bench and chanted, Richie and Beverly up in a tree! KayEyeEssEssEyeEnGee! First comes love, then comes marriage and here comes Richie with a baby carriage! Marcia finished, cawing laughter. Sit on this, dear heart, Bev said, and whipped the finger on them. Marcia looked away, disgusted, as if she could not believe anyone could be so uncouth. Gordon slipped an arm around her and called back over his shoulder to Richie, Maybe Ill see you later, foureyes. Maybe youll see your mothers girdle, Richie responded smartly (if a little senselessly). Beverly collapsed with laughter. She leaned against Richies shoulder for a moment and Richie had just time to reflect that her touch, and the sensation of her lightly carried weight, was not exactly unpleasant. Then she sat up again. What a pair of jerks, she said. Yeah, I think Marcia Fadden pees rosewater, Richie said, and Beverly got the giggles again. Chanel Number Five, she said, her voice muffled because her hands were over her mouth. You bet, said Richie, although he hadnt the slightest idea what Chanel Number Five was. Bev? What? Can you show me how to make it sleep? I guess so. I never tried to show anyone. How did you learn? Who showed you? She gave him a disgusted look. No one showed me. I just figured it out. Like twirling a baton. Im great at that No conceit in your family, Richie said, rolling his eyes. Well, I am, she said. But I didnt take classes, or anything. You really can twirl? Sure. Probably be a cheerleader in junior high, huh? She smiled. It was a kind of smile Richie had never seen before. It was wise, cynical, and sad all at the same time. He recoiled a little from its unknowing power, as he had recoiled from the picture of downtown in Georgies album when it had begun to move. Thats for girls like Marcia Fadden, she said. Her and Sally Mueller and Greta Bowie. Girls who pee rosewater. Their fathers help to buy the sports equipment and the uniforms. They got an in. Ill never be a cheerleader. Jeez, Bev, thats no attitude to take Sure it is, if its the truth. She shrugged. I dont care. Who wants to do somersaults and show your underwear to a million people, anyway? Look, Richie. Watch this. For the next ten minutes she worked on showing Richie how to make his yoyo sleep. Near the end, Richie actually began to get the hang of it, although he could usually only get it to come halfway up the string after waking it up. Youre not jerking your fingers hard enough, thats all, she said. Richie looked at the clock on the Merrill Trust across the street and jumped up, stuffing his yoyo into his back pocket. Jeepers, I gotta get goin, Bev. Im supposed to meet ole Haystack. Hell think I changed my mind or somethin. Whos Haystack? Oh. Ben Hanscom. I call him Haystack, though. You know, like Haystack Calhoun, the wrestler. Bev frowned at him. Thats not very nice. I like Ben. Doan whup me, massa! Richie screeched in his Pickaninny Voice, rolling his eyes and flapping his hands. Doan whup me, Ise gwineter be a good dahkie, maam, Ise Richie, Bev said thinly. Richie quit it. I like him, too, he said. We all built a dam down in the Barrens a couple of days ago and You go down there? You and Ben play down there? Sure. A bunch of us guys do. Its sorta cool down there. Richie glanced at the clock again. I really gotta split for the scene. Benll be waiting. Okay. He paused, thought, and said, If youre not doing anything, come on with me. I told you. I dont have any money. Ill pay your way. I got a couple of bucks. She tossed the remains of her icecream cone in a nearby litter barrel. Her eyes, that fine clear shade of bluegray, turned up to his. They were coolly amused. She pretended to primp her hair and asked him, Oh dear, am I being asked out on a date? For a moment Richie was uncharacteristically flustered. He actually felt a blush rising in his cheeks. He had made the offer in a perfectly natural way, just as he had made it to Ben ... except hadnt he said something to Ben about owesies? Yes. But he hadnt said anything about owesies to Beverly. Richie suddenly felt a bit weird. He had dropped his eyes, retreating from her amused glance, and realized now that her skirt had ridden up a bit when she shifted forward to drop the icecream cone in the litter barrel, and he could see her knees. He raised his eyes but that was no help; now he was looking at the beginning swells of her bosoms. Richie, as he usually did in such moments of confusion, took refuge in absurdity. Yes! A date! he screamed, throwing himself on his knees before her and holding his clasped hands up. Please come! Please come! I shall ruddy kill meself if you say no, aywot? Wotwot? Oh, Richie, youre such a fuzzbrain, she said, giggling again . . . but werent her cheeks also a trifle flushed? If so, it made her look prettier than ever. Get up before you get arrested. He got up and plopped down beside her again. He felt as if his equilibrium had returned. A little foolishness always helped when you had a dizzy spell, he believed. You wanna go? Sure, she said. Thank you very much. Think of it! My first date. Just wait until I write it in my diary tonight. She clasped her hands together between her budding breasts, fluttered her eyelashes rapidly, and then laughed. I wish youd stop calling it that, Richie said. She sighed. You dont have much romance in your soul. Damn right I dont. But he felt somehow delighted with himself. The world seemed suddenly very clear to him, and very friendly. He found himself glancing sideways at her from time to time. She was looking in the shop windowsat the dresses and nightgowns in CornellHopleys, at the towels and pots in the window of the Discount Barn, and he stole glances at her hair, the line of her jaw. He observed the way her bare arms came out of the round holes of her blouse. He saw the edge of her slip strap. All of these things delighted him. He could not have said why, but what had happened in George Denbroughs bedroom had never seemed more distant to him than it did right then. It was time to go, time to meet Ben, but he would sit here just a moment longer while her eyes windowshopped, because it was good to look at her, and be with her. 9 Kids were ponying up their quarter admissions at the Aladdins boxoffice window and going into the lobby. Looking through the bank of glass doors, Richie could see a crowd around the candy counter. The popcorn machine was in overdrive, spilling out drifts of the stuff, its greasy hinged lid jittering up and down. He didnt see Ben anywhere. He asked Beverly if she had spotted him. She shook her head. Maybe he already went in. He said he didnt have any money. And the Daughter of Frankenstein there would never let him in without a ticket. Richie cocked a thumb at Mrs. Cole, who had been the tickettaker at the Aladdin since a time well before the pictures had begun to talk. Her hair, dyed a bright red, was so thin you could see her scalp beneath. She had enormous hanging lips which she painted with plumcolored lipstick. Wild blotches of rouge covered her cheeks. Her eyebrows were drawn on in black pencil. Mrs. Cole was a perfect democrat. She hated all kids equally. Boy, I dont wanna go in without him but the shows gonna start, Richie said. Where in heck is he? You can buy him a ticket and leave it at the boxoffice, Bev said, reasonably enough. Then when he comes But just then Ben came around the corner of Center and Macklin Streets. He was puffing, and his belly joggled beneath his sweatshirt. He saw Richie and raised one hand to wave. Then he saw Bev and his hand stopped in midflap. His eyes widened momentarily. He finished his wave and then walked slowly to where they stood under the Aladdins marquee. Hi, Richie, he said, and then looked at Bev briefly. It was as if he was afraid that an overlong look might result in a flash burn. Hi, Bev. Hello, Ben, she said, and a strange silence fell between the two of themit was not precisely awkward; it was, Richie thought, almost powerful. And he felt a vague twinge of jealousy, because something had passed between them and whatever it had been, he had been excluded from it. Howdy, Haystack! he said. Thought you went chicken on me. These movies goan scare ten pounds off your pudgy body. Ah say, Ah say they goan turn your hair white, boy. When you come out of this theater, you goan need an usher to help you up the aisle, you goan be shakin so bad. Richie started for the boxoffice and Ben touched his arm. Ben started to speak, glanced at Bev, who was smiling at him, and had to start over again. I was here, he said, but I went up the street and around the corner when those guys came along. What guys? Richie asked, but he thought he already knew. Henry Bowers. Victor Criss. Belch Huggins. Some other guys, too. Richie whistled. They must have already gone inside the theater. I dont see em buying candy. Yeah. I guess so. If I was them, I wouldnt bother paying to see a couple of horror movies, Richie said. Id just stay home and look in a mirror. Save some bread. Bev laughed merrily at that, but Ben only smiled a little. Henry Bowers had maybe only started out to hurt him that day last week, but he had ended up meaning to kill him. Ben was quite sure of that. Tell you what, Richie said. Well go up in the balcony. Theyll all be sittin down in the second or third row with their feet up. You positive? Ben asked. He was not at all sure Richie understood what bad news those kids were ... Henry, of course, being the worst news of all. Richie, who had barely escaped what might have been a really bad beating at the hands of Henry and his spasmoid friends three months ago (he had managed to elude them in the toy department of Freeses Department Store, of all places), understood more about Henry and his merry crew than Ben thought he did. If I wasnt fairly positive, I wouldnt go in, he said. I want to see those movies, Haystack, but I dont want to, like, die for em. Besides, if they give us any trouble, well just tell Foxy to kick them out, Bev said. Foxy was Mr. Foxworth, the thin, sallow, glumlooking man who managed the Aladdin. He was now selling candy and popcorn, chanting his litany of Wait your turn, wait your turn, wait your turn. In his threadbare tux and yellowing boiled shirt he looked like an undertaker who had fallen on hard times. Ben looked doubtfully from Bev to Foxy to Richie. You cant let em run your life, man, Richie said softly. Dont you know that? I guess so, Ben said, and sighed. Actually, he knew no such thing ... but Beverlys being here had given the equation a crazy skew. If she hadnt come, he would have tried to persuade Richie to go to the movies another day. And if Richie had persisted, Ben might have bowed out. But Bev was here. He didnt want to look like a chicken in front of her. And the thought of being with her, in the balcony, in the dark (even if Richie was between them, as he probably would be), was a powerful attraction. Well wait until the show starts before we go in, Richie said. He grinned and punched Ben on the arm. Shit, Haystack, you wanna live forever? Bens brows drew together, and then he snorted laughter. Richie also laughed. Looking at them, Beverly laughed, too. Richie approached the ticket booth again. Liver Lips Cole looked at him sourly. Good ahfternyoon, deah lady, Richie said in his best Baron Butthole Voice. I am in diah need of three tickeytickies to youah deah old American flicktoons. Cut the crap and tell me what you want, kid! Liver Lips barked through the round hole cut in the glass, and something about the way her painted eyebrows were going up and down unsettled Richie so much that he simply pushed a rumpled dollar through the slot and muttered, Three, please. Three tickets popped out of the slot. Richie took them. Liver Lips rammed a quarter back at him. Dont be smart, dont throw popcorn boxes, dont holler, dont run in the lobby, dont run in the aisles. No, maam, Richie said, backing away to where Ben and Bev stood. He said to them, It always warms my heart to see an old fart like that who really likes kids. They stood outside awhile longer, waiting for the show to start. Liver Lips glared at them suspiciously from her glass cage. Richie regaled Bev with the story of the dam in the Barrens, trumpeting Mr. Nells lines in his new Irish Cop Voice. Beverly was giggling before long, laughing hard not long after that. Even Ben was grinning a little, although his eyes kept shifting either toward the Aladdins glass doors or to Beverlys face. 10 The balcony was okay. During the first reel of I Was a Teenage Frankenstein Richie spotted Henry Bowers and his shitkicking friends. They were down in the second row, just as he had figured they would be. There were five or six of them in allfifth, sixth, and seventhgraders, all of them with their motorhuckle boots cocked up on the seats in front of them. Foxy would come down and tell them to put their feet on the floor. They would. Foxy would leave. Up went the motorhuckle boots again as soon as he did. Five or ten minutes later Foxy would return and the entire charade would be acted out again. Foxy didnt quite have the guts to kick them out and they knew it. The movies were great. The Teenage Frankenstein was suitably gross. The Teenage Werewolf was somehow scarier, though ... perhaps because he also seemed a little sad. What had happened wasnt his own fault. There was this hypnotist who had fucked him up, but the only reason hed been able to was that the kid who turned into the werewolf was full of anger and bad feelings. Richie found himself wondering if there were many people in the world hiding bad feelings like that. Henry Bowers was just overflowing with bad feelings, but he sure didnt bother hiding them. Beverly sat between the boys, ate popcorn from their boxes, screamed, covered her eyes, sometimes laughed. When the Werewolf was stalking the girl doing exercises in the gym after school, she pressed her face against Bens arm, and Richie heard Bens gasp of surprise even over the screams of the two hundred kids below them. The Werewolf was finally killed. In the last scene one cop solemnly told another that this should teach people not to fiddle with things best left to God. The curtain came down and the lights came up. There was applause. Richie felt totally satisfied, if a little headachy. Hed probably have to go to the eyedoctor pretty soon and get his lenses changed again. He really would be wearing Coke bottles on his eyes by the time he got to high school, he thought glumly. Ben twitched at his sleeve. They saw us, Richie, he said in a dry, dismayed voice. Huh? Bowers and Criss. They looked up here on their way out. They saw us! Okay, okay, Richie said. Calm down, Haystack. Just caaalm down. Well go out the side door. Nothing to worry about. They went down the stairs, Richie in the lead, Beverly in the middle, Ben bringing up the rear and looking back over his shoulder every two steps or so. Have those guys really got it in for you, Ben? Beverly asked. Yeah, I guess they do, Ben said. I got in a fight with Henry Bowers on the last day of school. Did he beat you up? Not as much as he wanted to, Ben said. Thats why hes still mad, I guess. Ole Hank the Tank also lost a fair amount of skin, Richie murmured. Or so I heard. I dont think he was very pleased about that, either. He pushed open the exit door and the three of them stepped out into the alley that ran between the Aladdin and Nans Luncheonette. A cat which had been rooting in a garbage can hissed and ran past them down the alley, which was blocked at the far end by a board fence. The cat scrambled up and over. A trashcan lid clattered. Bev jumped, grabbed Richies arm, and then laughed nervously. I guess Im still scared from the movies, she said. You wont Richie began. Hello, fuckface, Henry Bowers said from behind them. Startled, the three of them turned around. Henry, Victor, and Belch were standing at the mouth of the alley. There were two other guys behind them. Oh shit, I knew this was going to happen, Ben moaned. Richie turned quickly back toward the Aladdin, but the exit door had closed behind them and there was no way to open it from the outside. Say goodbye, fuckface, Henry said, and suddenly ran at Ben. The things that happened next seemed to Richie both then and later like something out of a moviesuch things simply did not happen in real life. In real life the little kids took their beatings, picked up their teeth and went home. It didnt happen that way this time. Beverly stepped forward and to one side, almost as if she intended to meet Henry, perhaps shake his hand. Richie could hear the cleats on his boots rapping. Victor and Belch were coming after him; the other two boys stood at the mouth of the alley, guarding it. Leave him alone! Beverly shouted. Pick on someone your own size! Hes as big as a fucking Mack truck, bitch, Henry, no gentleman, snarled. Now get out of my Richie stuck out his foot. He didnt think he meant to. His foot went out the same way wisecracks dangerous to his health sometimes emerged, all on their own, from his mouth. Henry ran into it and fell forward. The brick surface of the alley was slippery with spilled garbage from the overflowing cans on the luncheonette side. Henry went skidding like a shuffleboard weight. He started to get up, his shirt blotched with coffee grounds, mud, and bits of lettuce. Oh you guys are gonna DIE! he screamed. Until this moment Ben had been terrified. Now something in him snapped. He let out a roar and grabbed one of the garbage cans. For just a moment, holding it up, garbage spilling everywhere, he really did look like Haystack Calhoun. His face was pale and furious. He threw the garbage can. |
It struck Henry in the small of the back and knocked him flat again. Lets get out of here! Richie screamed. They ran toward the mouth of the alley. Victor Criss jumped in front of them. Bellowing, Ben lowered his head and rammed it into Victors middle. Woof! Victor grunted, and sat down. Belch grabbed a handful of Beverlys ponytail and whipped her smartly against the Aladdins brick wall. Beverly bounced off and ran down the alley, rubbing her arm. Richie ran after her, grabbing a garbagecan lid on the way. Belch Huggins swung a fist almost the size of a Daisy ham at him. Richie pistoned out the galvanized steel lid. Belchs fist met it. There was a loud bonnngg! a sound that was almost mellow. Richie felt the shock travel all the way up his arm to the shoulder. Belch screamed and began to hop up and down, holding his swelling hand. Yondah lies da tent of my faddah, Richie said confidentially, doing a very passable Tony Curtis Voice, and then ran after Ben and Beverly. One of the boys at the mouth of the alley had caught Beverly. Ben was tussling with him. The other boy began to rabbitpunch Ben in the small of the back. Richie swung his foot. It connected with the rabbitpunchers buttocks. The boy howled with pain. Richie grabbed Beverlys arm in one hand, Bens in the other. Run! he shouted. The boy Ben had been tussling with let go of Beverly and looped a punch at Richie. His ear exploded with momentary pain, then went numb and became very warm. A high whistling sound began to whine in his head. It sounded like the noise you were supposed to listen for when the school nurse put the earphones on you to test your hearing. They ran down Center Street. People turned to look at them. Bens large stomach pogoed up and down. Beverlys ponytail bounced. Richie let go of Ben and held his glasses against his forehead with his left thumb so he wouldnt lose them. His head was still ringing and he believed his ear was going to swell, but he felt wonderful. He started laughing. Beverly joined him. Soon Ben was laughing, too. They cut up Court Street and collapsed on a bench in front of the police station at that moment it seemed the only place in Derry where they might possibly be safe. Beverly looped an arm around Bens neck and Richies. She gave them a furious hug. That was great! Her eyes sparkled. Did you see those guys? Did you see them? I saw them, all right, Ben gasped. And I never want to see them again. This sent them off into another storm of hysterical laughter. Richie kept expecting Henrys gang to come around the corner onto Court Street and take after them again, police station or not. Still, he could not stop laughing. Beverly was right. It had been great. The Losers Club Gets Off A Good One! Richie yelled exuberantly. Wackawackawacka! He cupped his hands around his mouth and put on his Ben Bernie Voice YOWza YOWza YOWZA, childrens! A cop poked his head out of an open secondfloor window and shouted You kids get out of here! Right now! Take a walk! Richie opened his mouth to say something brilliantquite possibly in his brandnew Irish Cop Voiceand Ben kicked his foot. Shut up, Richie, he said, and promptly had trouble believing that he had said such a thing. Right, Richie, Bev said, looking at him fondly. Beepbeep. Okay, Richie said. What do you guys want to do? Wanna go find Henry Bowers and ask him if he wants to work it out over a game of Monopoly? Bite your tongue, Bev said. Huh? What does that mean? Never mind, Bev said. Some guys are so ignorant. Hesitantly, blushing furiously, Ben asked Did that guy hurt your hair, Beverly? She smiled at him gently, and in that moment she became sure of something she had only guessed at beforethat it had been Ben Hanscom who had sent her the postcard with the beautiful little haiku on it. No, it wasnt bad, she said. Lets go down in the Barrens, Richie proposed. And so that was where they went ... or where they escaped. Richie would think later that it set a pattern for the rest of the summer. The Barrens had become their place. Beverly, like Ben on the day of his first encounter with the big boys, had never been down there before. She walked between Richie and Ben as the three of them moved singlefile down the path. Her skirt twitched prettily, and looking at her, Ben was aware of waves of feeling, as powerful as stomach cramps. She was wearing her ankle bracelet. It flashed in the afternoon sun. They crossed the arm of the Kenduskeag the boys had dammed up (the stream divided about seventy yards farther up along its course and became one again about two hundred yards farther on toward town), using steppingstones downstream of the place where the dam had been, found another path, and eventually came out on the bank of the streams eastern fork, which was much wider than the other. It sparkled in the afternoon light. To his left, Ben could see two of those concrete cylinders with the manhole covers on top. Below them, jutting out over the stream, were large concrete pipes. Thin streams of muddy water poured over the lips of these outflow pipes and into the Kenduskeag. Someone takes a crap uptown and heres where it comes out, Ben thought, remembering Mr. Nells explanation of Derrys drainage system. He felt a dull sort of helpless anger. Once there had probably been fish in this river. Now your chances of catching a trout wouldnt be so hot. Your chances of catching a used wad of toilet paper would be better. Its so beautiful here, Bev sighed. Yeah, not bad, Richie agreed. The blackflies are gone and theres enough of a breeze to keep the mosquitoes away. He looked at her hopefully. Got any cigarettes? No, she said. I had a couple but I smoked them yesterday. Too bad, Richie said. There was the blast of an airhorn and they all watched as a long freight rumbled across the embankment on the far side of the Barrens and toward the trainyards. Jeez, if it was a passenger train theyd have a great view, Richie thought. First the poorfolks houses of the Old Cape, then the bamboo swamps on the other side of the Kenduskeag, and finally, before leaving the Barrens, the smoldering gravelpit that was the town dump. For just a moment he found himself thinking about Eddies story againthe leper under the abandoned house on Neibolt Street. He pushed it out of his mind and turned to Ben. So what was your best part, Haystack? Huh? Ben turned to him guiltily. As Bev looked out across the Kenduskeag, lost in thoughts of her own, he had been looking at her profile ... and at the bruise on her cheekbone. Of the movies, Dumbo. What was your best part? I liked it when Dr. Frankenstein started tossing the bodies to the crocodiles under his house, Ben said. That was my best part. That was gross, Beverly said, and shivered. I hate things like that. Crocodiles and piranhas and sharks. Yeah? Whats piranhas? Richie asked, immediately interested. Little tiny fish, Beverly said. And theyve got all these little tiny teeth, but theyre wicked sharp. And if you go into a river where they are, they eat you right down to the bone. Wow! I saw this movie once and these natives wanted to cross a river but the footbridge was down, she said. So they put a cow in the water on a rope, and crossed while the piranhas were eating the cow. When they pulled it out, the cow was nothing but a skeleton. I had nightmares for a week. Man, I wish I had some of those fish, Richie said happily. Id put em in Henry Bowers bathtub. Ben began to giggle. I dont think he takes baths. I dont know about that, but I do know we better watch out for those guys, Beverly said. Her fingers touched the bruise on her cheek. My dad went up the side of my head day before yesterday for breaking a pile of dishes. One a week is enough. There was a moment of silence that might have been awkward but was not. Richie broke it by saying his best part was when the Teenage Werewolf got the evil hypnotist. They talked about the moviesand other horror movies they had seen, and Alfred Hitchcock Presents on TVfor an hour or more. Bev spotted daisies growing on the riverbank and picked one. She held it first under Richies chin and then under Bens chin to see if they liked butter. She said they both did. As she held the flower under their chins, each was conscious of her light touch on their shoulders and the clean scent of her hair. Her face was close to Bens only for a moment or two, but that night he dreamed of how her eyes had looked during that brief endless span of time. Conversation was fading a little when they heard the crackling sounds of people approaching along the path. The three of them turned quickly toward the sound and Richie was suddenly, acutely aware that the river was at their backs. There was noplace to run. The voices drew closer. They got to their feet, Richie and Ben moving a little in front of Beverly without even thinking about it. The screen of bushes at the end of the path shookand suddenly Bill Denbrough emerged. Another kid was with him, a fellow Richie knew a little bit. His name was Bradley something, and he had a terrible lisp. Probably went up to Bangor with Bill for that speechtherapy thing, Richie thought. Big Bill! he said, and then in the Voice of Toodles We are glad to see you, Mr. Denbrough, mawster. Bill looked at them and grinnedand a peculiar certainty stole over Richie as Bill looked from him to Ben to Beverly and then back to Bradley WhateverHisNameWas. Beverly was a part of them. Bills eyes said so. Bradley WhatsHisName was not. He might stay for awhile today, might even come down to the Barrens againno one would tell him no, so sorry, the Losers Club membership is full, we already have our speechimpediment memberbut he was not part of it. He was not part of them. This thought led to a sudden, irrational fear. For a moment he felt the way you did when you suddenly realized you had swum out too far and the water was over your head. There was an intuitive flash Were being drawn into something. Being picked and chosen. None of this is accidental. Are we all here yet? Then the intuition fell into a meaningless jumble of thoughtlike the smash of a glass pane on a stone floor. Besides, it didnt matter. Bill was here, and Bill would take care; Bill would not let things get out of control. He was the tallest of them, and surely the most handsome. Richie only had to look sideways at Bevs eyes, fixed on Bill, and then farther, to Bens eyes, fixed knowingly and unhappily on Bevs face, to know that. Bill was also the strongest of themand not just physically. There was a good deal more to it than that, but since Richie did not know either the word charisma or the full meaning of the word magnetism, he only felt that Bills strength ran deep and might manifest itself in many ways, some of them probably unexpected. And Richie suspected if Beverly fell for him, or got a crush on him, or whatever they called it, Ben would not be jealous (like he would, Richie thought, if she got a crush on me); he would accept it as nothing but natural. And there was something else Bill was good. It was stupid to think such a thing (he did not, in fact, precisely think it; he felt it), but there it was. Goodness and strength seemed to radiate from Bill. He was like a knight in an old movie, a movie that was corny but still had the power to make you cry and cheer and clap at the end. Strong and good. And five years later, after his memories of what had happened in Derry both during and before that summer had begun to fade rapidly, it occurred to a Richie Tozier in his midteens that John Kennedy reminded him of Stuttering Bill. Who? His mind would respond. He would look up, faintly puzzled, and shake his head. Some guy I used to know, he would think, and would dismiss vague unease by pushing his glasses up on his nose and turning to his homework again. Some guy I used to know a long time ago. Bill Denbrough put his hands on his hips, smiled sunnily, and said Wuhwuhwell, hhere we aaare ... now wuhwuhwuhwhat are wwe dddoing? Got any cigarettes? Richie asked hopefully. 11 Five days later, as June drew toward its end, Bill told Richie that he wanted to go down to Neibolt Street and investigate under the porch where Eddie had seen the leper. They had just arrived back at Richies house, and Bill was walking Silver. He had ridden Richie double most of the way home, an exhilarating speedtrip across Derry, but he had been careful to let Richie dismount a block away from his house. If Richies mother saw Bill riding Richie double shed have a bird. Silvers wire basket was full of play sixshooters, two of them Bills, three of them Richies. They had been down in the Barrens for most of the afternoon, playing guns. Beverly Marsh had shown up around three oclock, wearing faded jeans and toting a very old Daisy air rifle that had lost most of its popwhen you pulled its tapewrapped trigger, it uttered a wheeze that sounded to Richie more like someone sitting on a very old Whoopee Cushion than a rifleshot. Her specialty was Japanesesniper. She was very good at climbing trees and shooting the unwary as they passed below. The bruise on her cheekbone had faded to a faint yellow. What did you say? Richie asked. He was shocked ... but also a little intrigued. I wwwant to take a llook under that puhpuhporch, Bill said. His voice was stubborn but he wouldnt look at Richie. There was a hard spot of flush high on each of his cheekbones. They had arrived in front of Richies house. Maggie Tozier was on the porch, reading a book. She waved to them and called, Hi, boys! Want some iced tea? Well be right there, Mom, Richie said, and then to Bill There isnt going to be anything there. He probably just saw a hobo and got all bent out of shape, for Gods sake. You know Eddie. YYeah, I nuhknow EEEddie. BBut ruhrememmember the pipipicture in the aalbum? Richie shifted his feet, uncomfortable. Bill raised his right hand. The BandAids were gone now, but Richie could see circlets of healing scab on Bills first three fingers. Yeah, but Luhluhhisten to meme, Bill said. He began to speak very slowly, holding Richies eyes with his own. Once more he related the similarities between Bens story and Eddies ... and tied those to what they had seen in the picture that moved. He suggested again that the clown had murdered the boys and girls who had been found dead in Derry since the previous December. AAnd muhmuhhaybe not just tthem, Bill finished. WWhat about aaall the oones who ddisappeared ? WWhat about EEEddie CuhCuhCorcoran? Shit, his stepfather scared him off, Richie said. Wwell, mmaybe he dddid, and mmaybe he dddidnt, Bill said. I knew him a llihlittle bit, ttoo, and I nuhnuhknow his ddad bbbeat him. And I aalso kknow he uuused to stay out nnuhhights ssometimes to gget awway from hhhim. So maybe the clown got him while he was staying away, Richie said thoughtfully. Is that it? Bill nodded. What do you want, then? Its autograph? If the cluhcluhcluhhown killed the ooothers, then hhe kkkilled JuhGeorgie, Bill said. His eyes caught Richies. They were like slatehard, uncompromising, unforgiving. I wwant to kkkill it. Jesus Christ, Richie said, frightened. How are you going to do that? Muhmy ddads got a pihpihpistol, Bill said. A little spittle flew from his lips but Richie barely noticed. HHe doesnt nuhknow I know, but I dddo. Its on the top shshelf in his cluhcluhhoset. Thats great if its a man, Richie said, and if we can find him sitting on a pile of kids bones I poured the tea, boys! Richies mom called cheerily. Better come and get it! Right there, Mom! Richie called again, offering a big, false smile. It disappeared immediately as he turned back to Bill. Because I wouldnt shoot a guy just because he was wearing a clown suit, Billy. Youre my best friend, but I wouldnt do it and I wouldnt let you do it if I could stop you. Whwhat iif there rreally wwas a ppile of buhbuhbones? Richie licked his lips and said nothing for a moment. Then he asked Bill, What are you going to do if its not a man, Billy? What if it really is some kind of monster? What if there really are such things? Ben Hanscom said it was the mummy and the balloons were floating against the wind and it didnt cast a shadow. The picture in Georgies album . . . either we imagined that or it was magic, and I gotta tell you, man, I dont think we just imagined it. Your fingers sure didnt imagine it, did they? Bill shook his head. So what are we going to do if its not a man, Billy? Ththen wuhwuhwell have to ffigure suhhomething eelse out. Oh yeah, Richie said. I can see it. After you shoot it four or five times and it keeps comin at us like the Teenage Werewolf in that movie me and Ben and Bev saw, you can try your Bullseye on it. And if the Bullseye doesnt work, Ill throw some of my sneezing powder at it. And if it keeps on coming after that well just call time and say, Hey now, hold on. This aint getting it, Mr. Monster. Look, I got to read up on it at the library. Ill be back. Pawdon me. Is that what youre going to say, Big Bill? He looked at his friend, his head thudding rapidly. Part of him wanted Bill to press on with his idea to check under the porch of that old house, but another part wanteddesperately wantedBill to give the idea up. In some ways all of this was like having stepped into one of those Saturdayafternoon horror movies at the Aladdin, but in another waya crucial wayit wasnt like that at all. Because this wasnt safe like a movie, where you knew everything would turn out all right and even if it didnt it was no skin off your ass. The picture in Georgies room hadnt been like a movie. He had thought he was forgetting that, but apparently he had been fooling himself because now he could see those cuts whirling up Billys fingers. If he hadnt pulled Bill back Incredibly, Bill was grinning. Actually grinning. YYYou wuhwanted mme to take yyou to luhluhlook at a ppicture, he said. NNow I wwant to ttake you to 1look at a hhouse. Tit for ttat. You got no tits, Richie said, and they both burst out laughing. TTomorrow muhmuhmorning, Bill said, as if it had been resolved. And if its a monster? Richie asked, holding Bills eyes. If your dads gun doesnt stop it, Big Bill? If it just keeps coming? Wuhwuhwell thuhthuhthink of suhhomething else, Bill said again. Well hhhave to. He threw back his head and laughed like a loon. After a moment Richie joined him. It was impossible not to. They walked up the crazypaving to Richies porch together. Maggie had set out huge glasses of iced tea with mintsprigs in them and a plate of vanilla wafers. Yuhyou wwwant ttto? Well, no, Richie said. But I will. Bill clapped him on the back, hard, and that seemed to make the fear bearablealthough Richie was suddenly sure (and he was not wrong) that sleep would be long coming that night. You boys looked like you were having a serious discussion out there, Mrs. Tozier said, sitting down with her book in one hand and a glass of iced tea in the other. She looked at the boys expectantly. Aw, Denbroughs got this crazy idea the Red Sox are going to finish in the first division, Richie said. MMe and my dddddad ththink tthey got a shshot at tthird, Bill said, and sipped his iced tea. TThis is vehvehvery gogood, MuhMrs. Tozier. Thank you, Bill. The year the Sox finish in the first division will be the year you stop stuttering, mushmouth, Richie said. Richie! Mrs. Tozier screamed, shocked. She nearly dropped her glass of iced tea. But both Richie and Bill Denbrough were laughing hysterically, totally cracked up. She looked from her son to Bill and back to her son again, touched by wonder that was mostly simple perplexity but partly a fear so thin and sharp that it found its way deep into her inner heart and vibrated there like a tuningfork made of clear ice. I dont understand either of them, she thought. Where they go, what they do, what they want ... or what will become of them. Sometimes, oh sometimes their eyes are wild, and sometimes Im afraid for them and sometimes Im afraid of them.... She found herself thinking, not for the first time, that it would have been nice if she and Went could have had a girl as well, a pretty blonde girl that she could have dressed in skirts and matching bows and black patentleather shoes on Sundays. A pretty little girl who would ask to bake cupcakes after school and who would want dolls instead of books on ventriloquism and Revell models of cars that went fast. A pretty little girl she could have understood. 12 Did you get it? Richie asked anxiously. They were walking their bikes up Kansas Street beside the Barrens at ten oclock the next morning. The sky was a dull gray. Rain had been forecast for that afternoon. Richie hadnt gotten to sleep until after midnight and he thought Denbrough looked as if he had spent a fairly restless night himself; ole Big Bill was toting a matched set of Samsonite bags, one under each eye. I ggot it, Bill said. He patted the green duffel coat he was wearing. Lemme see, Richie said, fascinated. Not now, Bill said, and then grinned. Someone ehehelse might see, too. But 11look what else I bruhbrought. He reached behind him, under the coat, and brought his Bullseye slingshot out of his back pocket. Oh shit, were in trouble, Richie said, beginning to laugh. Bill pretended to be hurt. IhIhIt was yyour idea, TTTozier. Bill had gotten the custom aluminum slingshot for his birthday the year before. It had been Zacks compromise between the .22 Bill had wanted and his mothers adamant refusal to even consider giving a boy Bills age a firearm. The instruction booklet said a slingshot could be a fine hunting weapon, once you learned to use it. In the right hands, your Bullseye Slingshot is as deadly and effective as a good ash bow or a highpowered firearm, the booklet proclaimed. With such virtues dutifully extolled, the booklet went on to warn that a slingshot could be dangerous; the owner should no more aim one of the twenty ballbearing slugs which came with it at a person than he would aim a loaded pistol at a person. Bill wasnt very good at it yet (and guessed privately he probably never would be), but he thought the booklets caution was meritedthe slingshots thick elastic had a hard pull, and when you hit a tin can with it, it made one hell of a hole. You doin any better with it, Big Bill? Richie asked. A luhluhlittle, Bill said. This was only partly true. After much study of the pictures in the booklet (which were labelled figs, as in fig 1, fig 2, and so on) and enough practice in Derry Park to lame his arm, he had gotten so he could hit the paper target which had also come with the slingshot maybe three times out of every ten tries. And once he had gotten a bullseye. Almost. Richie pulled the sling back by the cup, twanged it, then handed it back. He said nothing but privately doubted if it would count for as much as Zack Denbroughs pistol when it came to killing monsters. Yeah? he said. You brought your slingshot, okay, big deal. Thats nothing. Look what I brought, Denbrough. And from his own jacket he hauled out a packet with a cartoon picture on it of a bald man saying AhCHOO! as his cheeks puffed out like Dizzy Gillespies. DR. WACKYS SNEEZING POWDER, the packet said. ITS A LAFF RIOT! The two of them stared at each other for a long moment and then broke up, screaming with laughter and pounding each other on the back. WWWere pruhprepared for aaanything, Bill said finally, still giggling and wiping his eyes with the sleeve of his jacket. Your face and my ass, Stuttering Bill, Richie said. I thththought it wuhwas the uhuhother way aaround, Bill said. Now listen. WWere ggonna sthahash yyour bbbike down in the BBarrens. WWhere I puhput Silver when we play. YYou ride dddouble bbehind me, in ccase wwe have to make a quihhick gggetaway. Richie nodded, feeling no urge to argue. His twentytwoinch Raleigh (he sometimes whammed his kneecaps on the handlebars when he was pedalling fast) looked like a pygmy bike next to the scrawny, gantrylike edifice that was Silver. He knew that Bill was stronger and Silver was faster. They got to the little bridge and Bill helped Richie stow his bike underneath. Then they sat down, and, with the occasional rumble of traffic passing over their heads, Bill unzipped his duffel and took out his fathers pistol. YYou be goddam cccareful, Bill said, handing it over after Richie had whistled his frank approval. ThTheres nno sssafety on a pihpihstol like that. Is it loaded? Richie asked, awed. The pistol, a PPKWalther that Zack Denbrough picked up during the Occupation, seemed unbelievably heavy. NNot yyet, Bill said. He patted his pocket. I gggot some buhbuhbuhbullets in hhhere. But my dddad ssays ssometimes you 1look aand ththen, iif the ggggun ththinks yyoure not being cccareful, it lloads ihihitself. Sso it can shshhoot you. His face uttered a strange smile which said that, while he didnt believe anything so silly, he believed it completely. Richie understood. There was a caged deadliness in the thing that he had never sensed in his dads .22, .30.30, or even the shotgun (although there was something about the shotgun, wasnt there?something about the way it leaned, mute and oily, in the corner of the garage closet; as if it might say I could be mean if I wanted to; plenty mean, you bet if it could speak). But this pistol, this Walther ... it was as if it had been made for the express purpose of shooting people. With a chill Richie realized that was why it had been made. What else could you do with a pistol? Use it to light your cigarettes? He turned the muzzle toward him, being careful to keep his hands far away from the trigger. One look into the Walthers black lidless eye made him understand Bills peculiar smile perfectly. He remembered his father saying, If you remember there is no such thing as an unloaded gun, youll be okay with firearms all your life, Richie. He handed the gun back to Bill, glad to be rid of it. Bill stowed it in his duffel coat again. Suddenly the house on Neibolt Street seemed less frightening to Richie ... but the possibility that blood might actually be spilledthat seemed much stronger. He looked at Bill, perhaps meaning to appeal this idea again, but he saw Bills face, read it, and only said, You ready? 13 As always, when Bill finally pulled his second foot up from the ground, Richie felt sure that they would crash, splitting their silly skulls on unyielding cement. The big bike wavered crazily from side to side. The cards clothespinned to the fenderstruts stopped firing single shots and started machinegunning. The bikes drunken wavers became more pronounced. Richie closed his eyes and waited for the inevitable. Then Bill bellowed, Hiyo Silver, AWWAYYYYY! The bike picked up more speed and finally stopped that seasick sidetoside wavering. Richie loosened his deathgrip on Bills middle and held the front of the package carrier over the rear wheel instead. Bill crossed Kansas Street on a slant, raced down sidestreets at an everquickening pace, heading for Witcham as if racing down a set of geographical steps. They came bulleting out of Strapham Street and onto Witcham at an exorbitant rate of speed. Bill laid Silver damn near over on his side and bellowed Hiyo Silver! again. Ride it, Big Bill! Richie screamed, so scared he was nearly creaming his jeans but laughing wildly all the same. Stand on this baby! Bill suited the action to the word, getting up and leaning over the handlebars and pumping the pedals at a lunatic rate. Looking at Bills back, which was amazingly broad for a boy of elevengoingontwelve, watching it work under the duffel coat, the shoulders slanting first one way and then the other as he shifted his weight from one pedal to the other, Richie suddenly became sure that they were invulnerable ... they would live forever and ever. Well ... perhaps not they, but Bill would. Bill had no idea of how strong he was, how somehow sure and perfect. They sped along, the houses thinning out a little now, the streets crossing Witcham at longer intervals. Hiyo Silver! Bill yelled, and Richie hollered in his Nigger Jim Voice, high and shrill, Hiyo Silvuh, massa, thass raht! You is rahdin disyere bike fo sho! Lawksamussy ! Hiyo Silvuh AWWAYYY! Now they were passing green fields that looked flat and depthless under the gray sky. Richie could see the old brick train station up ahead in the distance. To the right of it quonset warehouses marched off in a row. Silver bumped over one set of train tracks, then another. And here was Neibolt Street, cutting off to the right. DERRY TRAINYARDS, a blue sign under the streetsign read. It was rusty and hung askew. Below this was a much bigger sign, yellow field, black letters. It was almost like a comment on the trainyards themselves DEAD END, it read. Bill turned onto Neibolt Street, coasted to the sidewalk, and put his foot back down. Lets wwwalk from here. Richie slipped off the package carrier with mingled feelings of relief and regret. Okay. They walked along the sidewalk, which was cracked and weedy. Up ahead of them, in the trainyards, a diesel engine revved slowly up, faded off, and then began all over again. Once or twice they heard the metallic music of couplings being smashed together. You scared? Richie asked Bill. Bill, walking Silver by the handlebars, looked over at Richie briefly and then nodded. YYeah. You? I sure am, Richie said. Bill told Richie he had asked his father about Neibolt Street the night before. His father said that a lot of trainmen had lived out this way until the end of World War IIengineers, conductors, signalmen, yardworkers, baggage handlers. The street had declined with the trainyards, and as Bill and Richie moved farther along it, the houses became farther apart, seedier, dirtier. The last three or four on both sides were empty and boarded up, their yards overgrown. A FOR SALE sign flapped forlornly from the porch of one. To Richie the sign looked about a thousand years old. The sidewalk stopped, and now they were walking along a beaten track from which weeds grew halfheartedly. Bill stopped and pointed. Ththere it iiis, he said softly. Twentynine Neibolt Street had once been a trim red Cape Cod. Maybe, Richie thought, an engineer used to live there, a bachelor with no pants but jeans and lots of those gloves with the big stiff cuffs and four or five pillowtick capsa fellow who would come home once or twice a month for stretches of three or four days and listen to the radio while he pottered in the garden; a fellow who would eat mostly fried foods (and no vegetables, although he would grow them for his friends) and who would, on windy nights, think about the Girl He Left Behind. Now the red paint had faded to a wishywashy pink that was peeling away in ugly patches that looked like sores. The windows were blind eyes, boarded up. Most of the shingles were gone. Weeds grew rankly down both sides of the house and the lawn was covered with the seasons first bumper crop of dandelions. To the left, a high board fence, perhaps once a neat white but now faded to a dull gray that almost matched the lowering sky, lurched drunkenly in and out of the dank shrubbery. About halfway down this fence Richie could see a monstrous grove of sunflowersthe tallest looked five feet tall or more. They had a bloated, nasty look he didnt like. A breeze rustled them and they seemed to nod together The boys are here, isnt that nice? More boys. Our boys. Richie shivered. While Bill leaned Silver carefully against an elm, Richie surveyed the house. He saw a wheel sticking out of the thick grass near the porch, and pointed it out to Bill. Bill nodded; it was the overturned trike Eddie had mentioned. They looked up and down Neibolt Street. The chug of the diesel engine rose and fell off, then began again. The sound seemed to hang in the overcast like a charm. The street was utterly deserted. Richie could hear occasional cars passing on Route 2, but could not see them. |
The diesel engine chugged and faded, chugged and faded. The huge sunflowers nodded sagely together. Fresh boys. Good boys. Our boys. YYYou rruhready? Bill asked, and Richie jumped a little. You know, I was just thinking that maybe the last bunch of library books I took out are due today, Richie said. Maybe I ought to CuhCuhCut the ccrap, RRRichie. Are yyou ready or nnnot? I guess I am, Richie said, knowing he was not ready at allhe was never going to be ready for this scene. They crossed the overgrown lawn to the porch. Luhlook thththere, Bill said. At the far lefthand side, the porchs latticework skirt leaned out against a tangle of bushes. Both boys could see the rusty nails that had been pulled free. There were old rosebushes here, and while the roses both to the right and the left of the unanchored stretch of latticework were blooming in a lackadaisical way, those directly around and in front of it were skeletal and dead. Bill and Richie looked at each other grimly. Everything Eddie said seemed true enough; seven weeks later, the evidence was still here. You dont really want to go under there, do you? Richie asked. He was almost pleading. Nuhnuhno, Bill said, bbut Im ggonna. And with a sinking heart, Richie saw that he absolutely meant it. That gray light was back in Billys eyes, shining steadily. There was a stony eagerness in the lines of his face that made him look older. Richie thought, I think he really does mean to kill it, if its still there. Kill it and maybe cut off its head and take it to his father and say, Look, this is what killed Georgie, now will you talk to me again at night, maybe just tell me how your day was, or who lost when you guys were flipping to see who paid for the morning coffee? Bitt he said, but Bill was no longer there. He was walking around to the righthand end of the porch, where Eddie must have crawled under. Richie had to chase after him, and he almost fell over the trike caught in the weeds and slowly rusting its way into the ground. He caught up as Bill squatted, looking under the porch. There was no skirt at all on this end; someonesome hobohad pried it off long ago to gain access to the shelter underneath, out of the January snow or the cold November rain or a summer thundershower. Richie squatted beside him, his heart thudding like a drum. There was nothing under the porch but drifts of moldering leaves, yellowing newspapers, and shadows. Too many shadows. Bill, he repeated. Whwhwhat? Bill had produced his fathers Walther again. He pulled the clip carefully from the grip, and then took four bullets from his pants pocket. He loaded them in one at a time. Richie watched this, fascinated, and then looked under the porch again. He saw something else this time. Broken glass. Faintly glinting shards of glass. His stomach cramped painfully. He was not a stupid boy, and he understood this came close to completely confirming Eddies story. Splinters of glass on the moldering leaves under the porch meant that the window had been broken from inside. From the cellar. Whwhat? Bill asked again, looking up at Richie. His face was grim and white. Looking at that set face, Richie mentally threw in the towel. Nothing, he said. You cuhcuhhoming? Yeah. They crawled under the porch. The smell of decaying leaves was a smell Richie usually liked, but there was nothing pleasant about the smell under here. The leaves felt spongy under his hands and knees, and he had an impression that they might go down for two or three feet. He suddenly wondered what he would do if a hand or a claw sprang out of those leaves and seized him. Bill was examining the broken window. Glass had sprayed everywhere. The wooden strip which had been between the panes lay in two splintered pieces under the porch steps. The top of the window frame jutted out like a broken bone. Something hit that fucker wicked hard, Richie breathed. Bill, now peering insideor trying tonodded. Richie elbowed him aside enough so he could look, too. The basement was a dim litter of crates and boxes. The floor was earth and, like the leaves, it gave off a damp and humid aroma. A furnace bulked to the left, thrusting round pipes at the low ceiling. Beyond it, at the end of the cellar, Richie could see a large stall with wooden sides. A horse stall was his first thought, but who kept horses in the jeezly cellar? Then he realized that in a house as old as this one, the furnace must have burned coal instead of oil. Nobody had bothered to convert the furnace because no one wanted the house. That thing with the sides was a coalbin. To the far right, Richie could make out a flight of stairs going up to ground level. Now Bill was sitting down ... hunching himself forward ... and before Richie could actually believe what he was up to, his friends legs were disappearing into the window. Bill! Chrissake, he hissed, what are you doing? Get outta there! Bill didnt reply. He slithered through, scraping his duffel coat up from the small of his back, barely missing a chunk of glass that would have cut him a good one. A second later Richie heard his tennies smack down on the hard earth inside. Piss on this action, Richie muttered frantically to himself, looking at the square of darkness into which his friend had disappeared. Bill, you gone out of your mind? Bills voice floated up YYou cccan stay up ththere if you wwant, RuhRuhRichie. StStand ggguard. Instead he rolled over on his belly and shoved his legs through the cellar window before his nerve could go bad on him, hoping he wouldnt cut his hands or his stomach on the broken glass. Something clutched his legs. Richie screamed. IIIts juhjuhhust mme, Bill hissed, and a moment later Richie was standing beside him in the cellar, pulling down his shirt and his jacket. Whwho ddid you ththink it wwas? The boogeyman, Richie said, and laughed shakily. YYou ggo ththat wway and IIIll ggg Fuck that, Richie said. He could actually hear his heartbeat in his voice, making it sound bumpy and uneven, first up and then down. Im stickin with you, Big Bill. They moved toward the coalpit first, Bill slightly in the lead, the gun in his hand, Richie close behind him, trying to look everywhere at once. Bill stood beyond one of the coalpits jutting wooden sides for a moment, and then suddenly darted around it, pointing the gun with both hands. Richie squinched his eyes shut, steeling himself for the explosion. It didnt come. He opened his eyes again cautiously. Nuhnuhnothin but cccoal, Bill said, and giggled nervously. Richie stepped up beside Bill and looked. There was still a drift of old coal in here, piled up almost to the ceiling at the back of the stall and trickling away to a lump or two by their feet. It was as black as a crows wing. Lets Richie began, and then the door at the head of the cellar stairs crashed open against the wall with a violent bang, spilling thin white daylight down the stairs. Both boys screamed. Richie heard snarling sounds. They were very loudthe sounds a wild animal in a cage might make. He saw loafers descend the steps. Faded jeans on top of themswinging hands But they werent hands . . . they were paws. Huge, misshapen paws. Cuhcuhclimb the cccoal! Bill was screaming, but Richie stood frozen, suddenly knowing what was coming for them, what was going to kill them in this cellar that stank of damp earth and the cheap wine that had been spilled in the corners. Knowing but needing to see. Theres a wuhwuhwindow at the ttop of the ccoal! The paws were covered with dense brown hair that curled and coiled like wire; the fingers were tipped with jagged nails. Now Richie saw a silk jacket. It was black with orange pipingthe Derry High School colors. GGGo! Bill screamed, and gave Richie a gigantic shove. Richie went sprawling into the coal. Sharp jags and corners of it poked him painfully, breaking through his daze. More coal avalanched over his hands. That mad snarling went on and on. Panic slipped its hood over Richies mind. Barely aware of what he was doing, he scrambled up the mountain of coal, gaining ground, sliding back, lunging upward again, screaming as he went. The window at the top was grimed black with coaldust and let in next to no light at all. It was latched shut. Richie seized the latch, which was of the sort that turned, and threw all his weight against it. The latch moved not at all. The snarling was closer now. The gun went off below him, the sound nearly deafening in the closed room. Gunsmoke, sharp and acrid, stung Richies nose. It shocked him back to some sort of awareness and he realized that he had been trying to turn the thumblatch the wrong way. He reversed the direction of the force he was applying, and the latchgave with a protracted rusty squeal. Coaldust sifted down on his hands like pepper. The gun went off again with a second deafening bang. Bill Denbrough shouted, YOU KILLED MY BROTHER, YOU FUCKER! For a moment the creature which had come down the stairs seemed to laugh, seemed to speakit was as if a vicious dog had suddenly begun to bark out garbled words, and for a moment Richie thought the thing in the highschool jacket snarled back, Im going to kill you, too. Richie! Bill screamed then, and Richie heard coal clattering and falling again as Bill scrambled up. The snarls and roars continued. Wood splintered. There were mingled barks and howlssounds out of a cold nightmare. Richie gave the window a tremendous shove, not caring if the glass broke and cut his hands to ribbons. He was beyond caring. It did not break; it swung outward on an old steel hinge flaked with rust. More coaldust sifted down, this time on Richies face. He wriggled out into the side yard like an eel, smelling sweet fresh air, feeling the long grass whip at his face. He was dimly aware that it was raining. He could see the thick stalks of the giant sunflowers, green and hairy. The Walther went off a third time, and the beast in the cellar screamed, a primitive sound of pure rage. Then Bill cried Its ggot me, Richie! Help! Its gggot me! Richie turned around on his hands and knees and saw the terrified circle of his friends upturned face in the square of the oversized cellar window through which a winters load of coal had once been funnelled each October. Bill was lying spreadeagled on the coal. His hands waved and clutched fruitlessly for the window frame, which was just out of reach. His shirt and jacket were rucked up almost to his breastbone. And he was sliding backward ... no, he was being pulled backward by something Richie could barely see. It was a moving, bulking shadow behind Bill. A shadow that snarled and gibbered and sounded almost human. Richie didnt need to see it. He had seen it the previous Saturday, on the screen of the Aladdin Theater. It was mad, totally mad, but even so it never occurred to Richie to doubt either his own sanity or his conclusion. The Teenage Werewolf had Bill Denbrough. Only it wasnt that guy Michael Landon with a lot of makeup on his face and a lot of fake fur. It was real. As if to prove it, Bill screamed again. Richie reached in and caught Bills hands in his own. The Walther pistol was in one of them, and for the second time that day Richie looked into its black eye ... only this time it was loaded. They tussled for BillRichie gripping his hands, the Werewolf gripping his ankles. GGGet out of hhere, Richie! Bill screamed. GGet The face of the Werewolf suddenly swam out of the dark. Its forehead was low and prognathous, covered with scant hair. Its cheeks were hollow and furry. Its eyes were a dark brown, filled with horrible intelligence, horrible awareness. Its mouth dropped open and it began to snarl. White foam ran from the corners of its thick lower lip in twin streams that dripped from its chin. The hair on its head was swept back in a gruesome parody of a teenagers d.a. It threw its head back and roared, its eyes never leaving Richies. Bill scrambled up the coal. Richie seized his forearms and pulled. For a moment he thought he was actually going to win. Then the Werewolf laid hold of Bills legs again and he was yanked backward toward the darkness once more. It was stronger. It had laid hold of Bill, and it meant to have him. Then, with no thought at all about what he was doing or why he was doing it, Richie heard the Voice of the Irish Cop coming out of his mouth, Mr. Nells voice. But this was not Richie Tozier doing a bad imitation; it wasnt even precisely Mr. Nell. It was the Voice of every Irish beatcop that had ever lived and twirled a billy by its rawhide rope as he tried the doors of closed shops after midnight Let go of him, boyo, or Ill crack yer thick head! I swear to Jaysus! Leave go of him now or Ill serve ye yer own arse on a platter! The creature in the cellar let out an earsplitting roar of rage ... but it seemed to Richie that there was another note in that bellow as well. Perhaps fear. Or pain. He gave one more tremendous tug, and Bill flew out of the window and onto the grass. He stared up at Richie with dark horrified eyes. The front of his jacket was smeared black with coaldust. KwuhKwuhQuick! Bill panted. He was nearly moaning. He grabbed at Richies shirt. WWWe guhguhhotta Richie could hear coal tumbling and avalanching down again. A moment later the Werewolfs face filled the cellar window. It snarled at them. Its paws clutched at the listless grass. Bill still had the Wattherhe had held on to the gun through all of it. Now he held it out in both hands, his eyes squinched down to slits, and pulled the trigger. There was another deafening bang. Richie saw a chunk of the Werewolfs skull tear free and a torrent of blood spilled down the side of its face, matting the fur there and soaking the collar of the school jacket it wore. Roaring, it began to climb out of the window. Moving slowly, dreamily, Richie reached under his coat and into his back pocket. He brought out the envelope with the picture of the sneezing man on it. He tore it open as the bleeding, roaring creature pulled itself out of the window, forcing its way, claws digging deep furrows in the earth. Richie tore the packet open and squeezed it. Git back in yer place, boyo! he ordered in the Voice of the Irish Cop. A white cloud puffed into the Werewolfs face. Its roars suddenly stopped. It stared at Richie with almost comic surprise and made a choked wheezing sound. Its eyes, red and bleary, rolled toward Richie and seemed to mark him once and forever. Then it began to sneeze. It sneezed again and again and again. Ropy strings of saliva flew from its muzzle. Greenishblack clots of snot flew out of its nostrils. One of these splatted against Richies skin and burned there, like acid. He wiped it away with a scream of hurt and disgust. There was still anger in its face, but there was also painit was unmistakable. Bill might have hurt it with his dads pistol, but Richie had hurt it more ... first with the Voice of the Irish Cop, and then with the sneezing powder. Jesus, if I had some itching powder too and maybe a joy buzzer I might be able to kill it, Richie thought, and then Bill grabbed the collar of his jacket and jerked him backward. It was well that he did. The Werewolf stopped sneezing as suddenly as it had started and lunged at Richie. It was quick, tooincredibly quick. Richie might have only sat there with the empty envelope of Dr. Wackys sneezing powder in one hand, staring at the Werewolf with a kind of drugged wonder, thinking how brown its fur was, how red the blood was, how nothing was in black and white in real life, he might have sat there until its paws closed around his neck and its long nails pulled his throat out, but Bill grabbed him again and pulled him to his feet. Richie stumbled after him. They ran around to the front of the house and Richie thought, It wont dare chase us anymore, were on the street now, it wont dare chase us, wont dare, wont dare But it was coming. He could hear it just behind them, gibbering and snarling and slobbering. There was Silver, still leaning against the tree. Bill jumped onto the seat and threw his fathers pistol into the carrier basket where they had carried so many play guns. Richie chanced a glance behind him as he flung himself onto the package carrier and saw the Werewolf crossing the lawn toward them, less than twenty feet away now. Blood and slobber mixed on its highschool jacket. White bone gleamed through its pelt about the right temple. There were white smudges of sneezing powder on the sides of its nose. And Richie saw two other things which seemed to complete the horror. There was no zipper on the things jacket; instead there were big fluffy orange buttons, like pompoms. The other thing was worse. It was the other thing that made him feel as if he might faint, or just give up and let it kill him. A name was stitched on the jacket in gold thread, the kind of thing you could get done down at Machens for a buck if you wanted it. Stitched on the bloody left breast of the Werewolfs jacket, stained but readable, were the words RICHIE TOZIER. It lunged at them. Go, Bill! Richie screamed. Silver began to move, but slowlymuch too slowly. It took Bill so long to get going The Werewolf crossed the rutted path just as Bill pedaled into the middle of Neibolt Street. Blood splattered its faded jeans, and looking back over his shoulder, filled with a kind of dreadful, unbreakable fascination that was akin to hypnosis, Richie saw that the seams of the jeans were giving way in places, and tufts of coarse brown fur had sprung through. Silver wavered wildly back and forth. Bill was standing up, gripping the bikes handlebars from underneath, head turned up toward the cloudy sky, cords standing out on his neck. And still the playing cards were only firing single shots. One paw groped for Richie. He screamed miserably and ducked away from it. The Werewolf snarled and grinned. It was close enough so Richie could see the yellowing corneas of its eyes, could smell sweet rotten meat on its breath. Its teeth were crooked fangs. Richie screamed again as it swung a paw at him. He was sure it was going to take his head offbut the paw passed in front of him, missing by no more than an inch. The force of the swing blew Richies sweaty hair back from his forehead. Hiyo Silver AWAYYY! Bill screamed at the top of his voice. He had reached the top of a short, shallow hill. Not much, but enough to get Silver rolling. The playing cards picked up speed and began to burr along. Bill pumped the pedals madly. Silver stopped wavering and cut a straight course down Neibolt Street toward Route 2. Thank God, thank God, thank God, Richie thought incoherently. Thank The Werewolf roared againoh! my God it sounds like its RIGHT BESIDE MEand Richies wind was cut off as his shirt and jacket were jerked back against his windpipe. He made a gargling, choking sound and managed to grip Bills middle just before he was pulled off the back of the bike. Bill tilted backward but held on to Silvers handlebar grips. For one moment Richie thought the big bike would simply do a wheelie and spill both of them off the back. Then his jacket, which had been just about ready for the ragbag anyway, parted down the back with a loud ripping noise that sounded weirdly like a big fart. Richie could breathe again. He looked around and stared directly into those muddy murderous eyes. Bill! He tried to howl it, but the word had no force, no sound. Bill seemed to hear him anyway. He pedaled even harder, harder than he ever had in his life. All his guts seemed to be rising, coming unanchored. He could taste thick coppery blood in the back of his throat. His eyeballs were starting from their sockets. His mouth hung open, scooping air. And a crazy, ineluctable sense of exhilaration filled himsomething that was wild and free and all his own. A desire. He stood on the pedals; coaxed them; battered them. Silver continued to pick up speed. He was beginning to feel the road now, beginning to fly. Bill could feel him go. Hiyo Silver! he screamed again. Hiyo Silver, AWAYYYY! Richie could hear the fast rattlethud of loafers on the macadam. He turned. The Werewolfs paw struck him above the eyes with stunning force, and for a moment Richie really did think the top of his head had come off. Things suddenly seemed dim, unimportant. Sounds faded in and out. The color washed out of the world. He turned back, clinging desperately to Bill. Warm blood ran into his right eye, stinging. The paw swung again, striking the back fender this time. Richie felt the bike waver crazily, for a moment on the verge of tipping over, finally straightening out again. Bill yelled Hiyo Silver, AWAY! again, but that was distant too, like an echo heard just before it dies out. Richie closed his eyes and held on to Bill and waited for the end. 14 Bill had also heard the running steps and understood that the clown hadnt given up yet, but he didnt dare turn around and look. He would know if it caught up and knocked them flat. That was really all he needed to know. Come on, boy, he thought. Give me everything now! Everything you got! Go, Silver! GO! So once again Bill Denbrough found himself racing to beat the devil, only now the devil was a hideously grinning clown whose face sweated white greasepaint, whose mouth curved up in a leering red vampire smile, whose eyes were bright silver coins. A clown who was, for some lunatic reason, wearing a Derry High School jacket over its silvery suit with the orange ruff and the orange pompom buttons. Go, boy, goSilver,what do you say? Neibolt Street blurred by him now. Silver was starting to hum good now. Had those running footfalls faded back a bit? He still didnt dare turn around to see. Richie had him in a deathgrip, he was pinching off his wind and Bill wanted to tell Richie to loosen up a little, but he didnt dare waste breath on that, either. There, up ahead like a beautiful dream, was the stopsign marking the intersection of Neibolt Street and Route 2. Cars were passing back and forth on Witcham. In his state of exhausted terror, this seemed somehow like a miracle to Bill. Now, because he would have to put on his brakes in a moment (or do something really inventive), he risked a look back over his shoulder. What he saw caused him to reverse Silvers pedals with a single snapjerk. Silver skidded, laying rubber with its locked rear tire, and Richies head smacked painfully into the hollow of Bills right shoulder. The street was completely empty. But twentyfive yards or so behind them, by the first of the abandoned houses which formed a kind of funeral cortege leading up to the trainyards, there was a bright flick of orange. It lay close to a stormdrain cut into the curbing. Uhhhh ... Almost too late, Bill realized that Richie was sliding off the back of Silver. Richies eyes were turned up so Bill could only see the lower rims of the irises below his upper lids. The mended bow of his glasses hung askew. Blood was flowing slowly from his forehead. Bill grabbed his arm, they both slipped to the right, and Silver overbalanced. They crashed to the street in a tangle of arms and legs. Bill barked his crazybone a good one and shouted with pain. Richies eyes flickered at the sound. I am going to show you how to get to thees treasure, senhorr, but thees man Dobbs ees plenny dangerous, Richie said in a snoring gasp. It was his Pancho Vanilla Voice, but its floating, unconnected quality scared Bill badly. He saw several coarse brown hairs clinging to the shallow headwound on Richies forehead. They were slightly kinky, like his fathers pubic hair. They made him feel even more afraid, and he fetched Richie a strong smack upside the head. Yowch! Richie cried. His eyes fluttered, then opened wide. What are you hittin me for, Big Bill? Youll break my glasses. They aint in very good shape anyway, just in case you didnt notice. I thththought you wwwere duhduhdying, or sssomething, Bill said. Richie sat up slowly in the street and put a hand to his head. He groaned. What hap And then he remembered. His eyes widened in sudden shock and terror and he scrambled around on his knees, gasping harshly. Duhduhdont, Bill said. IIts gggone, RRRichie. Its gone. Richie saw the empty street where nothing moved and suddenly burst into tears. Bill looked at him for a moment and then put his arms around Richie and hugged him. Richie clutched at Bills neck and hugged him back. He wanted to say something clever, something about how Bill should have tried the Bullseye on the Werewolf, but nothing would come out. Nothing except sobs. DDont, RRichie, Bill said, duhduhduhhh Then he burst into tears himself and they only hugged each other on their knees in the street beside Bills spilled bike, and their tears made clean streaks down their cheeks, which were sooted with coaldust. CHAPTER 9 Cleaning Up 1 Somewhere high over New York State on the afternoon of May 29th, 1985, Beverly Rogan begins to laugh again. She stifles it in both hands, afraid someone will think she is crazy, but cant quite stop. We laughed a lot back then, she thinks. It is something else, another light on in the dark. We were afraid all the time, but we couldnt stop laughing, any more than I can stop now. The guy sitting next to her in the aisle seat is young, longhaired, goodlooking. He has given her several appreciative glances since the plane took off in Milwaukee at half past two (almost two and a half hours ago now, with a stop in Cleveland and another one in Philly), but has respected her clear desire not to talk; after a couple of conversational gambits to which she has responded with politeness but no more, he opens his totebag and takes out a Robert Ludlum novel. Now he closes it, holding his place with his finger, and says with some concern Everything cool with you? She nods, trying to make her face serious, and then snorts more laughter. He smiles a little, puzzled, questioning. Its nothing, she says, once again trying to be serious, but its no good; the more she tries to be serious the more her face wants to crack up. Just like the old days. Its just that all at once I realized I didnt know what airline I was on. Only that there was a great big ddduck on the ssside But the thought is too much. She goes off into gales of merry laughter. People look around at her, some frowning. Republic, he says. Pardon? You are whizzing through the air at four hundred and seventy miles an hour courtesy of Republic Airlines. Its on the KYAG folder in the seat pocket. KYAG? He pulls the folder (which does indeed have the Republic logo on the front) out of the pocket. It shows where the emergency exits are, where the flotation devices are, how to use the oxygen masks, how to assume the crashlanding position. The kissyourassgoodbye folder, he says, and this time they both burst out laughing. He really is goodlooking, she thinks suddenlyit is a fresh thought, somehow cleareyed, the sort of thought you might expect to have upon waking, when your mind isnt all junked up. Hes wearing a pullover sweater and faded jeans. His darkish blond hair is tied back with a piece of rawhide, and this makes her think of the ponytail she always wore her hair in when she was a kid. She thinks I bet hes got a nice polite collegeboys cock. Long enough to jazz with, not thick enough to be really arrogant. She starts to laugh again, totally unable to help it. She realizes she doesnt even have a handkerchief with which to wipe her streaming eyes, and this makes her laugh harder. You better get yourself under control or the stewardess will throw you off the plane, he says solemnly, and she only shakes her head, laughing; her sides and her stomach hurt now. He hands her a clean white handkerchief, and she uses it. Somehow this helps her to get it under control finally. She doesnt stop all at once, though. It just sort of tapers off into little hitchings and gaspings. Every now and then she thinks of the big duck on the side of the plane and belches out another little stream of giggles. She passes his handkerchief back after a bit. Thank you. Jesus, maam, what happened to your hand? He holds it for a moment, concerned. She looks down at it and sees the torn fingernails, the ones she ripped down to the quick tipping the vanity over on Tom. The memory of doing that hurts more than the fingernails themselves, and that stops the laughter for good. She takes her hand away from him, but gently. I slammed it in the car door at the airport, she says, thinking of all the times she has lied about things Tom has done to her, and all the times she lied about the bruises her father put on her. Is this the last time, the last lie? How wonderful that would be ... almost too wonderful to be believed. She thinks of a doctor coming in to see a terminal cancer patient and saying The Xrays show the tumor is shrinking. We dont have any idea why, but its happening. It must hurt like hell, he says. I took some aspirin. She opens the inflight magazine again, although he probably knows shes been through it twice already. Where are you headed? She closes the magazine, looks at him, smiles. Youre very nice, she says, but I dont want to talk. All right? All right, he says, smiling back. But if you want to drink to the big duck on the side of the plane when we get to Boston, Im buying. Thank you, but I have another plane to catch. Boy, was my horoscope ever wrong this morning, he says, and reopens his novel. But you sound great when you laugh. A guy could fall in love. She opens the magazine again, but finds herself looking at her jagged nails instead of the article on the pleasures of New Orleans. There are purple bloodblisters under two of them. In her mind she hears Tom screaming down the stairwell Ill kill you, you bitch! You fucking bitch! She shivers, cold. A bitch to Tom, a bitch to the seamstresses who goofed up before important shows and took a Beverly Rogan reaming for it, a bitch to her father long before either Tom or the hapless seamstresses became part of their lives. A bitch. You bitch. You fucking bitch. She closes her eyes momentarily. Her foot, cut on a shard of perfume bottle as she fled their bedroom, throbs more than her fingers. Kay gave her a BandAid, a pair of shoes, and a check for a thousand dollars which Beverly cashed promptly at nine oclock at the First Bank of Chicago in Watertower Square. Over Kays protests, Beverly wrote her own check for a thousand dollars on a plain sheet of typing paper. I read once that they have to take a check no matter what its written on, she told Kay. Her voice seemed to be coming from somewhere else. A radio in another room, maybe. Someone cashed a check once that was written on an artillery shell. I read that in The Book of Lists, I think. She paused, then laughed uneasily. Kay looked at her soberly, even solemnly. But Id cash it fast, before Tom thinks to freeze the accounts. Although she doesnt feel tired (she is aware, however, that by now she must be going purely on nerves and Kays black coffee), the previous night seems like something she must have dreamed. She can remember being followed by three teenaged boys who called and whistled but didnt quite dare come right up to her. She remembers the relief that washed over her when she saw the white fluorescent glow of a SevenEleven store spilling out onto the sidewalks at an intersection. She went in and let the pimplyfaced counterman look down the front of her old blouse and talked him into loaning her forty cents for the pay phone. It wasnt hard, the view being what it was. She called Kay McCall first, dialing from memory. The phone rang a dozen times and she began to fear that Kay was in New York. Kays sleepy voice mumbled, It better be good, whoever you are just as Beverly was about to hang up. Its Bev, Kay, she said, hesitated, and then plunged. I need help. There was a moment of silence, and then Kay spoke again, sounding fully awake now. |
Where are you? What happened? Im at a SevenEleven on the corner of Streyland Avenue and some other street. I ... Kay, Ive left Tom. Kay, quick and emphatic and excited Good! Finally! Hurray! Ill come and get you! That son of a bitch! That piece of shit! Ill come and get you in the fucking Mercedes! Ill hire a fortypiece band! Ill Ill take a cab, Bev said, holding the other two dimes in one sweating palm. In the round mirror at the back of the store she could see the pimply clerk staring at her ass with deep and dreamy concentration. But youll have to pay the tab when I get there. I dont have any money. Not a cent. Ill tip the bastard five bucks, Kay cried. This is the best fucking news since Nixon resigned! You get your buns over here, girl. And She paused and when she spoke again her voice was serious and so full of kindness and love that Beverly felt she might weep. Thank God you finally did it, Bev. I mean that. Thank God. Kay McCall is a former designer who married rich, divorced richer, and discovered feminist politics in 1972, about three years before Beverly first met her. At the time of her greatest popularitycontroversy she was accused of having embraced feminism after using archaic, chauvinistic laws to take her manufacturer husband for every cent the law would allow her. Bullshit! Kay had once exclaimed to Beverly. The people who say that stuff never had to go to bed with Sam Chacowicz. Two pumps a tickle and a squirt, that was ole Sammys motto. The only time he could keep it up for longer than seventy seconds was when he was pulling off in the tub. I didnt cheat him; I just took my combat pay retroactively. She wrote three booksone on feminism and the working woman, one on feminism and the family, one on feminism and spirituality. The first two were quite popular. In the three years since her last, she had fallen out of fashion to a degree, and Beverly thought it was something of a relief to her. Her investments had done well (Feminism and capitalism are not mutually exclusive, thank God, she had once told Bev) and now she was a wealthy woman with a townhouse, a place in the country, and two or three lovers virile enough to go the distance with her in the sack but not quite virile enough to beat her at tennis. When they get that good, I drop them at once, she said, and although Kay clearly thought this was a joke, Beverly wondered if it really was. Beverly called a cab and when it came she piled into the back with her suitcase, glad to be away from the clerks eyes, and gave the driver Kays address. She was waiting at the end of her driveway, wearing her mink coat over a flannel nightgown. Pink fuzzy mules with great big pompoms were on her feet. Not orange pompoms, thank Godthat might have sent Beverly screaming into the night again. The ride over to Kays had been weird things were coming back to her, memories pouring in so fast and so clearly that it was frightening. She felt as if someone had started up a big bulldozer in her head and begun excavating a mental graveyard she hadnt even known was there. Only it was names instead of bodies that were turning up, names she hadnt thought of in years Ben Hanscom, Richie Tozier, Greta Bowie, Henry Bowers, Eddie Kaspbrak ... Bill Denbrough. Especially BillStuttering Bill, they had called him with that openness of children that is sometimes called candor, sometimes cruelty. He had seemed so tall to her, so perfect (until he opened his mouth and started to talk, that was). Names ... places ... things that had happened. Alternately hot and cold, she had remembered the voices from the drain . . . and the blood. She had screamed and her father had popped her one. Her fatherTom Tears threatened ... and then Kay was paying the cabdriver and tipping him big enough to make the startled cabbie exclaim, Thanks, lady! Wow! Kay took her into the house, got her into the shower, gave her a robe when she got out, made coffee, examined her injuries, Mercurochromed her cut foot, and put a BandAid on it. She poured a generous dollop of brandy into Bevs second cup of coffee and hectored her into drinking every drop. Then she cooked them each a rare strip steak and sauteed fresh mushrooms to go with them. All right, she said. What happened? Do we call the cops or just send you to Reno to do your residency? I cant tell you too much, Beverly said. It would sound too crazy. But it was my fault, mostly Kay slammed her hand down on the table. It made a sound on the polished mahogany like a smallcaliber pistol shot. Bev jumped. Dont you say that, Kay said. There was high color in her cheeks, and her brown eyes were blazing. How long have we been friends? Nine years? Ten? If I hear you say it was your fault one more time, Im going to puke. You hear me? Im just going to fucking puke. It wasnt your fault this time, or last time, or the time before, or any of the times. Dont you know most of your friends thought that sooner or later hed put you in a body cast, or maybe even kill you? Beverly was looking at her wideeyed. And that would have been your fault, at least to a degree, for staying there and letting it happen. But now youre gone. Thank God for small favors. But dont you sit there with half of your fingernails ripped off and your foot cut open and beltmarks on your shoulders and tell me it was your fault. He didnt use his belt on me, Bev said. The lie was automatic ... and so was the deep shame which brought a miserable flush to her cheeks. If youre done with Tom, you ought to be done with the lies as well, Kay said quietly, and she looked at Bev so long and so lovingly that Bev had to drop her eyes. She could taste salt tears in the back of her throat. Who did you think you were fooling? Kay asked, still speaking quietly. She reached across the table and took Bevs hands. The dark glasses, the blouses with high necks and long sleeves ... maybe you fooled a buyer or two. But you cant fool your friends, Bev. Not the people who love you. And then Beverly did cry, long and hard, and Kay held her, and later, just before going to bed, she told Kay what she could That an old friend from Derry, Maine, where she had grown up, had called, and had reminded her of a promise she had made long ago. The time to fulfill the promise had arrived, he said. Would she come? She said she would. Then the trouble with Tom had started. What was this promise? Kay asked. Beverly shook her head slowly. I cant tell you that, Kay. Much as Id like to. Kay chewed on this and then nodded. All right. Fair enough. What are you going to do about Tom when you get back from Maine? And Bev, who had begun to feel more and more that she wouldnt be coming back from Derry, ever, said only Ill come to you first, and well decide together. Okay? Very much okay, Kay said. Is that a promise, too? As soon as Im back, Bev said steadily, you can count on it. And she hugged Kay hard. With Kays check cashed and Kays shoes on her feet, she had taken a Greyhound north to Milwaukee, afraid that Tom might have gone out to OHare to look for her. Kay, who had gone with her to the bank and the bus depot, tried to talk her out of it. OHares lousy wth security people, dear, she said. You dont have to worry about him. If he comes near you, what you do is scream your fucking head off. Beverly shook her head. I want to avoid him altogether. This is the way to do it. Kay looked at her shrewdly. Youre afraid he might talk you out of it, arent you? Beverly thought of the seven of them standing in the stream, of Stanley and his piece of broken Coke bottle glinting in the sun; she thought of the thin pain as he cut her palm lightly on a slant, she thought of them clasping hands in a childrens circle, promising to come back if it ever started again ... to come back and kill it for good. No, she said. He couldnt talk me out of this. But he might hurt me, security guards or not. You didnt see him last night, Kay. Ive seen him enough on other occasions, Kay said, her brows drawing together. The asshole that walks like a man. He was crazy, Bev said. Security guards might not stop him. This is better. Believe me. All right, Kay said reluctantly, and Bev thought with some amusement that Kay was disappointed that there was going to be no confrontation, no big blowoff. Cash the check quick, Beverly told her again, before he can think to freeze the accounts. He will, you know. Sure, Kay said. If he does that, Ill go see the son of a bitch with a horsewhip and take it out in trade. You stay away from him, Beverly said sharply. Hes dangerous, Kay. Believe me. He was like Like my father was what trembled on her lips. Instead she said, He was like a wildman. Okay, Kay said. Be easy in your mind, dear. Go keep your promise. And do some thinking about what comes after. I will, Bev said, but that was a lie. She had too many other things to think about what had happened the summer she was eleven, for instance. Showing Richie Tozier how to make his yoyo sleep, for instance. Voices from the drain, for instance. And something she had seen, something so horrible that even then, embracing Kay for the last time by the long silvery side of the grumbling Greyhound bus, her mind would not quite let her see it. Now, as the plane with the duck on the side begins its long descent into the Boston area, her mind turns to that again ... and to Stan Uris ... and to an unsigned poem that came on a postcard ... and the voices ... and to those few seconds when she had been eye to eye with something that was perhaps infinite. She looks out the window, looks down, and thinks that Toms evil is a small and petty thing compared with the evil waiting for her in Derry. If there is a compensation, it is that Bill Denbrough will be there ... and there was a time when an elevenyearold girl named Beverly Marsh loved Bill Denbrough. She remembers the postcard with the lovely poem written on the back, and remembers that she once knew who wrote it. She doesnt remember anymore, any more than she remembers exactly what the poem said ... but she thinks it might have been Bill. Yes, it might well have been Stuttering Bill Denbrough. She thinks suddenly of getting ready for bed the night after Richie and Ben took her to see those two horror movies. After her first date. She had cracked wise with Richie about itin those days that had been her defense when she was out on the streetbut a part of her had been touched and excited and a little scared. It really had been her first date, even though there had been two boys instead of one. Richie had paid her way and everything, just like a real date. Then, afterward, there had been those boys who chased them ... and they had spent the rest of the afternoon in the Barrens ... and Bill Denbrough had come down with another kid, she couldnt remember who, but she remembered the way Bills eyes had rested on hers for a moment, and the electric shock she had felt ... the shock and a flush that seemed to warm her entire body. She remembers thinking of all these things as she pulled on her nightgown and went into the bathroom to wash her face and brush her teeth. She remembers thinking that it would take her a long time to get to sleep that night; because there was so much to think about ... and to think about in a good way, because they seemed like good kids, like kids you could maybe goof with and maybe even trust a little bit. That would be nice. That would be ... well, like heaven. And thinking these things, she took her washcloth and leaned over the basin to get some water and the voice 2 came whispering out of the drain Help me.... Beverly drew back, startled, the dry washcloth dropping onto the floor. She shook her head a little, as if to clear it, and then she bent over the basin again and looked curiously at the drain. The bathroom was at the back of their fourroom apartment. She could hear, faintly, some Western program going on the TV. When it was over, her father would probably switch over to a baseball game, or the fights, and then go to sleep in his easy chair. The wallpaper in here was a hideous pattern of frogs on lily pads. It bulged and swayed over the lumpy plaster beneath. It was watermarked in some places, actually peeling away in others. The tub was rustmarked, the toilet seat cracked. One naked 40watt bulb jutted from a porcelain socket over the basin. Beverly could remembervaguelythat there had once been a light fixture, but it had been broken some years ago and never replaced. The floor was covered with linoleum from which the pattern had faded, except for a small patch under the sink. Not a very cheery room, but Beverly had used it so long that she no longer noticed what it looked like. The washbasin was also waterstained. The drain was a simple crosshatched circle about two inches in diameter. There had once been a chrome facing, but that was also long gone. A rubber drainplug on a chain was looped nonchalantly over the faucet marked C. The drainhole was pipedark, and as she leaned over it, she noticed for the first time that there was a faint, unpleasant smella slightly fishy smellcoming from the drain. She wrinkled her nose a little in disgust. Help me She gasped. It was a voice. She had thought perhaps a rattle in the pipes ... or maybe just her imagination ... some holdover from those movies.... Help me, Beverly.... Alternate waves of coldness and warmth swept her. She had taken the rubber band out of her hair, which lay spread across her shoulders in a bright cascade. She could feel the roots trying to stiffen. Unaware that she meant to speak, she bent over the basin again and halfwhispered, Hello? Is someone there? The voice from the drain had been that of a very young child who had perhaps just learned to talk. And in spite of the gooseflesh on her arms, her mind searched for some rational explanation. It was an apartment house. The Marshes lived in the back apartment on the ground floor. There were four other apartments. Maybe there was a kid in the building amusing himself by calling into the drain. And some trick of sound ... Is someone there? she asked the drain in the bathroom, louder this time. It suddenly occurred to her that if her father happened to come in just now he would think her crazy. There was no answer from the drain, but that unpleasant smell seemed stronger. It made her think of the bamboo patch in the Barrens, and the dump beyond it; it called up images of slow, bitter smokes and black mud that wanted to suck the shoes off your feet. There were no really little kids in the building, that was the thing. The Tremonts had had a boy who was five, and girls who were three and six months, but Mr. Tremont had lost his job at the shoe shop on Tracker Avenue, they got behind on the rent, and one day not long before school let out they had all just disappeared in Mr. Tremonts rusty old PowerFlite Buick. There was Skipper Bolton in the front apartment on the second floor, but Skipper was fourteen. We all want to meet you, Beverly. . . . Her hand went to her mouth and her eyes widened in horror. For a moment ... just for a moment ... she believed she had seen something moving down there. She was suddenly aware that her hair was now hanging over her shoulders in two thick sheaves, and that they dangled closevery closeto that drainhole. Some clear instinct made her straighten up quick and get her hair away from there. She looked around. The bathroom door was firmly closed. She could hear the TV faintly, Cheyenne Bodie warning the bad guy to put the gun down before someone got hurt. She was alone. Except, of course, for that voice. Who are you? she called into the basin, pitching her voice low. Matthew Clements, the voice whispered. The clown took me down here in the pipes and I died and pretty soon hell come and take you, Beverly, and Ben Hanscom, and Bill Denbrough and Eddie Her hands flew to her cheeks and clutched them. Her eyes widened, widened, widened. She felt her body growing cold. Now the voice sounded choked and ancient ... and still it crawled with corrupted glee. Youll float down here with your friends, Beverly, we all float down here, tell Bill that Georgie says hello, tell Bill that Georgie misses him but hell see him soon, tell him Georgie will be in the closet some night with a piece of piano wire to stick in his eye, tell him The voice broke up in a series of choking hiccups and suddenly a bright red bubble backed up the drain and popped, spraying beads of blood on the distained porcelain. The choking voice spoke rapidly now, and as it spoke it changed now it was the young voice of the child that she had first heard, now it was a teenaged girls voice, nowhorriblyit became the voice of a girl Beverly had known ... Veronica Grogan. But Veronica was dead, she had been found dead in a sewerdrain Im Matthew . . . Im Betty . . . Im Veronica . . . were down here . . . down here with the clown . . . and the creature . . . and the mummy . . . and the werewolf . . . and you, Beverly, were down here with you, and we float, we change . . . A gout of blood suddenly belched from the drain, splattering the sink and the mirror and the wallpaper with its frogsandlilypads pattern. Beverly screamed, suddenly and piercingly. She backed away from the sink, struck the door, rebounded, clawed it open, and ran for the living room, where her father was just getting to his feet. What the Sam Hills wrong with you? he asked, his brows drawing together. The two of them were here alone this evening, Bevs mom was working the threetoeleven shift at Greens Farm, Derrys best restaurant. The bathroom! she cried hysterically. The bathroom, Daddy, in the bathroom Was someone peekin at you, Beverly? Huh? His arm shot out and his hand gripped her arm hard, sinking into the flesh. There was concern on his face but it was a predatory concern, somehow more frightening than comforting. No . . . the sink . . . in the sink . . . the ... the . . . She burst into hysterical tears before she could say anything more. Her heart was thundering so hard in her chest that she thought it would choke her. Al Marsh thrust her aside with an O JesusChristwhatnext expression on his face and went into the bathroom. He was in there so long that Beverly became afraid again. Then he bawled Beverly! You come here, girl! There was no question of not going. If the two of them had been standing on the edge of a high cliff and he had told her to step offright now, girlher instinctive obedience would almost certainly have carried her over the edge before her rational mind could have intervened. The bathroom door was open. There her father stood, a big man who was now losing the auburn hair he had passed on to Beverly. He was still wearing his gray fatigue pants and his gray shirt (he was a janitor at the Derry Home Hospital), and he was looking hard at Beverly. He did not drink, he did not smoke, he did not chase after women. I got all the women I need at home, he said on occasion, and when he said it a peculiar secretive smile would cross his faceit did not brighten it but did quite the opposite. Watching that smile was like watching the shadow of a cloud travel rapidly across a rocky field. They take care of me, and when they need it, I take care of them. Now just what the Sam Hill is this foolishness all about? he asked as she came in. Beverly felt as if her throat had been lined with slate. Her heart raced in her chest. She thought that she might vomit soon. There was blood on the mirror, running in long drips. There were spots of blood on the light over the sink; she could smell it cooking onto the 40watt bulb. Blood ran down the porcelain sides of the sink and plopped in fat drops on the linoleum floor. Daddy ... she whispered huskily. He turned, disgusted with her (as he was so often), and began casually to wash his hands in the bloody sink. Good God, girl. Speak up. You scared hell out of me. Explain yourself, for Lords sake. He was washing his hands in the basin, she could see blood staining the gray fabric of his pants where they rubbed against the lip of the sink, and if his forehead touched the mirror (it was close) it would be on his skin. She made a choked noise in her throat. He turned off the water, grabbed a towel on which two fans of blood from the drain had splashed, and began to dry his hands. She watched, near swooning, as he grimed blood into his big knuckles and the lines of his palms. She could see blood under his fingernails like marks of guilt. Well? Im waiting. He tossed the bloody towel back over the rod. There was blood ... blood everywhere ... and her father didnt see it. Daddy She had no idea what might have come next, but her father interrupted her. I worry about you, Al Marsh said. I dont think youre ever going to grow up, Beverly. You go out running around, you dont do hardly any of the housework around here, you cant cook, you cant sew. Half the time youre off on a cloud someplace with your nose stuck in a book and the other half youve got vapors and megrims. I worry. His hand suddenly swung and spatted painfully against her buttocks. She uttered a cry, her eyes fixed on his. There was a tiny stipple of blood caught in his bushy right eyebrow. If I look at that long enough Ill just go crazy and none of this will matter, she thought dimly. I worry a lot, he said, and hit her again, harder, on the arm above the elbow. That arm cried out and then seemed to go to sleep. She would have a spreading yellowishpurple bruise there the next day. An awful lot, he said, and punched her in the stomach. He pulled the punch at the last second, and Beverly lost only half of her air. She doubled over, gasping, tears starting in her eyes. Her father looked at her impassively. He shoved his bloody hands in the pockets of his trousers. You got to grow up, Beverly, he said, and now his voice was kind and forgiving. Isnt that so? She nodded. Her head throbbed. She cried, but silently. If she sobbed aloudstarted what her father called that baby whininghe might go to work on her in earnest. Al Marsh had lived his entire life in Derry and told people who asked (and sometimes those who did not) that he intended to be buried herehopefully at the age of one hundred and ten. No reason why I shouldnt live forever, he sometimes told Roger Aurlette, who cut his hair once each month. I have no vices. Now explain yourself, he said, and make it quick. There was She swallowed and it hurt because there was no moisture in her throat, none at all. There was a spider. A big fat black spider. It . . . it crawled out of the drain and I . . . I guess it crawled back down. Oh! He smiled a little at her now, as if pleased by this explanation. Was that it? Damn! If youd told me, Beverly, I never would have hit you. All girls are scared of spiders. Sam Hill! Why didnt you speak up? He bent over the drain and she had to bite her lip to keep from crying out a warning ... and some other voice spoke deep inside her, some terrible voice which could not have been a part of her; surely it was the voice of the devil himself Let it get him, if it wants him. Let it pull him down. Good fuckingriddance. She turned away from that voice in horror. To allow such a thought to stay for even a moment in her head would surely damn her to hell. He peered into the eye of the drain. His hands squelched in the blood on the rim of the basin. Beverly fought grimly with her gorge. Her belly ached where her dad had hit her. Dont see a thing, he said. All these buildings are old, Bev. Got drains the size of freeways, you know it? When I was janitorin down in the old high school, we used to get drowned rats in the toilet bowls once in awhile. It drove the girls crazy. He laughed fondly at the thought of such female vapors and megrims. Mostly when the Kenduskeag was high. Less wildlife in the pipes since they put in the new drain system, though. He put an arm around her and hugged her. Look. You go to bed and dont think about it anymore. Okay? She felt her love for him. I never hit you when you didnt deserve it, Beverly, he told her once when she had cried out that some punishment had been unfair. And surely that had to be true, because he was capable of love. Sometimes he would spend a whole day with her, showing her how to do things or just telling her stuff or walking around town with her, and when he was kind like that she thought her heart would swell with happiness until it killed her. She loved him, and tried to understand that he had to correct her often because it was (as he said) his Godgiven job. Daughters, Al Marsh said, need more correction than sons. He had no sons, and she felt vaguely as if that might be partly her fault as well. Okay, Daddy, she said. I wont. They walked into her small bedroom together. Her right arm now ached fiercely from the blow it had taken. She looked back over her shoulder and saw the bloody sink, bloody mirror, bloody wall, bloody floor. The bloody towel her father had used and then hung casually over the rod. She thought How can I ever go in there to wash up again? Please God, dear God, Im sorry if I had a bad thought about my dad and You can punish me for it if You want, I deserve to be punished, make me fall down and hurt myself or make me have the flu like last winter when I coughed so hard once I threw up but please God make the blood be gone in the morning, pretty please, God, okay? Okay? Her father tucked her in as he always did, and kissed her forehead. Then he only stood there for a moment in what she would always think of as his way of standing, perhaps of being bent slightly forward, hands plunged deepto above the wristin his pockets, the bright blue eyes in his mournful bassethounds face looking down at her from above. In later years, long after she stopped thinking about Derry at all, she would see a man sitting on the bus or maybe standing on a corner with his dinnerbucket in his hand, shapes, oh shapes of men, sometimes seen as day closed down, sometimes seen across Watertower Square in the noonlight of a clear windy autumn day, shapes of men, rules of men, desires of men or Tom, so like her father when he took off his shirt and stood slightly slumped in front of the bathroom mirror to shave. Shapes of men. Sometimes I worry about you, Bev, he said, but there was no trouble or anger in his voice now. He touched her hair gently, smoothing it back from her forehead. The bathroom is full of blood, Daddy! she almost screamed then. Didnt you see it? Its everywhere! Cooking onto the light over the sink, even! Didnt you SEE it? But she kept her silence as he went out and closed the door behind him, filling her room with darkness. She was still awake, still staring into the darkness, when her mother came in at eleventhirty and the TV went off. She heard her parents go into their room and she heard the bedsprings creaking steadily as they did their sexact thing. Beverly had overheard Greta Bowie telling Sally Mueller that the sexact thing hurt like fire and no nice girl ever wanted to do it (At the end of it the man pees all over your bug, Greta said, and Sally had cried Oh yuck, Id never let a boy do that to me!). If it hurt as badly as Greta said, then Bevs mother kept the hurt to herself; Bev had heard her mom cry out once or twice in a low voice, but it hadnt sounded at all like a paincry. The slow creak of the springs speeded up to a beat so rapid it was just short of frantic, and then stopped. There was a period of silence, then some low talk, then the sound of her mothers footsteps as she went into the bathroom. Beverly held her breath, waiting for her mother to scream or not. There was no screamonly the sound of water running into the basin. That was followed by some low splashing. Then the water ran out of the basin with its familiar gurgling sound. Her mother was brushing her teeth now. Moments later the bedsprings in her parents room creaked again as her mom got back into bed. Five minutes or so after that her father began to snore. A black fear stole over her heart and closed her throat. She found herself afraid to turn over on her right sideher favorite sleeping positionbecause she might see something looking in the window at her. So she just lay on her back, stiff as a poker, looking up at the pressedtin ceiling. Some time laterminutes or hours, there was no way of tellingshe fell into a thin troubled sleep. 3 Beverly always woke up when the alarm went off in her parents bedroom. You had to be fast, because the alarm no more than got started before her father banged it off. She dressed quickly while her father used the bathroom. She paused briefly (as she now almost always did) to look at her chest in the mirror trying to decide if her breasts had gotten any bigger in the night. She had started getting them late last year. There had been some faint pain at first, but that was gone now. They were extremely smallnot much more than spring apples, reallybut they were there. It was true; childhood would end; she would be a woman. She smiled at her reflection and put a hand behind her head, pushing her hair up and sticking her chest out. She giggled a little girls unaffected giggle . . . and suddenly remembered the blood spewing out of the bathroom drain the night before. The giggles stopped abruptly. She looked at her arm and saw the bruise that had formed there in the nightan ugly stain between her shoulder and elbow, a stain with many discolored fingers. The toilet went with a bang and a flush. Moving quickly, not wanting him to be mad with her this morning (not wanting him to even notice her this morning), Beverly pulled on a pair of jeans and her Derry High School sweatshirt. And then, because it could no longer be put off, she left her room for the bathroom. Her father passed her in the living room on his way back to his room to get dressed. His blue pajama suit flapped loosely around him. He grunted something at her she didnt understand. Okay, Daddy, she replied nevertheless. She stood in front of the closed bathroom door for a moment, trying to get her mind ready for what she might see inside. At least its daytime, she thought, and that brought some comfort. Not much, but some. She grasped the doorknob, turned it, and stepped inside. 4 That was a busy morning for Beverly. She got her father his breakfastorange juice, scrambled eggs, Al Marshs version of toast (the bread hot but not really toasted at all). He sat at the table, barricaded behind the News, and ate it all. Wheres the bacon? Gone, Daddy. We finished it yesterday. Cook me a hamburger. Theres only a little bit of that left, t The paper rustled, then dropped. His blue stare fell on her like weight. What did you say? he asked softly. I said right away, Daddy. He looked at her a moment longer. Then the paper went back up and Beverly hurried to the refrigerator to get the meat. She cooked him a hamburger, mashing the little bit of ground meat that was left in the icebox as hard as she could to make it look bigger. He ate it reading the Sports page and Beverly made his luncha couple of peanutbutterandjelly sandwiches, a big piece of cake her mother had brought back from Greens Farm last night, a Thermos of hot coffee heavily laced with sugar. You tell your mother I said to get this place cleaned up today, he said, taking his dinnerbucket. It looks like a damn old pigsty. Sam Hill! I spend the whole day cleaning up messes over to the hospital. I dont need to come home to a pigsty. You mind me, Beverly. Okay, Daddy. I will. He kissed her cheek, gave her a rough hug, and left. As she always did, Beverly went to the window of her room and watched him walk down the street. And as she always did, she felt a sneaking sense of relief when he turned the corner ... and hated herself for it. She did the dishes and then took the book she was reading out on the back steps for awhile. |
Lars Theramenius, his long blonde hair glowing with its own serene inner light, toddled over from the next building to show Beverly his new Tonka truck and the new scrapes on his knees. Beverly exclaimed over both. Then her mother was calling her. They changed both beds, washed the floors and waxed the kitchen linoleum. Her mother did the bathroom floor, for which Beverly was profoundly grateful. Elfrida Marsh was a small woman with graying hair and a grim look. Her lined face told the world that she had been around for awhile and intended to stay around awhile longer.... It also told the world that none of it had been easy and she did not look for an early change in that state of affairs. Will you do the livingroom windows, Bevvie? she asked, coming back into the kitchen. She had changed into her waitress uniform. I have to go up to Saint Joes in Bangor to see Cheryl Tarrent. She broke her leg last night. Yeah, Ill do them, Beverly said. What happened to Mrs. Tarrent? Did she fall down or something? Cheryl Tarrent was a woman Elfrida worked with at the restaurant. She and that nogood shes married to were in a car wreck, Beverlys mother said grimly. He was drinking. You want to thank God in your prayers every night that your father doesnt drink, Bewie. I do, Beverly said. She did. Shes going to lose her job, I guess, and he cant hold one. Now tones of grim horror crept into Elfridas voice. Theyll have to go on the county, I guess. It was the worst thing Elfrida Marsh could think of. Losing a child or finding out you had cancer didnt hold a candle to it. You could be poor; you could spend your life doing what she called scratchin. But at the bottom of everything, below even the gutter, was a time when you might have to go on the county and drink the worksweat from the brows of others as a gift. This, she knew, was the prospect that now faced Cheryl Tarrent. Once you got the windows washed and take the trash out, you can go and play awhile, if you want. Its your fathers bowling night so you wont have to fix his supper, but I want you in before dark. You know why. Okay, Mom. My God, youre growing up fast, Elfrida said. She looked for a moment at the nubs in Beverlys sweatshirt. Her glance was loving but pitiless. I dont know what Im going to do around here once youre married and have a place of your own. Ill be around for just about ever, Beverly said, smiling. Her mother hugged her briefly and kissed the corner of her mouth with her warm dry lips. I know better, she said. But I love you, Bewie. I love you too, Momma. You make sure there arent any streaks on those windows when youre done, she said, picking up her purse and going to the door. If there are, youll catch the blue devil from your father. Ill be careful. As her mother opened the door to go out, Beverly asked in a tone she hoped was casual Did you see anything funny in the bathroom, Mom? Elfrida looked back at her, frowning a little. Funny? Well . . . I saw a spider in there last night. It crawled out of the drain. Didnt Daddy tell you? Did you get your dad angry at you last night, Bewie? No! Huhuh! I told him a spider crawled out of the drain and scared me and he said sometimes they used to find drowned rats in the toilets at the old high school. Because of the drains. He didnt tell you about the spider I saw? No. Oh. Well, it doesnt matter. I just wondered if you saw it. I didnt see any spider. I wish we could afford a little new linoleum for that bathroom floor. She glanced at the sky, which was blue and cloudless. They say if you kill a spider, it brings rain. You didnt kill it, did you? No, Beverly said. I didnt kill it. Her mother looked back at her, her lips pressed together so tightly they almost werent there. You sure your dad wasnt angry with you last night? No! Bewie, does he ever touch you? What? Beverly looked at her mother, totally perplexed. God, her father touched her every day. I dont get what you Never mind, Elfrida said shortly. Dont forget the trash. And if those windows are streaked, you wont need your father to give you blue devil. I wont (does he ever touch you) forget. And be in before dark. I will. (does he) (worry an awful lot) Elfrida left. Beverly went into her room again and watched her around the corner and out of view, as she had her father. Then, when she was sure her mother was well on her way to the bus stop, Beverly got the floorbucket, the Windex, and some rags from under the sink. She went into the living room and began on the windows. The apartment seemed too quiet. Each time the floor creaked or a door slammed, she jumped a little. When the Boltons toilet flushed above her, she uttered a gasp that was nearly a scream. And she kept looking toward the closed bathroom door. At last she walked down there and drew it open again and looked inside. Her mother had cleaned in here this morning, and most of the blood which had pooled under the sink was gone. So was the blood on the sinks rim. But there were still maroon streaks drying in the sink itself, spots and splashes of it on the mirror and on the wallpaper. Beverly looked at her pale reflection and realized with sudden, superstitious dread that the blood on the mirror made it seem as if her face was bleeding. She thought again What am I going to do about this? Have I gone crazy? Am I imagining it? The drain suddenly gave a burping chuckle. Beverly screamed and slammed the door and five minutes later her hands were still trembling so badly that she almost dropped the bottle of Windex as she washed the windows in the living room. 5 It was around three oclock that afternoon, the apartment locked up and the extra key tucked snugly away in the pocket of her jeans, when Beverly Marsh happened to turn up Richards Alley, a narrow walkthrough which connected Main and Center Streets, and came upon Ben Hanscom, Eddie Kaspbrak, and a boy named Bradley Donovan pitching pennies. Hi, Bev! Eddie said. You get any nightmares from those movies? Nope, Beverly said, squatting down to watch the game. Howd you know about that? Haystack told me, Eddie said, jerking a thumb at Ben, who was blushing wildly for no good reason Beverly could see. What movieth? Bradley asked, and now Beverly recognized him he had come down to the Barrens a week ago with Bill Denbrough. They had a speech class together in Bangor. Beverly more or less dismissed him from her mind. If asked, she might have said he seemed somehow less important than Ben and Eddieless there. Couple of creature features, she said to him, and duckwalked closer until she was between Ben and Eddie. You pitchin? Yes, Ben said. He looked at her quickly, then looked away. Whos winning? Eddie, Ben said. Eddies real good. She looked at Eddie, who polished his nails solemnly on the front of his shirt and then giggled. Can I play? Okay with me, Eddie said. You got pence? She felt in her pocket and brought out three. Jeez, how do you dare to go out of the house with such a wad? Eddie asked. Id be scared. Ben and Bradley Donovan laughed. Girls can be brave, too, Beverly said gravely, and a moment later they were all laughing. Bradley pitched first, then Ben, then Beverly. Because he was winning, Eddie had lasties. They tossed the pennies toward the back wall of the Center Street Drug Store. Sometimes they landed short, sometimes they struck and bounced back. At the end of each round the shooter with the penny closest to the wall collected all four pennies. Five minutes later, Beverly had twentyfour cents. She had lost only a single round. Girlth cheat! Bradley said, disgusted, and got up to go. His good humor was gone, and he looked at Beverly with both anger and humiliation. Girlth thouldnt be allowed to Ben bounced to his feet. It was awesome to watch Ben Hanscom bounce. Take that back! Bradley looked at Ben, his mouth open. What? Take it back! She didnt cheat! Bradley looked from Ben to Eddie to Beverly, who was still on her knees. Then he looked back at Ben again. You want a fat lip to math the reth of you, athhole? Sure, Ben said, and a grin suddenly crossed his face. Something in its quality caused Bradley to take a surprised, uneasy step backward. Perhaps what he saw in that grin was the simple fact that after tangling with Henry Bowers and coming out ahead not once but twice, Ben Hanscom was not about to be terrorized by skinny old Bradley Donovan (who had warts all over his hands as well as that cataclysmic lisp). Yeah, and then you all gang up on me, Bradley said, taking another step backward. His voice had picked up an uncertain waver, and tears stood out in his eyes. All a bunth of cheaterth! You just take back what you said about her, Ben said. Never mind, Ben, Beverly said. She held out a handful of coppers to Bradley. Take whats yours. I wasnt playing for keepsies anyway. Tears of humiliation spilled over Bradleys lower lashes. He struck the pennies from Beverlys hand and ran for the Center Street end of Richards Alley. The others stood looking at him, openmouthed. With safety within reach, Bradley turned around and shouted Youre jutht a little bith, thatth all! Cheater! Cheater! Your motherth a whore! Beverly gasped. Ben ran up the alley toward Bradley and succeeded in doing no more than tripping over an empty crate and falling down. Bradley was gone, and Ben knew better than to believe he could ever catch him. He turned toward Beverly instead to see if she was all right. That word had shocked him as much as it had her. She saw the concern in his face. She opened her mouth to say she was okay, not to worry, sticksandstoneswillbreakmybonesbutnameswillneverhurtme ... and that odd question her mother had asked (does he ever touch you) recurred. Odd question, yessimple yet nonsensical, full of somehow ominous undertones, murky as old coffee. Instead of saying that names would never hurt her, she burst into tears. Eddie looked at her uncomfortably, took his aspirator from his pants pocket, and sucked on it. Then he bent down and began picking up the scattered pennies. There was a fussy, careful expression on his face as he did this. Ben moved toward her instinctively, wanting to hug and give comfort, and then stopped. She was too pretty. In the face of that prettiness he felt helpless. Cheer up, he said, knowing it must sound idiotic but unable to think of anything more useful. He touched her shoulders lightly (she had put her hands over her face to hide her wet eyes and blotchy cheeks) and then took them away as if she were too hot to touch. He was now blushing so hard he looked apoplectic. Cheer up, Beverly. She lowered her hands and cried out in a shrill, furious voice My mother is not a whore! She ... shes a waitress! This was greeted by absolute silence. Ben stared at her with his lower jaw sprung ajar. Eddie looked up at her from the cobbled surface of the alley, his hands full of pennies. And suddenly all three of them were laughing hysterically. A waitress! Eddie cackled. He had only the faintest idea of what a whore was, but something about this comparison struck him as delicious just the same. Is that what she is! Yes! Yes, she is! Beverly gasped, laughing and crying at the same time. Ben was laughing so hard he couldnt stand up. He sat heavily on a trashcan. His bulk drove the lid into the can and spilled him into the alley on his side. Eddie pointed at him and howled with laughter. Beverly helped him to his feet. A window went up above them and a woman yelled, You kids get out of there! Theres people that have to work the night shift, you know! Get lost! Without thinking, the three of them linked hands, Beverly in the middle, and ran for Center Street. They were still laughing. 6 They pooled their money and discovered they had forty cents, enough for two icecream frappes from the drugstore. Because old Mr. Keene was a grouch and wouldnt let kids under twelve eat their stuff at the soda fountain (he claimed the pinball machines in the back room might corrupt them), they took the frappes in two huge waxed containers up to Bassey Park and sat on the grass to drink them. Ben had coffee, Eddie strawberry. Beverly sat between the two boys with a straw, sampling each in turn like a bee at flowers. She felt okay again for the first time since the drain had coughed up its gout of blood the night beforewashed out and emotionally exhausted, but okay, at peace with herself. For the time being, anyway. I just dont get what was wrong with Bradley, Eddie said at lastit had the tone of awkward apology. He never acted like that before. You stood up for me, Beverly said, and suddenly kissed Ben on one cheek. Thank you. Ben went scarlet again. You werent cheating, he mumbled, and abruptly gulped down half of his coffee frappe in three monster swallows. This was followed by a burp as loud as a shotgun blast. Get any on you, Daddyo? Eddie asked, and Beverly laughed helplessly, holding her stomach. No more, she giggled. My stomach hurts. Please, no more. Ben was smiling. That night, before sleep, he would play the moment when she had kissed him over and over again in his mind. Are you really okay now? he asked. She nodded. It wasnt him. It really wasnt even what he said about my mother. It was something that happened last night. She hesitated, looking from Ben to Eddie and back to Ben again. I ... I have to tell somebody. Or show somebody. Or something. I guess I cried because Ive been scared Im going looneytunes. What are you talking about, looneytunes? a new voice asked. It was Stanley Uris. As always he looked small, slim, and preternaturally neatmuch too neat for a kid who was just barely eleven. In his white shirt, neatly tucked into his fresh jeans all the way around, his hair combed, the toes of his hightop Keds spotlessly clean, he looked instead like the worlds smallest adult. Then he smiled, and the illusion was broken. She wont say whatever she was going to say, Eddie thought, because he wasnt there when Bradley called her mother that name. But after a moments hesitation, Beverly did tell. Because somehow Stanley was different from Bradleyhe was there in a way Bradley had not been. Stanleys one of us, Beverly thought, and wondered why that should cause her arms to suddenly break out in bumps. Im not doing any of them any favors by telling, she thought. Not them, and not me, neither. But it was too late. She was already speaking. Stan sat down with them, his face still and grave. Eddie offered him the last of the strawberry frappe and Stan only shook his head, his eyes never leaving Beverlys face. None of the boys spoke. She told them about the voices. About recognizing Ronnie Grogans voice. She knew Ronnie was dead, but it was her voice all the same. She told them about the blood, and how her father had not seen it or felt it, and how her mother had not seen it this morning. When she finished, she looked around at their faces, afraid of what she might see there ... but she saw no disbelief. Terror, but no disbelief. Finally Ben said, Lets go look. 7 They went in by the back door, not just because that was the lock Bevs key fitted but because she said her father would kill her if Mrs. Bolton saw her going into the apartment with three boys while her folks were gone. Why? Eddie asked. You wouldnt understand, numbnuts, Stan said. Just be quiet. Eddie started to reply, looked again at Stans white, strained face and decided to keep his mouth shut. The door gave on the kitchen, which was full of lateafternoon sun and summer silence. The breakfast dishes sparkled in the drainer. The four of them stood by the kitchen table, bunched up, and when a door slammed upstairs, they all jumped and then laughed nervously. Where is it? Ben asked. He was whispering. Her heart thudding in her temples, Beverly led them down the little hall with her parents bedroom on one side and the closed bathroom door at the end. She pulled it open, stepped quickly inside, and pulled the chain over the sink. Then she stepped back between Ben and Eddie again. The blood had dried to maroon smears on the mirror and the basin and the wallpaper. She looked at the blood because it was suddenly easier to look at that than at them. In a small voice she could hardly recognize as her own, she asked Do you see it? Do any of you see it? Is it there? Ben stepped forward, and she was again struck by how delicately he moved for such a fat boy. He touched one of the smears of blood; then a second; then a long drip on the mirror. Here. Here. Here. His voice was flat and authoritative. Jeepers! It looks like somebody killed a pig in here, Stan said, softly awed. It all came out of the drain? Eddie asked. The sight of the blood made him feel ill. His breath was shortening. He clutched at his aspirator. Beverly had to struggle to keep from bursting into fresh tears. She didnt want to do that; she was afraid if she did they would dismiss her as just another girl. But she had to clutch for the doorknob as relief washed through her in a wave of frightening strength. Until that moment she hadnt realized how sure she was that she was going crazy, having hallucinations, something. And your mom and dad never saw it, Ben marvelled. He touched a splotch of blood which had dried on the basin and then pulled his hand away and wiped it on the tail of his shirt. Jeeperscreepers. I dont know how I can ever come in here again, Beverly said. Not to wash up or brush my teeth or ... you know. Well, why dont we clean the place up? Stanley asked suddenly. Beverly looked at him. Clean it? Sure. Maybe we couldnt get all of it off the wallpaperit looks sorta, you know, on its last legsbut we could get the rest. Havent you got some rags? Under the kitchen sink, Beverly said. But my momll wonder where they went if we use them. Ive got fifty cents, Stan said quietly. His eyes never left the blood that had spattered the area of the bathroom around the washbasin. Well clean up as good as we can, then take the rags down to that coinop laundry place back the way we came. Well wash them and dry them and theyll all be back under the sink before your folks get home. My mother says you cant get blood out of cloth, Eddie objected. She says it sets in, or something. Ben uttered a hysterical little giggle. Doesnt matter if it comes out of the rags or not, he said. They cant see it. No one had to ask him who he meant by they. All right, Beverly said. Lets try it. 8 For the next half hour, the four of them cleaned like grim elves, and as the blood disappeared from the walls and the mirror and the porcelain basin, Beverly felt her heart grow lighter and lighter. Ben and Eddie did the sink and mirror while she scrubbed the floor. Stan worked on the wallpaper with studious care, using a rag that was almost dry. In the end, they got almost all of it. Ben finished by removing the lightbulb over the sink and replacing it with one from the box of bulbs in the pantry. There were plenty Elfrida Marsh had bought a twoyear supply from the Derry Lions during their annual lightbulb sale the fall before. They used Elfridas floorbucket, her Ajax, and plenty of hot water. They dumped the water frequently because none of them liked to have their hands in it once it had turned pink. At last Stanley backed away, looked at the bathroom with the critical eye of a boy in whom neatness and order are not simply ingrained but actually innate, and told them Its the best we can do, I think. There were still faint traces of blood on the wallpaper to the left of the sink, where the paper was so thin and ragged that Stanley had dared do no more than blot it gently. Yet even here the blood had been sapped of its former ominous strength; it was little more than a meaningless pastel smear. Thank you, Beverly said to all of them. She could not remember ever having meant thanks so deeply. Thank you all. Its okay, Ben mumbled. He was of course blushing again. Sure, Eddie agreed. Lets get these rags done, Stanley said. His face was set, almost stern. And later Beverly would think that perhaps only Stan realized that they had taken another step toward some unthinkable confrontation. 9 They measured out a cup of Mrs. Marshs Tide and put it in an empty mayonnaise jar. Bev found a paper shopping bag to put the bloody rags in, and the four of them went down to the KleenKloze Washateria on the corner of Main and Cony Streets. Two blocks farther up they could see the Canal gleaming a bright blue in the afternoon sun. The KleenKloze was empty except for a woman in a white nurses uniform who was waiting for her dryer to stop. She glanced at the four kids distrustfully and then went back to her paperback of Peyton Place. Cold water, Ben said in a low voice. My mom says you gotta wash blood in cold water. They dumped the rags into the washer while Stan changed his two quarters for four dimes and two nickels. He came back and watched as Bev dumped the Tide over the rags and swung the washers door closed. Then he plugged two dimes into the coinop slot and twisted the start knob. Beverly had chipped in most of the pennies she had won at pitch for the frappes, but she found four survivors deep down in the lefthand pocket of her jeans. She fished them out and offered them to Stan, who looked pained. Jeez, he said, I take a girl on a laundry date and right away she wants to go Dutch. Beverly laughed a little. You sure? Im sure, Stan said in his dry way. I mean, its really breaking my heart to give up those four pence, Beverly, but Im sure. The four of them went over to the line of plastic contour chairs against the Washaterias cinderblock wall and sat there, not talking. The Maytag with the rags in it chugged and sloshed. Fans of suds slobbered against the thick glass of its round porthole. At first the suds were reddish. Looking at them made Bev feel a little sick, but she found it was hard to look away. The bloody foam had a gruesome sort of fascination. The lady in the nurses uniform glanced at them more and more often over the top of her book. She had perhaps been afraid they would be rowdy; now their very silence seemed to unnerve her. When her dryer stopped she took her clothes out, folded them, put them into a blue plastic laundrybag and left, giving them one last puzzled look as she went out the door. As soon as she was gone, Ben said abruptly, almost harshly Youre not alone. What? Beverly asked. Youre not alone, Ben repeated. You see He stopped and looked at Eddie, who nodded. He looked at Stan, who looked unhappy ... but who, after a moment, shrugged and also nodded. What in the world are you talking about? Beverly asked. She was tired of people saying inexplicable things to her today. She gripped Bens lower arm. If you know something about this, tell me! Do you want to do it? Ben asked Eddie. Eddie shook his head. He took his aspirator out of his pocket and sucked in on it with a monstrous gasp. Speaking slowly, picking his words, Ben told Beverly how he had happened to meet Bill Denbrough and Eddie Kaspbrak in the Barrens on the day school let outthat was almost a week ago, as hard as that was to believe. He told her about how they had built the dam in the Barrens the following day. He told Bills story of how the school photograph of his dead brother had turned its head and winked. He told his own story of the mummy who had walked on the icy Canal in the dead heart of winter with balloons that floated against the wind. Beverly listened to all this with growing horror. She could feel her eyes widening, her hands and feet growing cold. Ben stopped and looked at Eddie. Eddie took another wheezing pull on his aspirator and then told the story of the leper again, speaking as rapidly as Ben had slowly, his words tumbling over one another in their urgency to escape and be gone. He finished with a sucking little halfsob, but this time he didnt cry. And you? she asked, looking at Stan Uris. I There was sudden silence, making them all start the way a sudden explosion might have done. The wash is done, Stan said. They watched him get upsmall, economical, gracefuland open the washer. He pulled out the rags, which were stuck together in a clump, and examined them. Theres a little stain left, he said, but its not too bad. Looks like it could be cranberry juice. He showed them, and they all nodded gravely, as if over important documents. Beverly felt a relief that was similar to the relief she had felt when the bathroom was clean again. She could stand the faded pastel smear on the peeling wallpaper in there, and she could stand the faint reddish stain on her mothers cleaning rags. They had done something about it, that seemed to be the important thing. Maybe it hadnt worked completely, but she discovered it had worked well enough to give her heart peace, and brother, that was good enough for Al Marshs daughter Beverly. Stan tossed them into one of the barrelshaped dryers and put in two nickels. The dryer started to turn, and Stan came back and took his seat between Eddie and Ben. For a moment the four of them sat silent again, watching the rags turn and fall, turn and fall. The drone of the gasfired dryer was soothing, almost soporific. A woman passed by the chockedopen door, wheeling a cart of groceries. She glanced in at them and passed on. I did see something, Stan said suddenly. I didnt want to talk about it, because I wanted to think it was a dream or something. Maybe even a fit, like that Stavier kid has. Any you guys know that kid? Ben and Bev shook their heads. Eddie said, The kid whos got epilepsy? Yeah, right. Thats how bad it was. I would have rather thought I had something like that than that I saw something ... really real. What was it? Bev asked, but she wasnt sure she really wanted to know. This was not like listening to ghoststories around a campfire while you ate wieners in toasted buns and cooked marshmallows over the flames until they were black and crinkly. Here they sat in this stifling laundromat and she could see great big dust kitties under the washing machines (ghostturds, her father called them), she could see dustmotes dancing in the hot shafts of sunlight which fell through the laundromats dirty plateglass window, she could see old magazines with their covers torn off. These were all normal things. Nice and normal and boring. But she was scared. Terribly scared. Because, she sensed, none of these things were madeup stories, madeup monsters Bens mummy, Eddies leper ... either or both of them might be out tonight when the sun went down. Or Bill Denbroughs brother, onearmed and implacable, cruising through the black drains under the city with silver coins for eyes. Yet, when Stan did not answer immediately, she asked again What was it? Speaking carefully, Stan said I was over in that little park where the Standpipe is Oh God, I dont like that place, Eddie said dolefully. If theres a haunted house in Derry, thats it. What? Stan said sharply. What did you say? Dont you know about that place? Eddie asked. My mom wouldnt let me go near there even before the kids started getting killed. She ... she takes real good care of me. He offered them an uneasy grin and held his aspirator tighter in his lap. You see, some kids have been drowned in there. Three or four. TheyStan? Stan, are you all right? Stan Uriss face had gone a leaden gray. His mouth worked soundlessly. His eyes rolled up until the others could only see the bottommost curves of his irises. One hand clutched weakly at empty air and then fell against his thigh. Eddie did the only thing he could think of. He leaned over, put one thin arm around Stans slumping shoulders, jammed his aspirator into Stans mouth, and triggered off a big blast. Stan began to cough and choke and gag. He sat up straight, his eyes back in focus again. He coughed into his cupped hands. At last he uttered a huge, burping gasp and slumped back against his chair. What was that? he managed at last. My asthma medicine, Eddie said apologetically. God, it tastes like dead dogshit. They all laughed at this, but it was nervous laughter. The others were looking nervously at Stan. Thin color now burned in his cheeks. Its pretty bad, all right, Eddie said with some pride. Yeah, but is it kosher? Stan said, and they all laughed again, although none of them (including Stan) really knew what kosher meant. Stan stopped laughing first and looked at Eddie intently. Tell me what you know about the Standpipe, he said. Eddie started, but both Ben and Beverly also contributed. The Derry Standpipe stood on Kansas Street, about a mile and a half west of downtown, near the southern edge of the Barrens. At one time, near the end of the previous century, it had supplied all of Derrys water, holding one and threequarters million gallons. Because the circular openair gallery just below the Standpipes roof offered a spectacular view of the town and the surrounding countryside, it had been a popular place until 1930 or so. Families would come out to tiny Memorial Park on a Saturday or Sunday forenoon when the weather was fine, climb the one hundred and sixty stairs inside the Standpipe to the gallery, and take in the view. More often than not they spread and ate a picnic lunch while they did so. The stairs were between the Standpipes outside, which was shingled a blinding white, and its inner sleeve, a great stainlesssteel cylinder standing a hundred and six feet high. These stairs wound to the top in a narrow spiral. Just below the gallery level, a thick wooden door in the Standpipes inner jacket gave on a platform over the water itselfa black, gently lapping tarn lit by naked magnesium bulbs screwed into reflective tin hoods. The water was exactly one hundred feet deep when the supply was all the way up. Where did the water come from? Ben asked. Bev, Eddie, and Stan looked at each other. None of them knew. Well, what about the kids that drowned, then? They were only a bit clearer on that. It seemed that in those days (olden days, Ben called them solemnly, as he took up this part of the tale) the door leading to the platform over the water had always been left unlocked. One night a couple of kids ... or maybe just one ... or as many as three ... had found the groundlevel door also unlocked. They had gone up on a dare. They found their way out onto the platform over the water instead of onto the gallery by mistake. In the darkness, they had fallen over the edge before they quite knew where they were. I heard it from this kid Vic Crumly who said he heard it from his dad, Beverly said, so maybe its true. Vic said his dad said that once they fell into the water they were as good as dead because there was nothing to hold onto. The platform was just out of reach. He said they paddled around in there, yelling for help, all night long, probably. Only no one heard them and they just got tireder and tireder until She trailed off, feeling the horror of it sink into her. She could see those boys in her minds eye, real or madeup, paddling around like drenched puppies. Going under, coming up sputtering. Splashing more and swimming less as panic set in. Soggy sneakers treading water. Fingers scrabbling uselessly for any kind of purchase on the smooth steel walls of the sleeve. She could taste the water they must have swallowed. She could hear the flat, echoing quality of their cries. How long? Fifteen minutes? Half an hour? How long before the cries had ceased and they had simply floated facedown, strange fish for the caretaker to find the next morning? God, Stan said dryly. I heard there was a woman who lost her baby, too, Eddie said suddenly. That was when they closed the place for good. At least, thats what I heard. They did use to let people go up, I know that. But then one time there was this lady and her baby. I dont know how old the baby was. But this platform, its supposed to go right out over the water. And the lady went to the railing and she was, you know, holding the baby, and either she dropped it or maybe it just wriggled. |
I heard this guy tried to save it. Doing the hero bit, you know. He jumped right in, but the baby was gone. Maybe he was wearing a jacket or something. When your clothes get wet, they drag you down. Eddie abruptly put his hand into his pocket and brought out a small brown glass bottle. He opened it, took out two white pills, and swallowed them dry. What were those? Beverly asked. Aspirin. Ive got a headache. He looked at her defensively, but Beverly said nothing more. Ben finished. After the incident of the baby (he himself, he said, had heard that it was actually a kid, a little girl of about three), the Town Council had voted to lock the Standpipe, both downstairs and up, and stop the daytrips and picnics on the gallery. It had remained locked from then until now. Oh, the caretaker came and went, and the maintenance men once in awhile, and once every season there were guided tours. Interested citizens could follow a lady from the Historical Society up the spiral of stairs to the gallery at the top, where they could ooh and aah over the view and snap Kodaks to show their friends. But the door to the inner sleeve was always locked now. Is it still full of water? Stan asked. I guess so, Ben said. Ive seen firetrucks filling up there during grassfire season. They hook a hose to the pipe at the bottom. Stanley was looking at the dryer again, watching the rags go around and around. The clump had broken up now, and some of them floated like parachutes. What did you see there? Bev asked him gently. For a moment it seemed he would not answer at all. Then he drew a deep, shuddering breath and said something that at first struck them all as being far from the point. They named it Memorial Park after the 23rd Maine in the Civil War. The Derry Blues, they were called. There used to be a statue, but it blew down during a storm in the forties. They didnt have money enough to fix the statue, so they put in a birdbath instead. A big stone birdbath. They were all looking at him. Stan swallowed. There was an audible click in his throat. I watch birds, you see. I have an album, a pair of ZeissIkon binoculars, and everything. He looked at Eddie. Do you have any more aspirins? Eddie handed him the bottle. Stan took two, hesitated, then took another. He gave the bottle back and swallowed the pills, one after another, grimacing. Then he went on with his story. 10 Stans encounter had happened on a rainy April evening two months ago. He had donned his slicker, put his birdbook and his binoculars in a waterproof sack with a drawstring at the top, and set out for Memorial Park. He and his father usually went out together, but his father had had to work over that night and had called specially at suppertime to talk to Stan. One of his customers at the agency, another birdwatcher, had spotted what he believed to be a male cardinalFringillidae Richmondenadrinking from the birdbath in Memorial Park, he told Stan. They liked to eat, drink, and bathe right around dusk. It was very rare to spot a cardinal this far north of Massachusetts. Would Stan like to go down there and see if he could collect it? He knew the weather was pretty foul, but ... Stan had been agreeable. His mother made him promise to keep the hood of his slicker up, but Stan would have done that anyway. He was a fastidious boy. There were never any fights about getting him to wear his rubbers or his snowpants in the winter. He walked the mile and a half to Memorial Park in a rain so fine and hesitant that it really wasnt even a drizzle; it was more like a constant hanging mist. The air was muted but somehow exciting just the same. In spite of the last dwindling piles of snow under bushes and in groves of trees (to Stan they looked like piles of dirty castoff pillowcases), there was a smell of new growth in the air. Looking at the branches of elms and maples and oaks against the leadwhite sky, Stan thought that their silhouettes looked mysteriously thicker. They would burst open in a week or two, unrolling leaves of a delicate, almost transparent green. The air smells green tonight, he thought, and smiled a little. He walked quickly because the light would be gone in an hour or even less. He was as fastidious about his sightings as he was about his dress and study habits, and unless there was enough light left for him to be absolutely sure, he would not allow himself to collect the cardinal even if he knew in his heart he had really seen it. He cut across Memorial Park on a diagonal. The Standpipe was a white bulking shape to his left. Stan barely glanced at it. He had no interest whatsoever in the Standpipe. Memorial Park was a rough rectangle which sloped downhill. The grass (white and dead at this time of year) was kept neatly cut in the summertime, and there were circular beds of flowers. There was no playground equipment, however. This was considered a grownups park. At the far end, the grade smoothed out before dropping abruptly down to Kansas Street and the Barrens beyond. The birdbath his father had mentioned stood on this flat area. It was a shallow stone dish set into a squat masonry pedestal that was really much too big for the humble function it fulfilled. Stans father had told him that, before the money ran out, they had intended to put the statue of the soldier back up here again. I like the birdbath better, Daddy, Stan said. Mr. Uris ruffled his hair. Me too, son, he said. More baths and less bullets, thats my motto. At the top of this pedestal a motto had been carved in the stone. Stanley read it but did not understand it; the only Latin he understood was the genus classifications of the birds in his book. Apparebat eidolon senex. Pliny the inscription read. Stan sat down on a bench, took his birdalbum out of the bag, and turned over to the picture of the cardinal one more time, going over it, familiarizing himself with the recognizable points. A male cardinal would be hard to mistake for something elseit was as red as a fireengine, if not so largebut Stan was a creature of habit and convention; these things comforted him and reinforced his sense of place and belonging in the world. So he gave the picture a good threeminute study before closing the book (the moisture in the air was making the corners of the pages turn up) and putting it back into the bag. He uncased his binoculars and put them to his eyes. There was no need to adjust the field of focus, because the last time he had used the glasses he had been sitting on this same bench and looking at that same birdbath. Fastidious boy, patient boy. He did not fidget. He did not get up and walk around or swing the binoculars here and there to see what else there might be to be seen. He sat still, field glasses trained on the birdbath, and the mist collected in fat drops on his yellow slicker. He was not bored. He was looking down into the equivalent of an avian conventionsite. Four brown sparrows sat there for awhile, dipping into the water with their beaks, flicking droplets casually back over their shoulders and onto their backs. Then a bluejay came hauling in like a cop breaking up a gaggle of loiterers. The jay was as big as a house in Stans glasses, his quarrelsome cries absurdly thin by comparison (after you looked through the binoculars steadily for awhile the magnified birds you saw began to seem not odd but perfectly correct). The sparrows flew off. The jay, now in charge, strutted, bathed, grew bored, departed. The sparrows returned, then flew off again as a pair of robins cruised in to bathe and (perhaps) to discuss matters of importance to the hollowboned set. Stans father had laughed at Stans hesitant suggestion that maybe birds talked, and he was sure his dad was right when he said birds werent smart enough to talkthat their brainpans were too smallbut by gosh they sure looked like they were talking. A new bird joined them. It was red. Stan hastily adjusted the field of focus on the binoculars a bit. Was it ...? No. It was a scarlet tanager, a good bird but not the cardinal he was looking for. It was joined by a flicker that was a frequent visitor to the Memorial Park birdbath. Stan recognized him by the tattered right wing. As always, he speculated on how that might have happeneda close call with some cat seemed the most likely explanation. Other birds came and went. Stan saw a grackle, as clumsy and ugly as a flying boxcar, a bluebird, another flicker. He was finally rewarded by a new birdnot the cardinal but a cowbird that looked vast and stupid in the eyepieces of the binoculars. He dropped them against his chest and fumbled the birdbook out of the bag again, hoping that the cowbird wouldnt fly away before he could confirm the sighting. He would have something to take home to his father, at least. And it was time to go. The light was fading fast. He felt cold and damp. He checked the book, then looked through the glasses again. It was still there, not bathing but only standing on the rim of the birdbath looking dumb. It was almost surely a cowbird. With no distinctive markingsat least none he could pick up at this distanceand in the fading light it was hard to be one hundred percent sure, but maybe he had just enough time and light for one more check. He looked at the picture in the book, studying it with a fierce frown of concentration, and then picked up the glasses again. He had only fixed them on the birdbath when a hollow rolling boom! sent the cowbirdif it had been a cowbirdwinging. Stan tried to follow it with the glasses, knowing how slim his chances were of picking it up again. He lost it and made a hissing sound of disgust between his teeth. Well, if it had come once it would perhaps come again. And it had only been a cowbird (probably a cowbird) after all, not a golden eagle or a great auk. Stan recased his binoculars and put away his birdalbum. Then he got up and looked around to see if he could tell what had been responsible for that sudden loud noise. It hadnt sounded like a gun or a car backfire. More like a door being thrown open in a spooky movie about castles and dungeons ... complete with hokey echo effects. He could see nothing. He got up and started toward the slope down to Kansas Street. The Standpipe was now on his right, a chalky white cylinder, phantomlike in the mist and the growing darkness. It seemed almost to ... to float. That was an odd thought. He supposed it must have come from his own headwhere else could a thought come from? but it somehow did not seem like his own thought at all. He looked at the Standpipe more closely, and then veered in that direction without even thinking about it. Windows circled the building at intervals, rising around it in a spiral that made Stan think of the barber pole in front of Mr. Aurlettes shop, where he and his dad got their haircuts. The bonewhite shingles bulged out over each of those dark windows like brows over eyes. Wonder how they did that, Stan thoughtnot with as much interest as Ben Hanscom would have felt, but with someand that was when he saw there was a much larger space of darkness at the foot of the Standpipea clear oblong in the circular base. He stopped, frowning, thinking that was a funny place for a window it was completely out of symmetry with the others. Then he realized it wasnt a window. It was a door. The noise I heard, he thought. It was that door, blowing open. He looked around. Early, gloomy dusk. White sky now fading to a dull dusky purple, mist thickening a bit more toward the steady rain which would fall most of the night. Dusk and mist and no wind at all. So ... if it hadnt blown open, had someone pushed it open? Why? And it looked like an awfully heavy door to slam open hard enough to make a noise like that boom. He supposed a very big person ... maybe ... Curious, Stan walked over for a closer look. The door was bigger than he had first supposedsix feet high and two feet thick, the boards which composed it bound with brass strips. Stan swung it halfclosed. It moved smoothly and easily on its hinges in spite of its size. It also moved silentlythere was not a single squeak. He had moved it to see how much damage it had done to the shingles, blasting open like that. There was no damage at all; not so much as a single mark. Weirdsville, as Richie would say. Well, it wasnt the door you heard, thats all, he thought. Maybe a jet from Loring boomed over Derry, or something. Door was probably open all al His foot struck something. Stan looked down and saw it was a padlock ... correction. It was the remains of a padlock. It had been burst wide open. It looked, in fact, as if someone had rammed the locks keyway full of gunpowder and then set a match to it. Flowers of metal, deadly sharp, stood out from the body of the lock in a stiff spray. Stan could see the layers of steel inside. The thick hasp hung askew by one bolt which had been yanked threequarters of the way out of the wood. The other three haspbolts lay on the wet grass. They had been twisted like pretzels. Frowning, Stan swung the door open again and peered inside. Narrow stairs led upward, circling around and out of sight. The outer wall of the staircase was bare wood supported by giant crossbeams which had been pegged together rather than nailed. To Stan some of the pegs looked thicker than his own upper arm. The inner wall was steel from which gigantic rivets swelled like boils. Is anyone here? Stan asked. There was no answer. He hesitated, then stepped inside so he could see up the narrow throat of the staircase a little better. Nothing. And it was Creep City in here. As Richie would also say. He turned to leave ... and heard music. It was faint, but still instantly recognizable. Calliope music. He cocked his head, listening, the frown on his face starting to dissolve a little. Calliope music, all right, the music of carnivals and county fairs. It conjured up trace memories which were as delightful as they were ephemeral popcorn, cotton candy, doughboys frying in hot grease, the chaindriven clatter of rides like the Wild Mouse, the Whip, the KoasterKups. Now the frown had become a tentative grin. Stan went up one step, then two more, head still cocked. He paused again. As if thinking about carnivals could actually create one; he could now actually smell the popcorn, the cotton candy, the doughboys ... and more! Peppers, chilidogs, cigarette smoke and sawdust. There was the sharp smell of white vinegar, the kind you could shake over your french fries through a hole in the tin cap. He could smell mustard, bright yellow and stinging hot, that you spread on your hotdog with a wooden paddle. This was amazing ... incredible ... irresistible. He took another step up and that was when he heard the rustling, eager footsteps above him, descending the stairs. He cocked his head again. The calliope music had gotten suddenly louder, as if to mask the sound of the footsteps. He could recognize the tune nowit was Camptown Races. Footsteps, yeah; but they werent exactly rustling footsteps, were they? They actually sounded kind of ... squishy, didnt they? The sound was like people walking in rubbers full of water. Camptown ladies sing dis song, doodah doodah (Squishsquish) Camptown Racetrack nine miles long, doodah doodah (Squishsloshcloser now) Ride around all night Ride around all day ... Now there were shadows bobbing on the wall above him. The terror leaped down Stans throat all at onceit was like swallowing something hot and horrible, bad medicine that suddenly galvanized you like electricity. It was the shadows that did it. He saw them only for a moment. He had just that small bit of time to observe that there were two of them, that they were slumped, and somehow unnatural. He had only that moment because the light in here was fading, fading too fast, and as he turned, the heavy Standpipe door swung ponderously shut behind him. Stanley ran back down the stairs (somehow he had climbed more than a dozen, although he could only remember climbing two, three at most), very much afraid now. It was too dark in here to see anything. He could hear his own breathing, he could hear the calliope tootling away somewhere above him (whats a calliope doing up there in the dark? whos playing it?) and he could hear those wet footsteps. Approaching him now. Getting closer. He hit the door with his hands splayed out in front of him, hit it hard enough to send sparkly tingles of pain all the way up to his elbows. It had swung so easily before ... and now it would not move at all. No ... that was not quite true. At first it had moved just a bit, just enough for him to see a mocking strip of gray light running vertically down its left side. Then gone again. As if someone was on the other side of it, holding the door closed. Panting, terrified, Stan pushed against the door with all of his strength. He could feel the brass bindings digging into his hands. Nothing. He whirled around, now pressing his back and his splayed hands against the door. He could feel sweat, oily and hot, running down his forehead. The calliope music had gotten louder yet. It drifted and echoed down the spiral staircase. There was nothing cheery about it now. It had changed. It had become a dirge. It screamed like wind and water, and in his minds eye Stan saw a county fair at the end of autumn, wind and rain blowing up a deserted midway, pennons flapping, tents bulging, falling over, wheeling away like canvas bats. He saw empty rides standing against the sky like scaffolds; the wind drummed and hooted in the weird angles of their struts. He suddenly understood that death was in this place with him, that death was coming for him out of the dark and he could not run. A sudden rush of water spilled down the stairs. Now it was not popcorn and doughboys and cotton candy he smelled but wet decay, the stench of dead pork which has exploded in a fury of maggots in a place hidden away from the sun. Whos here? he screamed in a high, trembling voice. He was answered by a low, bubbling voice that seemed choked with mud and old water. The dead ones, Stanley. Were the dead ones. We sank, but now we float ... and youll float, too. He could feel water washing around his feet. He cringed back against the door in an agony of fear. They were very close now. He could feel their nearness. He could smell them. Something was digging into his hip as he struck the door again and again in a mindless, useless effort to get away. Were dead, but sometimes we clown around a little, Stanley. Sometimes we It was his birdbook. Without thinking, Stan grabbed for it. It was stuck in his slicker pocket and wouldnt come out. One of them was down now; he could hear it shuffling across the little stone areaway where he had come in. It would reach for him in a moment, and he would feel its cold flesh. He gave one more tremendous yank, and the birdbook was in his hands. He held it in front of him like a puny shield, not thinking of what he was doing, but suddenly sure that this was right. Robins! he screamed into the darkness, and for a moment the thing approaching (it was surely less than five steps away now) hesitatedhe was almost sure it did. And for a moment hadnt he felt some give in the door against which he was now cringing? But he wasnt cringing anymore. He was standing up straight in the darkness. When had that happened? No time to wonder. Stan licked his dry lips and began to chant Robins! Gray egrets! Loons! Scarlet tanagers! Grackles! Hammerhead woodpeckers! Redheaded woodpeckers! Chickadees! Wrens! Peli The door opened with a protesting scream and Stan took a giant step backward into thin misty air. He fell sprawling on the dead grass. He had bent the birdbook nearly in half, and later that night he would see the clear impressions of his fingers sunken into its cover, as if it had been bound in PlayDoh instead of hard pressboard. He didnt try to get up but began to dig in with his heels instead, his butt grooving through the slick grass. His lips were pulled back over his teeth. Inside that dim oblong he could see two sets of legs below the diagonal shadowline thrown by the door, which now stood halfopen. He could see jeans that had decayed to a purplishblack. Orange threads lay plastered limply against the seams, and water dripped from the cuffs to puddle around shoes that had mostly rotted away, revealing swelled, purple toes within. Their hands lay limply at their sides, too long, too waxywhite. Depending from each finger was a small orange pompom. Holding his bent birdbook in front of him, his face wet with drizzle, sweat, and tears, Stan whispered in a husky monotone Chickenhawks ... grosbeaks ... hummingbirds ... albatrosses ... kiwis ... One of those hands turned over, showing a palm from which endless water had eroded all the lines, leaving something as idiotsmooth as the hand of a departmentstore dummy. One finger unrolled ... then rolled up again. The pompom bounced and dangled, dangled and bounced. It was beckoning him. Stan Uris, who would die in a bathtub with crosses slashed into his forearms twentyseven years later, got to his knees, then to his feet, then ran. He ran across Kansas Street without looking either way for traffic and paused, panting, on the far sidewalk, to look back. From this angle he couldnt see the door in the base of the Standpipe; only the Standpipe itself, thick and yet somehow graceful, standing in the murk. They were dead, Stan whispered to himself, shocked. He wheeled suddenly and ran for home. 11 The dryer had stopped. So had Stan. The three others only looked at him for a long moment. His skin was nearly as gray as the April evening of which he had just told them. Wow, Ben said at last. He let out his breath in a ragged, whistling sigh. Its true, Stan said in a low voice. I swear to God it is. I believe you, Beverly said. After what happened at my house, Id believe anything. She got up suddenly, almost knocking over her chair, and went to the dryer. She began to pull out the rags one by one, folding them. Her back was turned, but Ben suspected she was crying. He wanted to go to her and lacked the courage. We gotta talk to Bill about this, Eddie said. Bill will know what to do. Do? Stan said, turning to look at him. What do you mean, do? Eddie looked at him, uncomfortable. Well ... I dont want to do anything, Stan said. He was looking at Eddie with such a hard, fierce stare that Eddie squirmed in his chair. I want to forget about it. Thats all I want to do. Not that easy, Beverly said quietly, turning around. Ben had been right the hot sunlight slanting in through the Washaterias dirty windows reflected off bright lines of tears on her cheeks. Its not just us. I heard Ronnie Grogan. And the little boy I heard first ... I think maybe it was that little Clements kid. The one who disappeared off his trike. So what? Stan said defiantly. So what if it gets more? she asked. What if it gets more kids? His eyes, a hot brown, locked with her blue ones, answering the question without speaking So what if it does? But Beverly did not look down or away and at last Stan dropped his own eyes ... perhaps only because she was still crying, but perhaps because her concern somehow made her stronger. Eddies right, she said. We ought to talk to Bill. Then maybe to the Police Chief Right, Stan said. If he was trying to sound contemptuous, it didnt work. His voice came out sounding only tired. Dead kids in the Standpipe. Blood that only kids can see, not grownups. Clowns walking on the Canal. Balloons that blow against the wind. Mummies. Lepers under porches. Chief Bortonll laugh his bum off ... and then stick us in the loonybin. If we all went to him, Ben said, troubled. If we all went together . . . Sure, Stan said. Right. Tell me more, Haystack. Write me a book. He got up and went to the window, hands in pockets, looking angry and upset and scared. He stared out for a moment, shoulders stiff and rejecting beneath his neat shirt. Without turning back to them he repeated Write me a frigging book! No, Ben said quietly, Bills going to write the books. Stan wheeled back, surprised, and the others looked at him. There was a shocked look on Ben Hanscoms face, as if he had suddenly and unexpectedly slapped himself. Bev folded the last of the rags. Birds, Eddie said. What? Bev and Ben said together. Eddie was looking at Stan. You got out by yelling birds names at them? Maybe, Stan said reluctantly. Or maybe the door was just stuck and finally popped open. Without you leaning on it? Bev asked. Stan shrugged. It was not a sullen shrug; it only said he didnt know. I think it was the birds you shouted at them, Eddie said. But why? In the movies you hold up a cross . . . ... or say the Lords Prayer . . . Ben added. ... or the Twentythird Psalm, Beverly put in. I know the Twentythird Psalm, Stan said angrily, but I wouldnt do so good with the old crucifix business. Im Jewish, remember? They looked away from him, embarrassed, either for his having been born that way or for their having forgotten it. Birds, Eddie said again. Jesus! Then he glanced guiltily at Stan again, but Stan was looking moodily across the street at the Bangor Hydro office. Bill will know what to do, Ben said suddenly, as if finally agreeing with Bev and Eddie. Betcha anything. Betcha any amount of money. Look, Stan said, looking at all of them earnestly. Thats okay. We can talk to Bill about it if you want. But thats where things stop for me. You can call me a chicken, or yellow, I dont care. Im not a chicken, I dont think. Its just that those things in the Standpipe . . . If you werent afraid of something like that, youd have to be crazy, Stan, Beverly said softly. Yeah, I was scared, but thats not the problem, Stan said hotly. Its not even what Im talking about. Dont you see They were looking at him expectantly, their eyes both troubled and faintly hopeful, but Stan found he could not explain how he felt. The words had run out. There was a brick of feeling inside him, almost choking him, and he could not get it out of his throat. Neat as he was, sure as he was, he was still only an elevenyearold boy who had that year finished the fourth grade. He wanted to tell them that there were worse things than being frightened. You could be frightened by things like almost having a car hit you while you were riding your bike or, before the Salk vaccine, getting polio. You could be frightened of that crazyman Khrushchev or of drowning if you went out over your head. You could be frightened of all those things and still function. But those things in the Standpipe ... He wanted to tell them that those dead boys who had lurched and shambled their way down the spiral staircase had done something worse than frighten him they had offended him. Offended, yes. It was the only word he could think of, and if he used it they would laughthey liked him, he knew that, and they had accepted him as one of them, but they would still laugh. All the same, there were things that were not supposed to be. They offended any sane persons sense of order, they offended the central idea that God had given the earth a final tilt on its axis so that twilight would only last about twelve minutes at the equator and linger for an hour or more up where the Eskimos built their icecube houses, that He had done that and He then had said, in effect Okay, if you can figure out the tilt, you can figure out any damn thing you choose. Because even light has weight, and when the note of a trainwhistle suddenly drops its the Doppler effect and when an airplane breaks the sound barrier that bang isnt the applause of the angels or the flatulence of demons but only air collapsing back into place. I gave you the tilt and then I sat back about halfway up the auditorium to watch the show. I got nothing else to say, except that two and two makes four, the lights in the sky are stars, if theres blood grownups can see it as well as kids, and dead boys stay dead. You can live with fear, I think, Stan would have said if he could. Maybe not forever, but for a long, long time. Its offense you maybe cant live with, because it opens up a crack inside your thinking, and if you look down into it you see there are live things down there, and they have little yellow eyes that dont blink, and theres a stink down in that dark, and after awhile you think maybe theres a whole other universe down there, a universe where a square moon rises in the sky, and the stars laugh in cold voices, and some of the triangles have four sides, and some have five, and some of them have five raised to the fifth power of sides. In this universe there might grow roses which sing. Everything leads to everything, he would have told them if he could. Go to your church and listen to your stories about Jesus walking on the water, but if I saw a guy doing that Id scream and scream and scream. Because it wouldnt look like a miracle to me. It would look like an offense. Because he could say none of these things, he just reiterated Being scared isnt the problem. I just dont want to be involved in something that will land me in the nuthatch. Will you at least go with us to talk to him? Bev asked. Listen to what he says? Sure, Stan said, and then laughed. Maybe I ought to bring my birdbook. They all laughed then, and it was a little easier. 12 Beverly left them outside the KleenKloze and took the rags back home by herself. The apartment was still empty. She put them under the kitchen sink and closed the cupboard. She stood up and looked down toward the bathroom. Im not going down there, she thought. Im going to watch Bandstand on TV. See if I cant learn how to do the Dog. So she went into the living room and turned on the TV and five minutes later she turned it off while Dick Clark was showing how much oil just one StriDex medicated pad could take off the face of your average teenager (If you think you can get clean with just soap and water, Dick said, holding the dirty pad up to the glassy eye of the camera so that every teenager in America could get a good look, you ought to take a good look at this). She went back to the kitchen cupboard over the sink, where her father kept his tools. Among them was a pocket tape, the kind that runs out a long yellow tongue of inches. She folded this into one cold hand and went down to the bathroom. It was sparkling clean, silent. Somewhere, far distant, it seemed, she could hear Mrs. Doyon yelling for her boy Jim to get in out of the road, right now. She went to the bathroom basin and looked down into the dark eye of the drain. She stood there for some time, her legs as cold as marble inside her jeans, her nipples feeling sharp enough and hard enough to cut paper, her lips dead dry. She waited for the voices. No voices came. A little shuddery sigh came from her, and she began to feed the thin steel tape into the drain. It went down smoothlylike a sword into the gullet of a county fair sideshow performer. Six inches, eight inches, ten. It stopped, bound up in the elbowbend under the sink, Beverly supposed. She wiggled it, pushing gently at the same time, and eventually the tape began to feed into the drain again. Sixteen inches now, then two feet, then three. She watched the yellow tape slipping out of the chromedsteel case, which had been worn black on the sides by her fathers big hand. In her minds eye she saw it sliding through the black bore of the pipe, picking up some muck, scraping away flakes of rust. Down there where the sun never shines and the night never stops, she thought. She imagined the head of the tape, with its small steel buttplate no bigger than a fingernail, sliding farther and farther into the darkness, and part of her mind screamed What are you doing? She did not ignore that voice ... but she seemed helpless to heed it. She saw the end of the tape going straight down now, descending into the cellar. She saw it striking the sewage pipe . . . |
and even as she saw it, the tape bound up again. She wiggled it again, and the tape, thin enough to be limber, made a faint eerie sound that reminded her a little bit of the way a saw sounds when you bend it back and forth across your legs. She could see its tip wiggling against the bottom of this wider pipe, which would have a baked ceramic surface. She could see it bending ... and then she was able to push it forward again. She ran out six feet. Seven. Nine And suddenly the tape began to run through her hands by itself, as if something down there was pulling the other end. Not just pulling it running with it. She stared at the flowing tape, her eyes wide, her mouth a sagging O of fearfear, yes, but no surprise. Hadnt she known? Hadnt she known something like this was going to happen? The tape ran out to its final stop. Eighteen feet; an even six yards. A soft chuckle came wafting out of the drain, followed by a low whisper that was almost reproachful Beverly, Beverly, Beverly . . . you cant fight us . . . youll die if you try . . . die if you try . . . die if you try . . . Beverly . . . Beverly . . . Beverly. . . lylyly . . . Something clicked inside the tapemeasures housing, and it suddenly began to run rapidly back into its case, the numbers and hashmarks blurring by. Near the endthe last five or six feetthe yellow became a dark, dripping red and she screamed and dropped it on the floor as if the tape had suddenly turned into a live snake. Fresh blood trickled over the clean white porcelain of the basin and back down into the drains wide eye. She bent, sobbing now, her fear a freezing weight in her stomach, and picked the tape up. She tweezed it between the thumb and first finger of her right hand and, holding it in front of her, took it into the kitchen. As she walked, blood dripped from the tape onto the faded linoleum of the hall and the kitchen. She steadied herself by thinking of what her father would say to herwhat he would do to herif he found that she had gotten his measuring tape all bloody. Of course, he wouldnt be able to see the blood, but it helped to think that. She took one of the clean ragsstill as warm as fresh bread from the dryerand went back into the bathroom. Before she began to clean, she put the hard rubber plug in the drain, closing that eye. The blood was fresh, and it cleaned up easily. She went up her own trail, wiping away the dimesized drops on the linoleum, then rinsing the rag, wringing it out, and putting it aside. She got a second rag and used it to clean her fathers measuring tape. The blood was thick, viscous. In two places there were clots of the stuff, black and spongy. Although the blood only went back five or six feet, she cleaned the entire length of the tape, removing from it all traces of pipemuck. That done, she put it back into the cupboard over the sink and took the two stained rags out in back of the apartment. Mrs. Doyon was yelling at Jim again. Her voice was clear, almost belllike in the still hot late afternoon. In the back yard, which was mostly bare dirt, weeds, and clotheslines, there was a rusty incinerator. Beverly threw the rags into it, then sat down on the back steps. Tears came suddenly, with surprising violence, and this time she made no effort to hold them back. She put her arms on her knees, her head in her arms, and wept while Mrs. Doyon called for Jim to come out of that road, did he want to get hit by a car and be killed? DERRY THE SECOND INTERLUDE Quaeque ipsa miserrima vidi, Et quorum pars magna fui. Virgil You dont fuck around with the infinite. Mean Streets February 14th, 1985 Valentines Day Two more disappearances in the past weekboth children. Just as I was beginning to relax. One of them a sixteenyearold boy named Dennis Torrio, the other a girl of just five who was sledding in back of her house on West Broadway. The hysterical mother found her sled, one of those blue plastic flying saucers, but nothing else. There had been a fresh fall of snow the night beforefour inches or so. No tracks but hers, Chief Rademacher said when I called him. He is becoming extremely annoyed with me, I think. Not anything thats going to keep me awake nights; I have worse things to do than that, dont I? Asked him if I could see the police photos. He refused. Asked him if her tracks led away toward any sort of drain or sewer grating. This was followed by a long period of silence. Then Rademacher said, Im beginning to wonder if maybe you shouldnt see a doctor, Hanlon. The headpeeper kind of doctor. The kid was snatched by her father. Dont you read the papers? Was the Torrio boy snatched by his father? I asked. Another long pause. Give it a rest, Hanlon, he said. Give me a rest. He hung up. Of course I read the papersdont I put them out in the Reading Room of the Public Library each morning myself? The little girl, Laurie Ann Winterbarger, had been in the custody of her mother following an acrimonious divorce proceeding in the spring of 1982. The police are operating on the theory that Horst Winterbarger, who is supposedly working as a machinery maintenance man somewhere in Florida, drove up to Maine to snatch his daughter. They further theorize that he parked his car beside the house and called to his daughter, who then joined himhence the lack of any tracks other than the little girls. They have less to say about the fact that the girl had not seen her father since she was two. Part of the deep bitterness which accompanied the Winterbargers divorce came from Mrs. Winterbargers allegations that on at least two occasions Horst Winterbarger had sexually molested the child. She asked the court to deny Winterbarger all visitation rights, a request the court granted in spite of Winterbargers hot denials. Rademacher claims the courts decision, which had the effect of cutting Winterbarger off completely from his only child, may have pushed Winterbarger into taking his daughter. That at least has some dim plausibility, but ask yourself this would little Laurie Ann have recognized him after three years and run to him when he called her? Rademacher says yes, even though she was two the last time she saw him. I dont think so. And her mother says Laurie Ann had been well trained about not approaching or talking to strangers, a lesson most Derry children learn early and well. Rademacher says hes got Florida State Police looking for Winterbarger and that his responsibility ends there. Matters of custody are more the province of the lawyers than that of the police, this pompous, overweight asshole is quoted as saying in last Fridays Derry News. But the Torrio boy... thats something else. Wonderful home life. Played football for the Derry Tigers. Honor Roll student. Had gone through the Outward Bound Survival School in the summer of 84 and passed with flying colors. No history of drug use. Had a girlfriend that he was apparently headoverheels about. Had everything to live for. Everything to stay in Derry for, at least for the next couple of years. All the same, hes gone. What happened to him? A sudden attack of wanderlust? A drunk driver who maybe hit him, killed him, and buried him? Or is he maybe still in Derry, is he maybe on the nightside of Derry, keeping company with folks like Betty Ripsom and Patrick Hockstetter and Eddie Corcoran and all the rest? Is it (later) Im doing it again. Going over and over the same ground, doing nothing constructive, only cranking myself up to the screaming point. I jump when the iron stairs leading up to the stacks creak. I jump at shadows. I find myself wondering how Id react if I was shelving books up there in the stacks, pushing my little rubberwheeled trolley in front of me, and a hand reached from between two leaning rows of books, a groping hand.... Had again a wellnigh insurmountable desire to begin calling them this afternoon. At one point I even got as far as dialing 404, the Atlanta area code, with Stanley Uriss number in front of me. Then I just held the phone against my ear, asking myself if I wanted to call them because I was really sureone hundred percent sureor simply because Im now so badly spooked that I cant stand to be alone; that I have to talk to someone who knows (or will know) what it is I am spooked about. For a moment I could hear Richie saying Batches? BATCHES? We doan need no stinkin batches, senhorr! in his Pancho Vanilla Voice, as clearly as if he were standing beside me ... and I hung up the phone. Because when you want to see someone as badly as I wanted to see Richieor any of themat that moment, you just cant trust your own motivations. We lie best when we lie to ourselves. The fact is, Im still not one hundred percent sure. If another body should turn up, I will call... but for now I must suppose that even such a pompous ass as Rademacher may be right. She could have remembered her father; there may have been pictures of him. And I suppose a really persuasive adult could talk a kid into coming to his car, no matter what that child had been taught. Theres another fear that haunts me. Rademacher suggested that I might be going crazy. I dont believe that, but if I call them now, they may think Im crazy. Worse than that, what if they should not remember me at all? Mike Hanlon? Who? I dont remember any Mike Hanlon. I dont remember you at all. What promise? I feel that there will come a right time to call them... and when that time comes, Ill know that its right. Their own circuits will open at the same time. Its as if there are two great wheels slowly coming into some sort of powerful convergence with each other, myself and the rest of Derry on one, and all my childhood friends on the other. When the time comes, they will hear the voice of the Turtle. So Ill wait, and sooner or later Ill know. I dont believe its a question anymore of calling them or not calling them. Only a question of when. February 20th, 1985 The fire at the Black Spot. A perfect example of how the Chamber of Commerce will try to rewrite history, Mike, old Albert Carson would have told me, probably cackling as he said it. Theyll try, and sometimes they almost succeed... but the old people remember how things really went. They always remember. And sometimes theyll tell you, if you ask them right. There are people who have lived in Derry for twenty years and dont know that there was once a special barracks for noncoms at the old Derry Army Air Corps Base, a barracks that was a good half a mile from the rest of the baseand in the middle of February, with the temperature standing right around zero and a fortymileanhour wind howling across those flat runways and whopping the windchill factor down to something you could hardly believe, that extra half a mile became something that could give you frostfreeze or frostbite, or maybe even kill you. The other seven barracks had oil heat, storm windows, and insulation. They were toasty and cozy. The special barracks, which housed the twentyseven men of Company E, was heated by a balky old wood furnace. Supplies of wood for it were catchascatchcan. The only insulation was the deep bank of pine and spruce boughs the men laid around the outside. One of the men promoted a complete set of storm windows for the place one day, but the twentyseven inmates of the special barracks were detailed up to Bangor that same day to help with some work at the base up there, and when they came back that night, tired and cold, all of those windows had been broken. Every one. This was in 1930, when half of Americas air force still consisted of biplanes. In Washington, Billy Mitchell had been courtmartialed and demoted to flying a desk because his gadfly insistence on trying to build a more modern air force had finally irritated his elders enough for them to slap him down hard. Not long after, he would resign. So there was precious little flying that went on at the Derry base, in spite of its three runways (one of which was actually paved). Most of the soldiering that went on there was of the makework variety. One of the Company E soldiers who returned to Derry after his service tour came to an end in 1937 was my dad. He told me this story One day in the spring of 1930this was about six months before the fire at the Black SpotI was coming back with four of my buddies from a threeday pass we had spent down in Boston. When we come through the gate there was this big old boy standing just inside the checkpoint, leaning on a shovel and picking the seat of his suntans out of his ass. A sergeant from someplace down south. Carrotyred hair. Bad teeth. Pimples. Not much more than an ape without the body hair, if you know what I mean. There were a lot of them like that in the army during the Depression. So here we come, four young guys back from leave, all of us still feeling fine, and we could see in his eyes that he was just looking for something to bust us with. So we snapped him salutes as if he was General Black Jack Pershing himself. I guess we might have been all right, but it was one fine lateApril day, sun shining down, and I had to shoot off my lip. A good afternoon to you, Sergeant Wilson, sir, said I, and he landed on me with both feet. Did I give you any permission to speak to me? he asks. Nawsir, I say. He looks around at the rest of themTrevor Dawson, Carl Roone, and Henry Whitsun, who was killed in the fire that falland he says to them, This here smart nigger is in hack with me. If the rest of you jigaboos dont want to join him in one hardworking dirty bitch of an afternoon, you get over to your barracks, stow your gear, and get your asses over to the O.D. You understand? Well, they got going, and Wilson hollers, Doubletime, you fuckers! Lemme see the soles of your eightyfuckingnines! So they doubletimed off, and Wilson took me over to one of the equipment sheds and he got me a spade. He took me out into the big field that used to be just about where the Northeast Airlines Airbus terminal stands today. And he looks at me, kind of grinning, and he points at the ground and he says, You see that hole there, nigger? There was no hole there, but I figured it was best for me to agree with whatever he said, so I looked down at the ground where he was pointing and said I sure did see it. So then he busted me one in the nose and knocked me over and there I was on the ground with blood running down over the last fresh shirt I had. You dont see it because some bigmouth jig bastard filled it up! he shouted at me, and he had two big blotches of color on his cheeks. But he was grinning, too, and you could tell he was enjoying himself. So what you do, Mr. A Good Afternoon To You, what you do is you get the dirt out of my hole. Doubletime! So I dug for most two hours, and pretty soon I was in that hole up to my chin. The last couple of feet was clay, and by the time I finished I was standing in water up to my ankles and my shoes were soaked right through. Get out of there, Hanlon, Sergeant Wilson said. He was sitting there on the grass, smoking a cigarette. He didnt offer me any help. I was dirt and muck from top to bottom, not to mention the blood drying on the blouse of my suntans. He stood up and walked over. He pointed at the hole. What do you see there, nigger? he asked me. Your hole, Sergeant Wilson, says I. Yeah, well, I decided I dont want it, he says. I dont want no hole dug by a nigger. Put my dirt back in, Private Hanlon. So I filled it back in and by the time I was done the sun was going down and it was getting cold. He comes over and looks at it after I finished patting down the last of the dirt with the flat of the spade. Now what do you see there, nigger? he asks. Bunch of dirt, sir, I said, and he hit me again. My God, Mikey, I came this close to just bouncing up offn the ground and splitting his head open with the edge of that shovel. But if Id done that, I never would have looked at the sky again, except through a set of bars. Still, there were times when I almost think it would have been worth it. I managed to hold my peace somehow, though. That aint a bunch of dirt, you stupid coontail nightfighter! he screams at me, the spit flying offn his lips. Thats MY HOLE, and you best get the dirt out of it right now! Doubletime! So I dug the dirt out of his hole and then I filled it in again, and then he asks me why I went and filled in his hole just when he was getting ready to take a crap in it. So I dug it out again and he drops his pants and hangs his skinnyshanks cracker redneck ass over the hole and he grins up at me while hes doing his business and says, How you doin, Hanlon? I am doing just fine, sir, I says right back, because I had decided I wasnt going to give up until I fell unconscious or dropped dead. I had my dander up. Well, I aim to fix that, he says. To start with, you better just fill that hole in, Private Hanlon. And I want to see some life. Youre slowin down. So I got her filled in again and I could see by the way he was grinning that he was only warming up. But just then this friend of his came humping across the field with a gas lantern and told him thered been a surprise inspection and Wilson was in hack for having missed it. My friends covered for me and I was okay, but Wilsons friendsif thats what he called themcouldnt be bothered. He let me go then, and I waited to see if his name would go up on the Punishment Roster the next day, but it never did. I guess he must have just told the Loot he missed the inspection because he was teaching a smartmouth nigger who it was owned all the holes at the Derry basethose that had already been dug and those that hadnt been. They probably gave him a medal instead of potatoes to peel. And thats how things were for Company E here in Derry. It was right around 1958 that my father told me the story, and I guess he was pushing fifty, although my mother was only forty or so. I asked him if that was the way Derry was, why had he come back? Well, I was only sixteen when I joined the army, Mikey, he said. Lied about my age to get in. Wasnt my idea, either. My mother told me to do it. I was big, and thats the only reason the lie stuck, I guess. I was born and grew up in Burgaw, North Carolina, and the only time we saw meat was right after the tobacco was in, or sometimes in the winter if my father shot a coon or a possum. The only good thing I remember about Burgaw is possum pie with hoecakes spread around her just as pretty as you could want. So when my dad died in an accident with some farm machinery, my ma said she was going to take Philly Loubird up to Corinth, where she had people. Philly Loubird was the baby of the family. You mean my Uncle Phil? I asked, smiling to think of anybody calling him Philly Loubird. He was a lawyer in Tucson, Arizona, and had been on the City Council there for six years. When I was a kid, I thought Uncle Phil was rich. For a black man in 1958, I suppose he was. He made twenty thousand dollars a year. Thats who I mean, my dad said. But in those days he was just a twelveyearold kid who wore a ricepaper sailor hat and mended biballs and had no shoes. He was the youngest, I was the second youngest. All the others were gonetwo dead, two married, one in jail. That was Howard. He never was any good. You are goan join the army, your gramma Shirley told me. I dunno if they start paying you right away or not, but once they do, youre goan send me a lotment every month. I hate to send you away, son, but if you dont take care of me and Philly, I dont know whats going to become of us. She gave me my birth certificate to show the recruiter and I seen she fixed the year on it somehow to make me eighteen. So I went to the courthouse where the army recruiter was and asked about joining up. He showed me the papers and the line where I could make my mark. I kin write my name, I said, and he laughed like he didnt believe me. Well then, you go on and write it, black boy, he says. Hang on a minute, I says back. I want to ast you a couple of questions. Fire away then, he says. I can answer anything you can ask. Do they have meat twice a week in the army? I asked. My mamma says they do, but she is powerful set on me joining up. No, they dont have it twice a week, he says. Well, thats about what I thought, I says, thinking that the man surely does seem like a booger but at least hes an honest booger. Then he says, They got it ever night, making me wonder how I ever could have thought he was honest. You must think Im a pured fool, I says. You got that right, nigger, he says. Well, if I join up, I got to do something for my mamma and Philly Loubird, I says. Mamma says its a lotment. Thats this here, he says, and taps the allotment form. Now what else is on your mind? Well, says I, what about trainin to be an officer? He threw his head back when I said that and laughed until I thought he was gonna choke on his own spit. Then he says, Son, the day they got nigger officers in this mans army will be the day you see the bleedin Jesus Christ doing the Charleston at Birdland. Now you sign or you dont sign. Im out of patience. Also, youre stinkin the place up. So I signed, and watched him staple the allotment form to my mustersheet, and then he give me the oath, and then I was a soldier. I was thinking that theyd send me up to New Jersey, where the army was building bridges on account of there being no wars to fight. Instead, I got Derry, Maine, and Company E. He sighed and shifted in his chair, a big man with white hair that curled close to his skull. At that time we had one of the bigger farms in Derry, and probably the best roadside produce stand south of Bangor. The three of us worked hard, and my father had to hire on extra help during harvesting time, and we made out. He said I came back because Id seen the South and Id seen the North, and there was the same hate in both places. It wasnt Sergeant Wilson that convinced me of that. He was nothing but a Georgia cracker, and he took the South with him wherever he went. He didnt have to be south of the MasonDixon line to hate niggers. He just did. No, it was the fire at the Black Spot that convinced me of that. You know, Mikey, in a way . . . He glanced over at my mother, who was knitting. She hadnt looked up, but I knew she was listening closely, and my father knew it too, I think. In a way it was the fire made me a man. There was sixty people killed in that fire, eighteen of them from Company E. There really wasnt any company left when that fire was over. Henry Whitsun... Stork Anson... Alan Snopes ... Everett McCaslin... Horton Sartoris ... all my friends, all dead in that fire. And that fire wasnt set by old Sarge Wilson and his gritsandcornpone friends. It was set by the Derry branch of the Maine Legion of White Decency. Some of the kids you go to school with, son, their fathers struck the matches that lit the Black Spot on fire. And Im not talking about the poor kids, neither. Why, Daddy? Why did they? Well, part of it was just Derry, my father said, frowning. He lit his pipe slowly and shook out the wooden match. I dont know why it happened here; I cant explain it, but at the same time I aint surprised by it. The Legion of White Decency was the Northerners version of the Ku Klux Klan, you see. They marched in the same white sheets, they burned the same crosses, they wrote the same hatenotes to black folks they felt were getting above their station or taking jobs that were meant for white men. In churches where the preachers talked about black equality, they sometimes planted charges of dynamite. Most of the history books talk more about the KKK than they do about the Legion of White Decency, and a lot of people dont even know there was such a thing. I think it might be because most of the histories have been written by Northerners and theyre ashamed. It was most poplar in the big cities and the manufacturin areas. New York, New Jersey, Detroit, Baltimore, Boston, Portsmouththey all had their chapters. They tried to organize in Maine, but Derry was the only place they had any real success. Oh, for awhile there was a pretty good chapter in Lewistonthis was around the same time as the fire at the Black Spotbut they werent worried about niggers raping white women or taking jobs that should have belonged to white men, because there werent any niggers to speak of up here. In Lewiston they were worried about tramps and hobos and that something called the bonus army would join up with something they called the Communist riffraff army, by which they meant any man who was out of work. The Legion of Decency used to send these fellows out of town just as fast as they came in. Sometimes they stuffed poison ivy down the backs of their pants. Sometimes they set their shirts on fire. Well, the Legion was pretty much done up here after the fire at the Black Spot. Things got out of hand, you see. The way things seem to do in this town, sometimes. He paused, puffing. Its like the Legion of White Decency was just another seed, Mikey, and it found some earth that nourished it well here. It was a regular richmans club. And after the fire, they all just laid away their sheets and lied each other up and it was papered over. Now there was a kind of vicious contempt in his voice that made my mother look up, frowning. After all, who got killed? Eighteen army niggers, fourteen or fifteen town niggers, four members of a nigger jazzband... and a bunch of niggerlovers. What did it matter? Will, my mother said softly. Thats enough. No, I said. I want to hear! Its getting to be your bedtime, Mikey, he said, ruffling my hair with his big, hard hand. I just want to tell you one thing more, and I dont think youll understand it, because Im not sure I understand it myself. What happened that night at the Black Spot, bad as it was... I dont really think it happened because we was black. Not even because the Spot was close behind West Broadway, where the rich whites in Derry lived then and still live today. I dont think that the Legion of White Decency happened to get along so well here because they hated black people and bums more in Derry than they did in Portland or Lewiston or Brunswick. Its because of that soil. It seems that bad things, hurtful things, do right well in the soil of this town. Ive thought so again and again over the years. I dont know why it should be ... but it is. But there are good folks here too, and there were good folks here then. When the funerals were held afterward, thousands of people turned out, and they turned out for the blacks as well as the whites. Businesses closed up for most of a week. The hospitals treated the hurt ones free of charge. There were food baskets and letters of condolence that were honestly meant. And there were helping hands held out. I met my friend Dewey Conroy during that time, and you know hes just as white as vanilla ice cream, but I feel like hes my brother. Id die for Dewey if he asked me to, and although no man really knows another mans heart, I think hed die for me if it came to that. Anyway, the army sent away those of us that were left after that fire, like they were ashamed... and I guess they were. I ended up down at Fort Hood, and I stayed there for six years. I met your mother there, and we were married in Galveston, at her folks house. But all through the years between, Derry never escaped my mind. And after the war, I brought your mom back here. And we had you. And here we are, not three miles from where the Black Spot stood in 1930. And I think its your bedtime, Mr. Man. I want to hear about the fire! I yelled. Tell me about it, Daddy! And he looked at me in that frowning way that always shut me up ... maybe because he didnt look that way often. Mostly he was a smiling man. Thats no story for a boy, he said. Another time, Mikey. When weve both walked around a few more years. As it turned out, we both walked around another four years before I heard the story of what happened at the Black Spot that night, and by then my fathers walking days were all done. He told me from the hospital bed where he lay, full of dope, dozing in and out of reality as the cancer worked away inside of his intestines, eating him up. February 26th, 1985 I got reading over what I had written last in this notebook and surprised myself by bursting into tears over my father, who has now been dead for twentythree years. I can remember my grief for himit lasted for almost two years. Then when I graduated from high school in 1965 and my mother looked at me and said, How proud your father would have been! we cried in each others arms and I thought that was the end, that we had finished the job of burying him with those late tears. But who knows how long a grief may last? Isnt it possible that, even thirty or forty years after the death of a child or a brother or a sister, one may halfwaken, thinking of that person with that same lost emptiness, that feeling of places which may never be filled ...perhaps not even in death? He left the army in 1937 with a disability pension. By that year, my fathers army had become a good deal more warlike; anyone with half an eye, he told me once, could see by then that soon all the guns would be coming out of storage again. He had risen to the rank of sergeant in the interim, and he had lost most of his left foot when a new recruit who was so scared he was almost shitting peachpits pulled the pin on a hand grenade and then dropped it instead of throwing it. It rolled over to my father and exploded with a sound that was, he said, like a cough in the middle of the night. A lot of the ordnance those longago soldiers had to train with was either defective or had sat so long in almost forgotten supply depots that it was impotent. They had bullets that wouldnt fire and rifles that sometimes exploded in their hands when the bullets did fire. The navy had torpedoes that usually didnt go where they were aimed and didnt explode when they did. The Army Air Corps and the Navy Air Arm had planes whose wings fell off if they landed hard, and at Pensacola in 1939, I have read, a supply officer discovered a whole fleet of government trucks that wouldnt run because cockroaches had eaten the rubber hoses and the fanbelts. So my fathers life was saved (including, of course, the part of him that became Your Obdt Servant Michael Hanlon) by a combination of bureaucratic porkbarrelling folderol and defective equipment. The grenade only halfexploded and he just lost part of one foot instead of everything from the breastbone on down. Because of the disability money he was able to marry my mother a year earlier than he had planned. They didnt come to Derry at once; they moved to Houston, where they did war work until 1945. My father was a foreman in a factory that made bombcasings. My mother was a Rosie the Riveter. But as he told me that night when I was eleven, the thought of Derry never escaped his mind. And now I wonder if that blind thing might not have been at work even then, drawing him back so I could take my place in that circle in the Barrens that August evening. If the wheels of the universe are in true, then good always compensates for evilbut good can be awful as well. My father had a subscription to the Derry News. He kept his eye on the ads announcing land for sale. They had saved up a good bit of money. At last he saw a farm for sale that looked like a good proposition... on paper, at least. The two of them rode up from Texas on a Trailways bus, looked at it, and bought it the same day. The First Merchants of Penobscot County issued my father a tenyear mortgage, and they settled down. We had some problems at first, my father said another time. There were people who didnt want Negroes in the neighborhood. We knew it was going to be that wayI hadnt forgotten about the Black Spotand we just hunkered down to wait it out. Kids would go by and throw rocks or beer cans. I must have replaced twenty windows that first year. And some of them werent just kids, either. |
One day when we got up, there was a swastika painted on the side of the chickenhouse and all the chickens were dead. Someone had poisoned their feed. Those were the last chickens I ever tried to keep. But the County Sheriffthere wasnt any police chief in those days, Derry wasnt quite big enough for such a thinggot to work on the matter and he worked hard. Thats what I mean, Mikey, when I say there is good here as well as bad. It didnt make any difference to that man Sullivan that my skin was brown and my hair was kinky. He come out half a dozen times, he talked to people, and finally he found out who done it. And who do you think it was? Ill give you three guesses, and the first two dont count! I dont know, I said. My father laughed until tears spouted out of his eyes. He took a big white handkerchief out of his pocket and wiped them away. Why, it was Butch Bowers, thats who! The father of the kid you say is the biggest bully at your school. The fathers a turd and the sons a little fart. There are kids at school who say Henrys father is crazy, I told him. I think I was in the fourth grade at that timefar enough along to have had my can righteously kicked by Henry Bowers more than once, anyway... and now that I think about it, most of the pejorative terms for black or Negro Ive ever heard, I heard first from the lips of Henry Bowers, between grades one and four. Well, Ill tell you, he said, the idea that Butch Bowers is crazy might not be far wrong. People said he was never right after he come back from the Pacific. He was in the Marines over there. Anyway, the Sheriff took him into custody and Butch was hollering that it was a putup job and they were all just a bunch of niggerlovers. Oh, he was gonna sue everybody. I guess he had a list that would have stretched from here to Witcham Street. I doubt if he had a single pair of underdrawers that was whole in the seat, but he was going to sue me, Sheriff Sullivan, the Town of Derry, the County of Penobscot, and God alone knows who else. As to what happened next... well, I cant swear its true, but this is how I heard it from Dewey Conroy. Dewey said the Sheriff went in to see Butch at the jail up in Bangor. And Sheriff Sullivan says, Its time for you to shut your mouth and do some listening, Butch. That black guy, he dont want to press charges. He dont want to send you to Shawshank, he just wants the worth of his chickens. He figures two hundred dollars would do her. Butch tells the Sheriff he can put his two hundred dollars where the sun dont shine, and Sheriff Sullivan, he tells Butch They got a lime pit down at the Shank, Butch, and they tell me after youve been workin there about two years, your tongue goes as green as a lime Popsicle. Now you pick. Two years peelin lime or two hundred dollars. What do you think? No jury in Maine will convict me, Butch says, not for killing a niggers chickens. I know that, Sullivan says. Then what the Christ are we chinnin about? Butch asks him. You better wake up, Butch. They wont put you away for the chickens, but they will put you away for the swastiker you painted on the door after you killed em. Well, Dewey said Butchs mouth just kind of dropped open, and Sullivan went away to let him think about it. About three days later Butch told his brother, the one that froze to death couple of years after while out hunting drunk, to sell his new Mercury, which Butch had bought with his musterout pay and was mighty sweet on. So I got my two hundred dollars and Butch swore he was going to burn me out. He went around telling all his friends that. So I caught up with him one afternoon. Hed bought an old prewar Ford to replace the Merc, and I had my pickup. I cut him off out on Witcham Street by the trainyards and got out with my Winchester rifle. Any fires out my way and you got one bad black man gunning for you, old hoss, I told him. You cant talk to me that way, nigger, he said, and he was damn near to blubbering between bein mad and bein scared. You cant talk to no white man that way, not a jig like you. Well, Id had enough of the whole thing, Mikey. And I knew if I didnt scare him off for good right then Id never be shed of him. There wasnt nobody around. I reached in that Ford with one hand and caught him by the hair of the head. I put the stock of my rifle against the buckle of my belt and got the muzzle right up under his chin. I said, The next time you call me a nigger or a jig, your brains are going to be dripping off the domelight of your car. And you believe me, Butch any fires out my way and Im gunning for you. I may come gunning for your wife and your brat and your nocount brother as well. I have had enough. Then he did start to cry, and I never saw an uglier sight in my life. Look what things has come to here, he says, when a nih ... when a jih ... when a feller can put a gun to a workingmans head in broad daylight by the side of the road. Yeah, the world must be going to a campmeeting hell when something like that can happen, I agreed. But that dont matter now. All that matters now is, do we have an understanding here or do you want to see if you can learn how to breathe through your forehead? He allowed as how we had an understanding, and that was the last bit of trouble I ever had with Butch Bowers, except for maybe when your dog Mr. Chips died, and Ive got no proof that was Bowerss doing. Chippy might have just got a poison bait or something. Since that day weve been pretty much left alone to make our way, and when I look back on it, there aint much I regret. Weve had a good life here, and if there are nights when I dream about that fire, well, there isnt nobody that can live a natural life without having a few bad dreams. February 28th, 1985 Its been days since I sat down to write the story of the fire at the Black Spot as my father told it to me, and I havent gotten to it yet. Its in The Lord of the Rings, I think, where one of the characters says that way leads on to way; that you could start at a path leading nowhere more fantastic than from your own front steps to the sidewalk, and from there you could go ... well, anywhere at all. Its the same way with stories. One leads to the next, to the next, and to the next; maybe they go in the direction you wanted to go, but maybe they dont. Maybe in the end its the voice that tells the stories more than the stories themselves that matters. Its his voice that I remember, certainly my fathers voice, low and slow, how he would chuckle sometimes or laugh outright. The pauses to light his pipe or to blow his nose or to go and get a can of Narragansett (Nasty Gansett, he called it) from the icebox. That voice, which is for me somehow the voice of all voices, the voice of all years, the ultimate voice of this placeone thats in none of the Ives interviews nor in any of the poor histories of this place... nor on any of my own tapes. My fathers voice. Now its ten oclock, the library closed an hour ago, and a proper old jeezer is starting to crank up outside. I can hear tiny spicules of sleet striking the windows in here and in the glassedin corridor which leads to the Childrens Library. I can hear other sounds, toostealthy creaks and bumps outside the circle of light where I sit, writing on the lined yellow pages of a legal pad. Just the sounds of an old building settling, I tell myself... but I wonder. As I wonder if somewhere out in this storm there is a clown selling balloons tonight. Well . . . never mind. I think Ive finally found my way to my fathers final story. I heard it in his hospital room no more than six weeks before he died. I went to see him with my mother every afternoon after school, and alone every evening. My mother had to stay home and do the chores then, but she insisted that I go. I rode my bike. She wouldnt let me hook rides, not even four years after the murders had ended. That was a hard six weeks for a boy who was only fifteen. I loved my father, but I came to hate those evening visitswatching him shrink and shrivel, watching the painlines spread and deepen on his face. Sometimes he would cry, although he tried not to. And going home it would be getting dark and I would think back to the summer of 58, and Id be afraid to look behind me because the clown might be there... or the werewolf... or Bens mummy... or my bird. But I was mostly afraid that no matter what shape It took, It would have my fathers cancerraddled face. So I would pedal as fast as I could no matter how hard my heart thundered in my chest and come in flushed and sweatyhaired and out of breath and my mother would say, Why do you want to ride so fast, Mikey? Youll make yourself sick. And Id say, I wanted to get back in time to help you with the chores, and shed give me a hug and a kiss and tell me I was a good boy. As time went on, it got so I could hardly think of things to talk about with him anymore. Riding into town, Id rack my brain for subjects of conversation, dreading the moment when both of us would run out of things to say. His dying scared me and enraged me, but it embarrassed me, too; it seemed to me then and it seems to me now that when a man or woman goes it should be a quick thing. The cancer was doing more than killing him. It was degrading him, demeaning him. We never spoke of the cancer, and in some of those silences I thought that we must speak of it, that there would be nothing else and we would be stuck with it like kids caught without a place to sit in a game of musical chairs when the piano stops, and I would become almost frantic, trying to think of somethinganything!to say so that we would not have to acknowledge the thing which was now destroying my daddy, who had once taken Butch Bowers by the hair and jammed his rifle into the shelf of his chin and demanded of Butch to be left alone. We would be forced to speak of it, and if we were I would cry. I wouldnt be able to help it. And at fifteen, I think the thought of crying in front of my father scared and distressed me more than anything else. It was during one of those interminable, scary pauses that I asked him again about the fire at the Black Spot. Theyd filled him full of dope that evening because the pain was very bad, and he had been drifting in and out of consciousness, sometimes speaking clearly, sometimes speaking in that exotic language I think of as Sleepmud. Sometimes I knew he was talking to me, but at other times he seemed to have me confused with his brother Phil. I asked him about the Black Spot for no real reason; it had just jumped into my mind and I seized on it. His eyes sharpened and he smiled a little. You aint never forgot that, have you, Mikey? No, sir, I said, and although I hadnt thought about it in three years or better, I added what he sometimes said It hasnt ever escaped my mind. Well, Ill tell you now, he said. Fifteen is old enough, I guess, and your mother aint here to stop me. Besides, you ought to know. I think something like it could only have happened in Derry, and you need to know that, too. So you can beware. The conditions for such things have always seemed right here. Youre careful, arent you, Mikey? Yes, sir, I said. Good, he said, and his head dropped back on his pillow. Thats good. I thought he was going to drift off againhis eyes had slipped closedbut instead he began to talk. When I was at the army base here in 29 and 30, he said, there was an NCO Club up there on the hill, where Derry Community College is now. It was right behind the PX, where you used to be able to get a pack of Lucky Strike Greens for seven cents. The NCO Club was only a big old quonset hut, but they had fixed it up nice insidecarpet on the floor, booths along the walls, a jukeboxand you could get soft drinks on the weekend... if you were white, that was. They would have bands in most Saturday nights, and it was quite a place to go. It was just pop over the bar, it being Prohibition, but we heard you could get stronger stuff if you wanted it ... and if you had a little green star on your army card. That was like a secret sign they had. Homebrew beer mostly, but on weekends you could sometimes get stronger stuff. If you were white. Us Company E boys werent allowed any place near it, of course. So we went on the town if we had a pass in the evening. In those days Derry was still something of a logging town and there were eight or ten bars, most of em down in a part of town they called Hells HalfAcre. They wasnt speakeasies; that was too grand a name for em. Wasnt anybody in em spoke very easy, anyhow. They was what folks called blind pigs, and that was about right, because most of the customers acted like pigs when they were in there and they was about blind when they turned em out. The Sheriff knew and the cops knew, but those places roared all night long, same as theyd done since the logging days in the 1890s. I suppose palms got greased, but maybe not as many or with so much as you might think; in Derry people have a way of looking the other way. Some served hard stuff as well as beer, and by all accounts I ever heard, the stuff you could get in town was ten times as good as the rotgut whiskey and bathtub gin you could get at the white boys NCO on Friday and Saturday nights. The downtown hooch came over the border from Canada in pulp trucks, and most of them bottles had what the labels said. The good stuff was expensive, but there was plenty of furnaceoil too, and it might hang you over but it didnt kill you, and if you did go blind, it didnt last. On any given night youd have to duck your head when the bottles came flying by. There was Nans, the Paradise, Wallys Spa, the Silver Dollar, and one bar, the Powderhorn, where you could sometimes get a whore. Oh, you could pick up a woman at any pig, you didnt even have to work at it that hardthere was a lot of them wanted to find out if a slice offn the rye loaf was any differentbut to kids like me and Trevor Dawson and Carl Roone, my friends in those days, the thought of buying a whorea white whorethat was something you had to sit down and consider. As Ive told you, he was heavily doped that night. I dont believe he would have said any of that stuffnot to his fifteenyearold sonif he had not been. Well, it wasnt very long before a representative of the Town Council showed up, wanting to see Major Fuller. He said he wanted to talk about some problems between the townspeople and the enlisted men and concerns of the electorate and questions of propriety, but what he really wanted Fuller to know was as clear as a windowpane. They didnt want no army niggers in their pigs, botherin white women and drinkin illegal hooch at a bar where only white men was supposed to be standin and drinkin illegal hooch. All of which was a laugh, all right. The flower of white womanhood they were so worried about was mostly a bunch of barbags, and as far as getting in the way of the men . . . ! Well, all I can say is that I never saw a member of the Derry Town Council down in the Silver Dollar, or in the Powderhorn. The men who drank in those dives were pulpcutters in those big redandblackchecked lumbermans jackets, scars and scabs all over their hands, some of em missing eyes or fingers, all of em missing most of their teeth, all of em smellin like woodchips and sawdust and sap. They wore green flannel pants and green gumrubber boots and tracked snow across the floor until it was black with it. They smelled big, Mikey, and they walked big, and they talked big. They were big. I was in Wallys Spa one night when I saw a fella split his shirt right down one arm while he was armrassling this other fella. It didnt just ripyou probably think thats what I mean, but it aint. Arm of that mans shirt damn near explodedsort of blew off his arm, in rags. And everybody cheered and applauded and somebody slapped me on the back and said, Thats what you call an armrasslers fart, blackface. What Im telling you is that if the men who used those blind pigs on Friday and Saturday nights when they come out of the woods to drink whiskey and fuck women instead of knotholes greased up with lard, if those men hadnt wanted us there, they would have thrown us out on our asses. But the fact of it was, Mikey, they didnt seem to give much of a toot one way or the other. One of em took me aside one nighthe was six foot, which was damn big for those days, and he was dead drunk, and he smelled as high as a basket of monthold peaches. If hed stepped out of his clothes, I think they would have stood up alone. He looks at me and says, Mister, I gonna ast you sumpin, me. Are you be a Negro? Thats right, I says. Commen a va! he says in the Saint John Valley French that sounds almost like Cajun talk, and grins so big I saw all four of his teeth. I knew you was, me! Hey! I seen one in a book once! Had the same and he couldnt think how to say what was on his mind, so he reaches out and flaps at my mouth. Big lips, I says. Yeah, yeah! he says, laughin like a kid. Beeg leeps! pais lvres! Beeg leeps! Gonna buy you a beer, me! Buy away, I says, not wanting to get on his bad side. He laughed at that too and clapped me on the backalmost knocking me on my faceand pushed his way up to the plankwood bar where there must have been seventy men and maybe fifteen women lined up. I need two beers fore I tear this dump apart! he yells at the bartender, who was a big lug with a broken nose named Romeo Dupree. One for me and one pour lhomme avec les pais lvres! And they all laughed like hell at that, but not in a mean way, Mikey. So he gets the beers and gives me mine and he says, Whats your name? I dont want to call you Beeg Leeps, me. Dont sound good. William Hanlon, I says. Well, heres to you, Weelyum Anlon, he says. No, heres to you, I says. Youre the first white man who ever bought me a drink. Which was true. So we drank those beers down and then we had two more and he says, You sure youre a Negro? Except for them pais leeps, you look just like a white man with brown skin to me. My father got to laughing at this, and so did I. He laughed so hard his stomach started to hurt him, and he held it, grimacing, his eyes turned up, his upper plate biting down on his lower lip. You want me to ring for the nurse, Daddy? I asked, alarmed. No . . . no. Im goan be okay. The worst thing of this, Mikey, is that you cant even laugh anymore when you feel like it. Which is damn seldom. He fell silent for a few moments, and I realize now that that was the only time we came close to talking about what was killing him. Maybe it would have been betterbetter for both of usif we had done more. He took a sip of water and then went on. Anyway, it wasnt the few women who travelled the pigs, and it wasnt the lumberjacks that made up their main custom who wanted us out. It was those five old men on the Town Council who were really offended, them and the dozen or so men that stood behind themDerrys old line, you know. None of them had ever stepped a foot inside of the Paradise or Wallys Spa, they did their boozing at the country club which then stood over on Derry Heights, but they wanted to make sure that none of those barbags or peaveyswingers got polluted by the blacks of Company E. So Major Fuller says, I never wanted them here in the first place. I keep thinking its an oversight and theyll get sent back down south or maybe to New Jersey. Thats not my problem, this old fart tells him. Mueller, I think his name was Sally Muellers father? I asked, startled. Sally Mueller was in the same highschool class with me. My father grinned a sour, crooked little grin. No, this would have been her uncle. Sally Muellers dad was off in college somewhere then. But if hed been in Derry, he would have been there, I guess, standing with his brother. And in case youre wondering how true this part of the story is, all I can tell you is that the conversation was repeated to me by Trevor Dawson, who was swabbing the floors over there in officers country that day and heard it all. Where the government sends the black boys is your problem, not mine, Mueller tells Major Fuller. My problem is where youre letting them go on Friday and Saturday nights. If they go on whooping it up downtown, theres going to be trouble. Weve got the Legion in this town, you know. Well, but I am in a bit of a tight here, Mr. Mueller, he says. I cant let them drink over at the NCO Club. Not only is it against the regulations for the Negroes to drink with the whites, they couldnt anyway. Its an NCO club, dont you see? Every one of those black boys is a buckytail private. Thats not my problem either. I simply trust you will take care of the matter. Responsibility accompanies rank. And off he goes. Well, Fuller solved the problem. The Derry Army Base was a damn big patch of land in those days, although there wasnt a hell of a lot on it. Better than a hundred acres, all told. Going north, it ended right behind West Broadway, where a sort of greenbelt was planted. Where Memorial Park is now, that was where the Black Spot stood. It was just an old requisition shed in early 1930, when all of this happened, but Major Fuller mustered in Company E and told us it was going to be our club. Acted like he was Daddy Warbucks or something, and maybe he even felt that way, giving a bunch of black privates their own place, even if it was nothing but a shed. Then he added, like it was nothing, that the pigs downtown were offlimits to us. There was a lot of bitterness about it, but what could we do? We had no real power. It was this young fellow, a Pfc. named Dick Hallorann who was a messcook, who suggested that maybe we could fix it up pretty nice if we really tried. So we did. We really tried. And we made out pretty well, all things considered. The first time a bunch of us went in there to look it over, we were pretty depressed. It was dark and smelly, full of old tools and boxes of papers that had gone moldy. There was only two little windows and no lectricity. The floor was dirt. Carl Roone laughed in a kind of bitter way, I remember that, and said, The ole Maje, he a real prince, aint he? Give us our own club. Sho! And George Brannock, who was also killed in the fire that fall, he said Yeah, its a hell of a black spot, all right. And the name just stuck. Hallorann got us going, though... Hallorann and Carl and me. I guess God will forgive us for what we did, thoughcause He knows we had no idea how it would turn out. After awhile the rest of the fellows pitched in. With most of Derry offlimits, there wasnt much else we could do. We hammered and nailed and cleaned. Trev Dawson was a pretty good jackleg carpenter, and he showed us how to cut some more windows along the side, and damned if Alan Snopes didnt come up with panes of glass for them that were different colorssort of a cross between carnival glass and the sort you see in church windows. Whered you get this? I asked him. Alan was the oldest of us; he was about fortytwo, old enough so that most of us called him Pop Snopes. He stuck a Camel in his mouth and tipped me a wink. Midnight Requisitions, he says, and would say no more. So the place come along pretty good, and by the middle of the summer we was using it. Trev Dawson and some of the others had partitioned off the back quarter of the building and got a little kitchen set up in there, not much more than a grill and a couple of deepfryers, so that you could get a hamburg and some french fries, if you wanted. There was a bar down one side, but it was just meant for sodas and drinks like Virgin Marysshit, we knew our place. Hadnt we been taught it? If we wanted to drink hard, wed do it in the dark. The floor was still dirt, but we kept it oiled down nice. Trev and Pop Snopes ran in a lectric linemore Midnight Requisitions, I imagine. By July, you could go in there any Saturday night and sit down and have a cola and a hamburgeror a slawdog. It was nice. It never really got finishedwe was still working on it when the fire burned it down. It got to be a kind of hobby... or a way of thumbing our noses at Fuller and Mueller and the Town Council. But I guess we knew it was ours when Ev McCaslin and I put up a sign one Friday night that said THE BLACK SPOT, and just below that, COMPANY E AND GUESTS. Like we were exclusive, you know! It got looking nice enough that the white boys started to grumble about it, and next thing you know, the white boys NCO was looking finer than ever. They was adding on a special lounge and a little cafeteria. It was like they wanted to race. But that was one race that we didnt want to run. My dad smiled at me from his hospital bed. We were young, except for Snopesy, but we werent entirely foolish. We knew that the white boys let you race against them, but if it starts to look like you are getting ahead, why, somebody just breaks your legs so you cant run as fast. We had what we wanted, and that was enough. But then... something happened. He fell silent, frowning. What was that, Daddy? We found out that we had a pretty decent jazzband among us, he said slowly. Martin Devereaux, who was a corporal, played drums. Ace Stevenson played cornet. Pop Snopes played a pretty decent barrelhouse piano. He wasnt great, but he wasnt no slouch either. There was another fellow who played clarinet, and George Brannock played the saxophone. There were others of us who sat in from time to time, playing guitar or harmonica or juiceharp or even just a comb with waxed paper over it. This didnt all happen at once, you understand, but by the end of that August, there was a pretty hot little Dixieland combo playing Friday and Saturday nights at the Black Spot. They got better and better as the fall drew on, and while they were never greatI dont want to give you that ideathey played in a way that was different... hotter somehow . . . it . . . He waved his skinny hand above the bedclothes. They played bodacious, I suggested, grinning. Thats right! he exclaimed, grinning back. You got it! They played bodacious Dixieland. And the next thing you know, people from town started to show up at our club. Even some of the white soldiers from the base. It got so the place was getting crowded a right smart every weekend. That didnt happen all at once, either. At first those white faces looked like sprinkles of salt in a pepperpot, but more and more of them turned up as time went on. When those white people showed up, thats when we forgot to be careful. They were bringin in their own booze in brown bags, most of it the finest hightension stuff there ismade the stuff you could get in the pigs downtown look like soda pop. Countryclub booze is what I mean, Mikey. Rich peoples booze. Chivas. Glenfiddich. The kind of champagne they served to firstclass passengers on ocean liners. Champers, some of em called it, same as we used to call uglyminded mules back home. We should have found a way to stop it, but we didnt know how. They was town! Hell, they was white! And, like I said, we were young and proud of what wed done. And we underestimated how bad things might get. We all knew that Mueller and his friends must have known what was going on, but I dont think any of us realized that it was drivin em crazyand I mean what I say crazy. There they were in their grand old Victorian houses on West Broadway not a quarter of a mile away from where we were, listening to things like Aunt Hagars Blues and Diggin My Potatoes. That was bad. Knowing that their young people were there too, whooping it up right cheek by jowl with the blacks, that must have been ever so much worse. Because it wasnt just the lumberjacks and the barbags that were turning up as September came into October. It got to be kind of a thing in town. Young folks would come to drink and to dance to that noname jazzband until one in the morning came and shut us down. They didnt just come from Derry, either. They come from Bangor and Newport and Haven and Cleaves Mills and Old Town and all the little burgs around these parts. You could see fraternity boys from the University of Maine at Orono cutting capers with their sorority girlfriends, and when the band learned how to play a ragtime version of The Maine Stein Song, they just about ripped the roof off. Of course, it was an enlistedmens clubtechnically, at leastand offlimits to civilians who didnt have an invitation. But in fact, Mikey, we just opened the door at seven and let her stand open until one. By the middle of October it got so that any time you went out on the dancefloor you were standing hip to hip with six other people. There wasnt no room to dance, so you had to just sort of stand there and wiggle... but if anyone minded, I never heard him let on. By midnight, it was like an empty freightcar rocking and reeling on an express run. He paused, took another drink of water, and then went on. His eyes were bright now. Well, well. Fuller would have put an end to it sooner or later. If it had been sooner, a lot less people would have died. All he had to do was send in MPs and have them confiscate all the bottles of liquor that people had brought in with them. That would have been good enoughjust what he wanted, in fact. It would have shut us down good and proper. There would have been courtmartials and the stockade in Rye for some of us and transfers for all the rest. But Fuller was slow. I think he was afraid of the same thing some of us was afraid ofthat some of the townies would be mad. Mueller hadnt been back to see him, and I think Major Fuller must have been scared to go downtown and see Mueller. He talked big, Fuller did, but he had all the spine of a jellyfish. So instead of the thing ending in some putup way that would have at least left all those that burned up that night still alive, the Legion of Decency ended it. They came in their white sheets early that November and cooked themselves a barbecue. He fell silent again, not sipping at his water this time, only looking moodily into the far corner of his room while outside a bell dinged softly somewhere and a nurse passed the open doorway, the soles of her shoes squeaking on the linoleum. I could hear a TV someplace, a radio someplace else. I remember that I could hear the wind blowing outside, snuffling up the side of the building. And although it was August, the wind made a cold sound. It knew nothing of Cains Hundred on the television, or the Four Seasons singing Walk Like a Man on the radio. Some of them came through that greenbelt between the base and West Broadway, he resumed at last. They must have met at someones house over there, maybe in the basement, to get their sheets on and to make the torches that they used. Ive heard that others came right onto the base by Ridgeline Road, which was the main way onto the base back then. I heardI wont say wherethat they came in a brandnew Packard automobile, dressed in their white sheets with their white goblinhats on their laps and torches on the floor. The torches were Louisville Sluggers with big hunks of burlap snugged down over the fat parts with red rubber gaskets, the kind ladies use when they put up preserves. There was a booth where Ridgeline Road branched off Witcham Road and came onto the base, and the O.D. passed that Packard right along. It was Saturday night and the joint was jumping, going round and round. There might have been two hundred people there, maybe three. And here came these white men, six or eight in their bottlegreen Packard, and more coming through the trees between the base and the fancy houses on West Broadway. They wasnt young, not many of them, and sometimes I wonder how many cases of angina and bleeding ulcers there were the next day. I hope there was a lot. Those dirty sneaking murdering bastards. The Packard parked on the hill and flashed its lights twice. About four men got out of it and joined the rest. Some had those twogallon tins of gasoline that you could buy at service stations back in those days. All of them had torches. |
One of em stayed behind the wheel of that Packard. Mueller had a Packard, you know. Yes he did. A green one. They got together at the back of the Black Spot and doused their torches with gas. Maybe they only meant to scare us. Ive heard it the other way, but Ive heard it that way, too. Id rather believe thats how they meant it, because I aint got feeling mean enough even yet to want to believe the worst. It could have been that the gas dripped down to the handles of some of those torches and when they lit them, why, those holding them panicked and threw them any whichway just to get rid of them. Whatever, that black November night was suddenly blazing with torches. Some was holding em up and waving em around, little flaming pieces of burlap falling offn the tops of em. Some of them were laughing. But like I say, some of the others up and threw em through the back windows, into what was our kitchen. The place was burning merry hell in a minute and a half. The men outside, they were all wearing their peaky white hoods by then. Some of them were chanting Come out, niggers! Come out, niggers! Come out, niggers! Maybe some of them were chanting to scare us, but I like to believe most of em were trying to warn ussame way as I like to believe that maybe those torches going into the kitchen the way they did was an accident. Either way, it didnt much matter. The band was playing loudern a factory whistle. Everybody was whooping it up and having a good time. Nobody inside knew anything was wrong until Gerry McCrew, who was playing assistant cook that night, opened the door to the kitchen and damn near got blowtorched. Flames shot out ten feet and burned his messjacket right off. Burned most of his hair off as well. I was sitting about halfway down the east wall with Trev Dawson and Dick Hallorann when it happened, and at first I had an idea the gas stove had exploded. Id no more than got on my feet when I was knocked down by people headed for the door. About two dozen of em went marchin right up my back, an I guess that was the only time during the whole thing when I really felt scared. I could hear people screamin and tellin each other they had to get out, the place was on fire. But every time I tried to get up, someone footed me right back down again. Someone landed his big shoe square on the back of my head and I saw stars. My nose mashed on that oiled floor and I snuffled up dirt and began to cough and sneeze at the same time. Someone else stepped on the small of my back. I felt a ladys high heel slam down between the cheeks of my butt, and son, I never want another halfass enema like that one. If the seat of my khakis had ripped, I believe Id be bleedin down there to this day. It sounds funny now, but I damn near died in that stampede. I was whopped, whapped, stomped, walked on, and kicked in so many places I couldnt walk tall the next day. I was screaming and none of those people topside heard me or paid any mind. It was Trev saved me. I seen this big brown hand in front of me and I grabbed it like a drownin man grabs a life preserver. I grabbed and he hauled and up I came. Someones foot got me in the side of my neck right here He massaged that area where the jaw turns up toward the ear, and I nodded. and it hurt so bad that I guess I blacked out for a minute. But I never let go of Trevs hand, and he never let go of mine. I got to my feet, finally, just as the wall wed put up between the kitchen and the hall fell over. It made a noise likefloompthe noise a puddle of gasoline makes when you light it. I saw it go over in a big bundle of sparks, and I saw the people running to get out of its way as it fell. Some of em made it. Some didnt. One of our fellasI think it might have been Hort Sartoriswas buried under it, and for just one second I seen his hand underneath all those blazing coals, openin and closin. There was a white girl, surely no more than twenty, and the back of her dress went up. She was with a college boy and I heard her screamin at him, beggin him to help her. He took just about two swipes at it and then ran away with the others. She stood there screamin as her dress went up on her. It was like hell out where the kitchen had been. The flames was so bright you couldnt look at them. The heat was bakin hot, Mikey, roastin hot. You could feel your skin going shiny. You could feel the hairs in your nose gettin crispy. We gotta break outta here! Trev yells, and starts to drag me along the wall. Come on! Then Dick Hallorann catches hold of him. He couldnt have been no more than nineteen, and his eyes was as big as bilard balls, but he kept his head better than we did. He saved our lives. Not that way! he yells. This way! And he pointed back toward the bandstand... toward the fire, you know. Youre crazy! Trevor screamed back. He had a big bull voice, but you could barely hear him over the thunder of the fire and the screaming people. Die if you want to, but me and Willy are gettin out! He still had me by the hand and he started to haul me toward the door again, although there were so many people around it by then you couldnt see it at all. I would have gone with him. I was so shellshocked I didnt know what end was up. All I knew was that I didnt want to be baked like a human turkey. Dick grabbed Trev by the hair of the head just as hard as he could, and when Trev turned back, Dick slapped his face. I remember seeing Trevs head bounce off the wall and thinking Dick had gone crazy. Then he was hollerin in Trevs face, You go that way and you goan die! They jammed up against that door, nigger! You dont know that! Trev screamed back at him, and then there was this loud BANG! like a firecracker, only what it was, it was the heat exploding Marty Devereauxs bass drum. The fire was runnin along the beams overhead and the oil on the floor was catchin. I know it! Dick screams back. I know it! He grabbed my other hand, and for a minute there I felt like the rope in a tugowar game. Then Trev took a good look at the door and went Dicks way. Dick got us down to a window and grabbed a chair to bust it out, but before he could swing it, the heat blew it out for him. Then he grabbed Trev Dawson by the back of his pants and hauled him up. Climb! he shouts. Climb, motherfucker! And Trev went, head up and tail over the dashboard. He boosted me next, and I went up. I grabbed the sides of the window and hauled. I had a good crop of blisters all over my palms the next day that wood was already smokin. I come out headfirst, and if Trev hadnt grabbed me I mighta broke my neck. We turned back around, and it was like something from the worst nightmare you ever had, Mikey. That window was just a yellow, blazin square of light. Flames was shootin up through that tin roof in a dozen places. We could hear people screamin inside. I saw two brown hands waving around in front of the fireDicks hands. Trev Dawson made me a step with his own hands and I reached through that window and grabbed Dick. When I took his weight my gut went against the side of the building, and it was like having your belly against a stove thats just starting to get real good and hot. Dicks face came up and for a few seconds I didnt think we was going to be able to get him. Hed taken a right smart of smoke, and he was close to passing out. His lips had cracked open. The back of his shirt was smoldering. And then I damn near let go, because I could smell the people burning inside. Ive heard people say that smell is like barbecuing pork ribs, but it aint like that. Its more like what happens sometimes after they geld hosses. They build a big fire and throw all that shit into it and when the fire gets hot enough you can hear them hossballs poppin like chestnuts, and thats what people smell like when they start to cook right inside their cloes. I could smell that and I knew I couldnt take it for long so I gave one more great big yank, and out came Dick. He lost one of his shoes. I tumbled off Trevs hands and went down. Dick come down on top of me, and Im here to tell you that niggers head was hard. I lost most of my breath and just laid there on the dirt for a few seconds, rolling around and holding my bellyguts. Presently I was able to get to my knees, then to my feet. And I seen these shapes running off toward the greenbelt. At first I thought they were ghosts, and then I seen shoes. By then it was so bright around the Black Spot it was like daylight. I seen shoes and understood it was men wearin sheets. One of them had fallen a little bit behind the others and I saw . . . He trailed off, licking his lips. What did you see, Daddy? I asked. Never you mind, he said. Give me my water, Mikey. I did. He drank most of it and then got coughing. A passing nurse looked in and said Do you need anything, Mr. Hanlon? New set of testines, my dad said. You got any handy. Rhoda? She smiled a nervous, doubtful smile and passed on. My dad handed the glass to me and I put it back on his table. Its longer tellin than it is rememberin, he said. You goan fill that glass up for me before you leave? Sure, Daddy. This story goan give you nightmares, Mikey? I opened my mouth to lie, and then thought better of it. And I think now that if I had lied, he would have stopped right there. He was far gone by then, but maybe not that far gone. I guess so, I said. Thats not such a bad thing, he said to me. In nightmares we can think the worst. Thats what theyre for, I guess. He reached out his hand and I took it and we held hands while he finished. I looked around just in time to see Trev and Dick goin around the front of the building, and I chased after them, still trying to catch mwind. There was maybe forty or fifty people out there, some of them cryin, some of them pukin, some of them screamin, some of them doing all three things at once, it seemed like. Others were layin on the grass, fainted dead away with the smoke. The door was shut, and we heard people screamin on the other side, screamin to let them out, out for the love of Jesus, they were burning up. It was the only door, except for the one that went out through the kitchen to where the garbage cans and things were, you see. To go in you pushed the door open. To go out you had to pull it. Some people had gotten out, and then they started to jam up at that door and push. The door got slammed shut. The ones in the back kept pushin forward to get away from the fire, and everybody got jammed up. The ones right up front were squashed. Wasnt no way they could get that door open against the weight of all those behind. So there they were, trapped, and the fire raged. It was Trev Dawson that made it so it was only eighty or so that died instead of a hundred or maybe two hundred, and what he got for his pains wasnt a medal but two years in the Rye stockade. See, right about then this big old cargo truck pulled up, and who should be behind the wheel but my old friend Sergeant Wilson, the fella who owned all the holes there on the base. He gets out and starts shoutin orders that didnt make much sense and which people couldnt hear anyway. Trev grabbed my arm and we run over to him. Id lost all track of Dick Hallorann by then and didnt even see him until the next day. Sergeant, I have to use your truck! Trev yells in his face. Get out of my way, nigger, Wilson says, and pushes him down. Then he starts yelling all that confused shit again. Wasnt nobody paying any attention to him, and he didnt go on for long anyway, because Trevor Dawson popped up like a jackinthebox and decked him. Trev could hit damned hard, and almost any other man would have stayed down, but that cracker had a hard head. He got up, blood pouring out of his mouth and nose, and he said, Im goan kill you for that. Well, Trev hit him in the belly just as hard as he could, and when he doubled over I put my hands together and pounded the back of his neck just as hard as I could. It was a cowardly thing to do, hitting a man from behind like that, but desperate times call for desperate measures. And I would be lyin, Mikey, if I didnt tell you that hitting that poormouth sonofabitch didnt give me a bit of pleasure. Down he went, just like a steer hit with a poleaxe. Trev run to the truck, fired it up, and drove it around so it was facin the front of the Black Spot, but to the left of the door. He thowed it into first, popped the clutch on that cocksucker, and here he come! Look out there! I shouted at that crowd of people standing around. Ware that truck! They scattered like quail, and for a wonder Trev didnt hit none of em. He hit the side of the building going maybe thirty, and cracked his face a good one on the steerin wheel of the truck. I seen the blood fly from his nose when he shook his head to clear it. He punched out reverse, backed up fifty yards, and come down on her again. WHAM! The Black Spot wasnt nothing but corrugated tin, and that second hit did her. The whole side of that oven fell in and the flames come roarin out. How anything could have still been alive in there I dont know, but there was. People are a lot tougher than youd believe, Mikey, and if you dont believe it, just take a look at me, slidin off the skin of the world by my fingernails. That place was like a smelting furnace, it was a hell of flames and smoke, but people came running out in a regular torrent. There were so many that Trev didnt even dare back the truck up again for fear he would run over some of them. So he got out and ran back to me, leaving it where it was. We stood there, watching it end. It hadnt been five minutes all told, but it felt like forever. The last dozen or so that made it out were on fire. People grabbed em and started to roll em around on the ground, trying to put em out. Looking in, we could see other people trying to come, and we knew they wasnt never going to make it. Trev grabbed my hand and I grabbed him back twice as hard. We stood there holding hands just like you and me are doing now, Mikey, him with his nose broke and blood running down his face and his eyes puffing shut, and we watched them people. They were the real ghosts we saw that night, nothing but shimmers shaped like men and women in that fire, walking toward the opening Trev had bashed with Sergeant Wilsons truck. Some of em had their arms held out, like they expected someone to save them. The others just walked, but they didnt seem to get nowhere. Their cloes were blazin. Their faces were runnin. And one after another they just toppled over and you didnt see them no more. The last one was a woman. Her dress had burned off her and there she was in her slip. She was burnin like a candle. She seemed to look right at me at the end, and I seen her eyelids was on fire. When she fell down it was over. The whole place went up in a pillar of fire. By the time the base firetrucks and two more from the Main Street fire station got there, it was already burning itself out. That was the fire at the Black Spot, Mikey. He drank the last of his water and handed me the glass to fill at the drinking fountain in the hall. Goan piss the bed tonight I guess, Mikey. I kissed his cheek and then went out into the hall to fill his glass. When I returned, he was drifting away again, his eyes glassy and contemplative. When I put the glass on the nighttable, he mumbled a thankyou I could barely understand. I looked at the Westclox on his table and saw it was almost eight. Time for me to go home. I leaned over to kiss him goodbye... and instead heard myself whisper, What did you see? His eyes, which were now slipping shut, barely turned toward the sound of my voice. He might have known it was me, or he might have believed he was hearing the voice of his own thoughts. Hunh? The thing you saw, I whispered. I didnt want to hear, but I had to hear. I was both hot and cold, my eyes burning, my hands freezing. But I had to hear. As I suppose Lots wife had to turn back and look at the destruction of Sodom. Twas a bird, he said. Right over the last of those runnin men. A hawk, maybe. What they call a kestrel. But it was big. Never told no one. Would have been locked up. That bird was maybe sixty feet from wingtip to wingtip. It was the size of a Japanese Zero. But I seen... seen its eyes . . . and I think . . . it seen me. . . . His head slipped over to the side, toward the window, where the dark was coming. It swooped down and grabbed that last man up. Got him right by the sheet, it did . . . and I heard that birds wings. . . .The sound was like fire . . . and it hovered . . . and I thought, Birds cant hover . . . but this one could, because . . . because . . . He fell silent. Why, Daddy? I whispered. Why could it hover? It didnt hover, he said. I sat there in silence, thinking he had gone to sleep for sure this time. I had never been so afraid in my life... because four years before, I had seen that bird. Somehow, in some unimaginable way, I had nearly forgotten that nightmare. It was my father who brought it back. It didnt hover, he said. It floated. It floated. There were big bunches of balloons tied to each wing, and it floated. My father went to sleep. March 1st,1985 Its come again. I know that now. Ill wait, but in my heart I know it. Im not sure I can stand it. As a kid I was able to deal with it, but its different with kids. In some fundamental way its different. I wrote all of that last night in a kind of frenzynot that I could have gone home anyway. Derry has been blanketed in a thick glaze of ice, and although the sun is out this morning, nothing is moving. I wrote until long after three this morning, pushing the pen faster and faster, trying to get it all out. I had forgotten about seeing the giant bird when I was eleven. It was my fathers story that brought it back . . . and I never forgot it again. Not any of it. In a way, I suppose it was his final gift to me. A terrible gift, you would say, but wonderful in its way. I slept right where I was, my head in my arms, my notebook and pen on the table in front of me. I woke up this morning with a numb ass and an aching back, but feeling free, somehow... purged of that old story. And then I saw that I had had company in the night, as I slept. The tracks, drying to faint muddy impressions, led from the front door of the library (which I locked; I always lock it) to the desk where I slept. There were no tracks leading away. Whatever it was, it came to me in the night, left its talisman... and then simply disappeared. Tied to my reading lamp was a single balloon. Filled with helium, it floated in a morning sunray which slanted in through one of the high windows. On it was a picture of my face, the eyes gone, blood running down from the ragged sockets, a scream distorting the mouth on the balloons thin and bulging rubber skin. I looked at it and I screamed. The scream echoed through the library, echoing back, vibrating from the circular iron staircase leading to the stacks. The balloon burst with a bang. PART 3 GROWNUPS The descent made up of despairs and without accomplishment realizes a new awakening which is a reversal of despair. For what we cannot accomplish, what is denied to love, what we have lost in the anticipation a descent follows, endless and indestructable . William Carlos Williams, Paterson Dont it make you wanta go home, now? Dont it make you wanta go home? All Gods children get weary when they roam, Dont it make you wanta go home? Dont it make you wanta go home? Joe South CHAPTER 10 The Reunion 1 Bill Denbrough Gets a Cab The telephone was ringing, bringing him up and out of a sleep too deep for dreams. He groped for it without opening his eyes, without coming more than halfway awake. If it had stopped ringing just then he would have slipped back down into sleep without a hitch; he would have done it as simply and easily as he had once slipped down the snowcovered hills in McCarron Park on his Flexible Flyer. You ran with the sled, threw yourself onto it, and down you wentseemingly at the speed of sound. You couldnt do that as a grownup; it racked the hell out of your balls. His fingers walked over the telephones dial, slipped off, climbed it again. He had a dim premonition that it would be Mike Hanlon, Mike Hanlon calling from Derry, telling him he had to come back, telling him he had to remember, telling him they had made a promise, Stan Uris had cut their palms with a sliver of Coke bottle and they had made a promise Except all of that had already happened. He had gotten in late yesterday afternoonjust before 6 P.M., actually. He supposed that, if he had been the last call on Mikes list, all of them must have gotten in at varying times; some might even have spent most of the day here. He himself had seen none of them, felt no urge to see any of them. He had simply checked in, gone up to his room, ordered a meal from room service which he found he could not eat once it was laid out before him, and then had tumbled into bed and slept dreamlessly until now. Bill cracked one eye open and fumbled for the telephones handset. It fell off onto the table and he groped for it, opening his other eye. He felt totally blank inside his head, totally unplugged, running on batteries. He finally managed to scoop up the phone. He got up on one elbow and put it against his ear. Hello? Bill? It was Mike Hanlons voicehed had at least that much right. Last week he didnt remember Mike at all, and now a single word was enough to identify him. It was rather marvellous... but in an ominous way. Yeah, Mike. Woke you up, huh? Yeah, you did. Thats okay. On the wall above the TV was an abysmal painting of lobstermen in yellow slickers and rainhats pulling lobster traps. Looking at it, Bill remembered where he was the Derry Town House on Upper Main Street. Half a mile farther up and across the street was Bassey Park... the Kissing Bridge... the Canal. What time is it, Mike? Quarter of ten. What day? The 30th. Mike sounded a little amused. Yeah. Kay. Ive arranged a little reunion, Mike said. He sounded diffident now. Yeah? Bill swung his legs out of bed. They all came? All but Stan Uris, Mike said. Now there was something in his voice that Bill couldnt read. Bev was the last one. She got in late last evening. Why do you say the last one, Mike? Stan might show up today. Bill, Stans dead. What? How? Did his plane Nothing like that, Mike said. Look, if its all the same to you, I think it ought to wait until we get together. It would be better if I could tell all of you at the same time. It has to do with this? Yes, I think so. Mike paused briefly. Im sure it does. Bill felt the familiar weight of dread settle around his heart againwas it something you could get used to so quickly, then? Or had it been something he had carried all along, simply unfelt and unthoughtof, like the inevitable fact of his own death? He reached for his cigarettes, lit one, and blew out the match with the first drag. None of them got together yesterday? NoI dont believe so. And you havent seen any of us yet. Nojust talked to you on the phone. Okay, he said. Wheres the reunion? You remember where the old Ironworks used to be? Pasture Road, sure. Youre behind the times, old chum. Thats Mall Road these days. Weve got the thirdbiggest shopping mall in the state out there. Fortyeight Different Merchants Under One Roof for Your Shopping Convenience. Sounds really AAAmerican, all right. Bill? What? You all right? Yes. But his heart was beating too fast, the tip of his cigarette jittering a tiny bit. He had stuttered. Mike had heard it. There was a moment of silence and then Mike said, Just out past the mall, theres a restaurant called Jade of the Orient. They have private rooms for parties. I arranged for one of them yesterday. We can have it the whole afternoon, if we want it. You think this might take that long? I just dont know. A cab will know how to get there? Sure. All right, Bill said. He wrote the name of the restaurant down on the pad by the phone. Why there? Because its new, I guess, Mike said slowly. It seemed like . . . I dont know . . . Neutral ground? Bill suggested. Yes. I guess thats it. Food any good? I dont know, Mike said. Hows your appetite? Bill chuffed out smoke and halflaughed, halfcoughed. It aint so good, ole pal. Yeah, Mike said. I hear you. Noon? More like one, I guess. Well let Beverly catch a few more zs. Bill snuffed the cigarette. She married? Mike hesitated again. Well catch up on everything, he said. Just like when you go back to your highschool reunion ten years later, huh? Bill said. You get to see who got fat, who got bald, who got kkids. I wish it was like that, Mike said. Yeah. Me too, Mikey. Me too. He hung up the phone, took a long shower, and ordered a breakfast that he didnt want and which he only picked at. No; his appetite was really not much good at all. Bill dialed the Big Yellow Cab Company and asked to be picked up at quarter of one, thinking that fifteen minutes would be plenty of time to get him out to Pasture Road (he found himself totally unable to think of it as Mall Road, even when he actually saw the mall), but he had underestimated the lunchhour trafficflow... and how much Derry had grown. In 1958 it had been a big town, not much more. There were maybe thirty thousand people inside the Derry incorporated city limits and maybe another seven thousand beyond that in the surrounding burgs. Now it had become a citya very small city by London or New York standards, but doing just fine by Maine standards, where Portland, the states largest, could boast barely three hundred thousand. As the cab moved slowly down Main Street (were over the Canal now, Bill thought; cant see it, but its down there, running in the dark) and then turned up Center, his first thought was predictable enough how much had changed. But the predictable thought was accompanied by a deep dismay that he never would have expected. He remembered his childhood here as a fearful, nervous time... not only because of the summer of 58, when the seven of them had faced the terror, but because of Georges death, the deep dream his parents seemed to have fallen into following that death, the constant ragging about his stutter, Bowers and Huggins and Criss constantly on the prod for them after the rockfight in the Barrens (Bowers and Huggins and Criss, oh my! Bowers and Huggins and Criss, oh my!) and just a feeling that Derry was cold, that Derry was hard, that Derry didnt much give a shit if any of them lived or died, and certainly not if they triumphed over Pennywise the Clown. Derryfolk had lived with Pennywise in all his guises for a long time... and maybe, in some mad way, they had even come to understand him. To like him, need him. Love him? Maybe. Yes, maybe that too. So why this dismay? Perhaps only because it seemed such dull change, somehow. Or perhaps because Derry seemed to have lost its essential face for him. The Bijou Theater was gone, replaced with a parking lot (BY PERMIT ONLY, the sign over the ramp announced; VIOLATORS SUBJECT TO TOW). The Shoeboat and Bailleys Lunch, which had stood next to it, were also gone. They had been replaced by a branch of the Northern National Bank. A digital readout jutted from the front of the bland cinderblock structure, showing the time and the temperaturethe latter in both degrees Fahrenheit and degrees Celsius. The Center Street Drug, lair of Mr. Keene and the place where Bill had gotten Eddie his asthma medicine that day, was also gone. Richards Alley had become some strange hybrid called a minimall. Looking inside as the cab idled at a stoplight, Bill could see a record shop, a naturalfoods store, and a toysandgames shop which was featuring a clearance sale on ALL DUNGEONS AND DRAGONS SUPPLIES. The cab pulled forward with a jerk. Gonna take awhile, the driver said. I wish all these goddam banks would stagger their lunchhours. Pardon my French if youre a religious man. Thats all right, Bill said. It was overcast outside, and now a few splatters of rain hit the cabs windshield. The radio muttered about an escaped mental patient from somewhere who was supposed to be very dangerous, and then began muttering about the Red Sox who werent. Showers early, then clearing. When Barry Manilow began moaning about Mandy, who came and who gave without takin, the cabbie snapped the radio off. Bill asked, When did they go up? What? The banks? Uhhuh. Oh, late sixties, early sebnies, most of em, the cabbie said. He was a big man with a thick neck. He wore a redandblackchecked hunters jacket. A fluorescentorange cap was jammed down squarely on his head. It was smudged with engineoil. They got this urbanrenewal money. Rebnue Sharin, they call it. So how they shared it was rip down everythin. And the banks come in. I guess that was all that could afford to come in. Hell of a note, aint it? Urban renewal, says they. Shit for dinner, says I. Pardon my French if youre a religious man. There was a lot of talk about how they was gonna revitalize the downtown. Ayup, they revitalized it just fine. Tore down most the old stores and put up a lot of banks and parking lots. And you know you still cant find a fucking slot to park your car in. Ought to string the whole City Council up by their cocks. Except for that Polock woman thats on it. String her up by her tits. On second thought, it dont seem like shes got any. Flat as a fuckin board. Pardon my French if youre a religious man. I am, Bill said, grinning. Then get outta my cab and go to fucking church, the cabbie said, and they both burst out laughing. You lived here long? Bill asked. My whole life. Born in Derry Home Hospital, and theyll bury my fuckin remains out in Mount Hope Cemetery. Good deal, Bill said. Yeah, right, the cabbie said. He hawked, rolled down his window, and spat an extremely large yellowgreen lunger into the rainy air. His attitude, contradictory but somehow attractivealmost piquantwas one of glum good cheer. Guy who catches that wont have to buy no fuckin chewing gum for a week. Pardon my French if youre a religious man. It hasnt all changed, Bill said. The depressing promenade of banks and parking lots was slipping behind them as they climbed Center Street. Over the hill and past the First National, they began to pick up some speed. The Aladdins still there. Yeah, the cabbie conceded. But just barely. Suckers tried to tear that down, too. For another bank? Bill asked, a part of him amused to find that another part of him stood aghast at the idea. He couldnt believe that anyone in his right mind would want to tear down that stately pleasure dome with its glittering glass chandelier, its sweeping rightandleft staircases which spiraled up to the balcony, and its mammoth curtain, which did not simply pull apart when the show started but which instead rose in magical folds and tucks and gathers, all underlit in fabulous shades of red and blue and yellow and green while pullies offstage ratcheted and groaned. Not the Aladdin, that shocked part of him cried out. How could they ever even think of tearing down the Aladdin for a BANK? Oh, ayup, a bank, the cabbie said. Youre fuckingA, pardon my French if youre a religious man. It was the First Merchants of Penobscot County had its eye on the laddin. Wanted to pull it down and put up what they called a complete banking mall. Got all the papers from the City Council, and the Aladdin was condemned. Then a bunch of folks formed a committeefolks that had lived here a long timeand they petitioned, and they marched, and they hollered, and finally they had a public City Council meeting about it, and Hanlon blew those suckers out. The cabbie sounded extremely satisfied. Hanlon? Bill asked, startled. Mike Hanlon? Ayup, the cabbie said. He twisted around briefly to look at Bill, revealing a round, chapped face and hornrimmed glasses with old specks of white paint on the bows. Librarian. Black fella. You know him? I did, Bill said, remembering how he had met Mike, back in July 1958. |
It had been Bowers and Huggins and Criss again... of course. Bowers and Huggins and Criss (oh my) at every turn, playing their own part, unwitting visegrips driving the seven of them togethertight, tighter, tightest. We played together when we were kids. Before I moved away. Well, there you go, the cabbie said. Its a small fucking world, pardon my French if youre a religious man, Bill finished with him. There you go, the cabbie repeated comfortably, and they rode in silence for awhile before he said, Its changed a lot, Derry has, but yeah, a lot of its still here. The Town House, where I picked you up. The Standpipe in Memorial Park. You remember that place, mister? When we were kids, we used to think that place was haunted. I remember it, Bill said. Look, theres the hospital. You recognize it? They were passing the Derry Home Hospital on the right now. Behind it, the Penobscot flowed toward its meetingplace with the Kenduskeag. Under the rainy spring sky, the river was dull pewter. The hospital that Bill remembereda white woodframe building with two wings, three stories highwas still there, but now it was surrounded, dwarfed, by a whole complex of buildings, maybe a dozen in all. He could see a parkinglot off to the left, and what looked like better than five hundred cars parked there. My God, thats not a hospital, thats a fucking college campus! Bill exclaimed. The cabdriver cackled. Not bein a religious man, Ill pardon your French. Yeah, its almost as big as the Eastern Maine up in Bangor now. They got radiation labs and a therapy center and six hundred rooms and their own laundry and God knows what else. The old hospitals still there, but its all administration now. Bill felt a queer doubling sensation in his mind, the sort of sensation he remembered getting the first time he watched a 3D movie. Trying to bring together two images that didnt quite jibe. You could fool your eyes and your brain into doing that trick, he remembered, but you were apt to end up with a whopper of a headache... and he could feel his own headache coming on now. New Derry, fine. But the old Derry was still here, like the wooden Home Hospital building. The old Derry was mostly buried under all the new construction... but your eye was somehow dragged helplessly back to look at it ... to look for it. The trainyards probably gone, isnt it? Bill asked. The cabbie laughed again, delighted. For someone who moved away when he was just a kid, you got a good memory, mister. Bill thought You should have met me last week, my Frenchspeaking friend. Its all still out there, but its nothing but ruins and rusty tracks now. The freights dont even stop no more. Fella wanted to buy the land and put up a whole roadside entertainment thingpitch n putt, batting cages, driving ranges, mini golf, gokarts, little shack fulla video games, I dont know whatallbut theres some kind of big mixup about who owns the land now. I guess hell get it eventuallyhes a persistent fellabut right now its in the courts. And the Canal, Bill murmured as they turned off Outer Center Street and onto Pasture Roadwhich, as Mike had said, was now marked with a green roadsign reading MALL ROAD. The Canals still here. Ayup, the cabbie said. Thatll always be here, I guess. Now the Derry Mall was on Bills left, and as they rolled past it, he felt that queer doubling sensation again. When they had been kids all of this had been a great long field full of rank grasses and gigantic nodding sunflowers which marked the northeastern end of the Barrens. Behind it, to the west, was the Old Cape lowincome housing development. He could remember them exploring this field, being careful not to fall into the gaping cellarhold of the Kitchener Ironworks, which had exploded on Easter Sunday in the year 1906. The field had been full of relics and they had unearthed them with all the solemn interest of archaeologists exploring Egyptian ruins bricks, dippers, chunks of iron with rusty bolts hanging from them, panes of glass, bottles full of unnamable gunk that smelled like the worst poison in the world. Something bad had happened near here, too, in the gravelpit close to the dump, but he could not remember it yet. He could only remember a name, Patrick Humboldt, and that it had something to do with a refrigerator. And something about a bird that had chased Mike Hanlon. What . . . ? He shook his head. Fragments. Straws in the wind. That was all. The field was gone now, as were the remains of the Ironworks. Bill remembered the great chimney of the Ironworks suddenly. Faced with tile, caked black with soot for the final ten feet of its length, it had lain in the high grass like a gigantic pipe. They had scrambled up somehow and had walked along it, arms held out like tightwire walkers, laughing He shook his head, as if to dismiss the mirage of the mall, an ugly collection of buildings with signs that said SEARS and J. C. PENNEY and WOOLWORTHS and CVS and YORKS STEAK HOUSE and WALDENBOOKS and dozens of others. Roads wove in and out of parking lots. The mall did not go away, because it was no mirage. The Kitchener Ironworks was gone, and the field that had grown up around its ruins was likewise gone. The mall was the reality, not the memories. But somehow he didnt believe that. Here you go, mister, the cabbie said. He pulled into the parkinglot of a building that looked like a large plastic pagoda. A little late, but better late than never, am I right? Indeed you are, Bill said. He gave the cabdriver a five. Keep the change. Good fucking deal! the cabbie exclaimed. You need someone to drive you, call Big Yellow and ask for Dave. Ask for me by name. Ill just ask for the religious fella, Bill said, grinning. The one whos got his plot all picked out in Mount Hope. You got it, Dave said, laughing. Have a good one, mister. You too, Dave. He stood in the light rain for a moment, watching the cab draw away. He realized that he had meant to ask the driver one more question, and had forgottenperhaps on purpose. He had meant to ask Dave if he liked living in Derry. Abruptly, Bill Denbrough turned and walked into the Jade of the Orient. Mike Hanlon was in the lobby, sitting in a wicker chair with a huge flaring back. He got to his feet, and Bill felt deep unreality wash over himthrough him. That sensation of doubling was back, but now it was much, much worse. He remembered a boy who had been about five feet three, trim, and agile. Before him was a man who stood about fiveseven. He was skinny. His clothes seemed to hang on him. And the lines in his face said that he was on the darker side of forty instead of only thirtyeight or so. Bills shock must have shown on his face, because Mike said quietly I know how I look. Bill flushed and said, Its not that bad, Mike, its just that I remember you as a kid. Thats all it is. Is it? You look a little tired. I am a little tired, Mike said, but Ill make it. I guess. He smiled then, and the smile lit his face. In it Bill saw the boy he had known twentyseven years ago. As the old woodframe Home Hospital had been overwhelmed with modern glass and cinderblock, so had the boy that Bill had known been overwhelmed with the inevitable accessories of adulthood. There were wrinkles on his forehead, lines had grooved themselves from the corners of his mouth nearly to his chin, and his hair was graying on both sides above the ears. But as the old hospital, although overwhelmed, was still there, still visible, so was the boy Bill had known. Mike stuck out his hand and said, Welcome back to Derry, Big Bill. Bill ignored the hand and embraced Mike. Mike hugged him back fiercely, and Bill could feel his hair, stiff and kinky, against his own shoulder and the side of his neck. Whatevers wrong, Mike, well take care of it, Bill said. He heard the rough sound of tears in his throat and didnt care. We beat it once, and we can bbeat it aaagain. Mike pulled away from him, held him at arms length; although he was still smiling, there was too much sparkle in his eyes. He took out his handkerchief and wiped them. Sure, Bill, he said. You bet. Would you gentlemen like to follow me? the hostess asked. She was a smiling Oriental woman in a delicate pink kimono upon which a dragon cavorted and curled its plated tail. Her dark hair was piled high on her head and held with ivory combs. I know the way, Rose, Mike said. Very good, Mr. Hanlon. She smiled at both of them. You are well met in friendship, I think. I think we are, Mike said. This way, Bill. He led him down a dim corridor, past the main dining room and toward a door where a beaded curtain hung. The others? Bill began. All here now, Mike said. All that could come. Bill hesitated for a moment outside the door, suddenly frightened. It was not the unknown that scared him, not the supernatural; it was the simple knowledge that he was fifteen inches taller than he had been in 1958 and minus most of his hair. He was suddenly uneasyalmost terrifiedat the thought of seeing them all again, their childrens faces almost worn away, almost buried under change as the old hospital had been buried. Banks erected inside their heads where once magic picturepalaces had stood. We grew up, he thought. We didnt think it would happen, not then, not to us. But it did, and if I go in there it will be real were all grownups now. He looked at Mike, suddenly bewildered and timid. How do they look? he heard himself asking in a faltering voice. Mike . . . how do they look? Come in and find out, Mike said, kindly enough, and led Bill into the small private room. 2 Bill Denbrough Gets a Look Perhaps it was simply the dimness of the room that caused the illusion, which lasted for only the briefest moment, but Bill wondered later if it wasnt some sort of message meant strictly for him that fate could also be kind. In that brief moment it seemed to him that none of them had grown up, that his friends had somehow done a Peter Pan act and were all still children. Richie Tozier was rocked back in his chair so that he was leaning against the wall, caught in the act of saying something to Beverly Marsh, who had a hand cupped over her mouth to hide a giggle; Richie had a wiseass grin on his face that was perfectly familiar. There was Eddie Kaspbrak, sitting on Beverlys left, and in front of him on the table, next to his waterglass, was a plastic squeezebottle with a pistolgrip handle curving down from its top. The trimmings were a little more stateoftheart, but the purpose was obviously the same it was an aspirator. Sitting at one end of the table, watching this trio with an expression of mixed anxiety, amusement, and concentration, was Ben Hanscom. Bill found his hand wanting to go to his head and realized with a sorry kind of amusement that in that second he had almost rubbed his pate to see if his hair had magically come backthat red, fine hair that he had begun to lose when he was only a college sophomore. That broke the bubble. Richie was not wearing glasses, he saw, and thought He probably has contacts nowhe would. He hated those glasses. The teeshirts and cord pants hed habitually worn had been replaced by a suit that hadnt been purchased off any rackBill estimated that he was looking at nine hundred dollars worth of tailormade on the hoof. Beverly Marsh (if her name still was Marsh) had become a stunningly beautiful woman. Instead of the casual ponytail, her hairwhich was almost exactly the same shade his own had beenspilled over the shoulders of her plain white Ship n Shore blouse in a torrent of subdued color. In this dim light it merely glowed like a wellbanked bed of embers. In daylight, even the light of such a subdued day as this one, Bill imagined it would flame. And he found himself wondering what it would feel like to plunge his hands into that hair. The worlds oldest story, he thought wryly. Ilove my wife but oh you kid. Eddieit was weird but truehad grown up to look quite a little bit like Anthony Perkins. His face was prematurely lined (although in his movements he seemed somehow younger than either Richie or Ben) and made older still by the rimless spectacles he worespectacles you would imagine a British barrister wearing as he approached the bench or leafed through a legal brief. His hair was short, worn in an outofdate style that had been known as Ivy League in the late fifties and early sixties. He was wearing a loud checked sportcoat that looked like something grabbed from the Distress Sale rack of a mens clothing store that would shortly be out of business... but the watch on one wrist was a Patek Philippe, and the ring on the little finger of his right hand was a ruby. The stone was too hugely vulgar and too ostentatious to be anything but real. Ben was the one who had really changed, and, looking at him again, Bill felt unreality wash easily over him. His face was the same, and his hair, although graying and longer, was combed in the same unusual rightside part. But Ben had gotten thin. He sat easily enough in his chair, his unadorned leather vest open to show the blue chambray workshirt beneath. He wore Levis with straight legs, cowboy boots, and a wide belt with a beatensilver buckle. These clothes clung easily to a body which was slim and narrowhipped. He wore a bracelet with heavy links on one wristnot gold links but copper ones. He got thin, Bill thought. Hes a shadow of his former self, so to speak.... Ole Ben got thin. Wonders never cease. There was a moment of silence among the six of them that was beyond description. It was one of the strangest moments Bill Denbrough ever passed in his life. Stan was not here, but a seventh had come, nonetheless. Here in this private restaurant dining room Bill felt its presence so fully that it was almost personifiedbut not as an old man in a white robe with a scythe on his shoulder. It was the white spot on the map which lay between 1958 and 1985, an area an explorer might have called the Great Dont Know. Bill wondered what exactly was there. Beverly Marsh in a short skirt which showed most of her long, coltish legs, a Beverly Marsh in white gogo boots, her hair parted in the middle and ironed? Richie Tozier carrying a sign which said STOP THE WAR on one side and GET ROTC OFF CAMPUS on the other? Ben Hanscom in a yellow hardhat with a flag decal on the front, running a bulldozer under a canvas parasol, his shirt off, showing a stomach which protruded less and less over the waistband of his pants? Was this seventh creature black? No relation to either H. Rap Brown or Grandmaster Flash, not this fellow, this fellow wore plain white shirts and fadeintothewoodwork J. C. Penney slacks, and he sat in a library carrell at the University of Maine, writing papers on the origin of footnotes and the possible advantages of ISBN numbers in book cataloguing while the marchers marched outside and Phil Ochs sang Richard Nixon find yourself another country to be part of and men died with their stomachs blown out for villages whose names they could not pronounce; he sat there studiously bent over his work (Bill saw him), which lay in a slant of crisp white winterlight, his face sober and absorbed, knowing that to be a librarian was to come as close as any human being can to sitting in the peakseat of eternitys engine. Was he the seventh? Or was it a young man standing before his mirror, looking at the way his forehead was growing, looking at a combful of pulledout red hairs, looking at a pile of university notebooks on the desk reflected in the mirror, notebooks which held the completed, messy first draft of a novel entitled Joanna, which would be published a year later? Some of the above, all of the above, none of the above. It didnt matter, really. The seventh was there, and in that one moment they all felt it ... and perhaps understood best the dreadful power of the thing that had brought them back. It lives, Bill thought, cold inside his clothes. Eye of newt, tail of dragon, Hand of Glory ... whatever It was, Its here again, in Derry. It. And he felt suddenly that It was the seventh; that It and time were somehow interchangeable, that It wore all their faces as well as the thousand others with which It had terrified and killed... and the idea that It might be them was somehow the most frightening idea of all. How much of us was left behind here? he thought with sudden rising terror. How much of us never left the drains and the sewers where It lived ... and where It fed? Is that why we forgot? Because part of each of us never had any future, never grew, never left Derry? Is that why? He saw no answers on their faces... only his own questions reflected back at him. Thoughts form and pass in a matter of seconds or milliseconds, and create their own timeframes, and all of this passed through Bill Denbroughs mind in a space of no more than five seconds. Then Richie Tozier, leaning back against the wall, grinned again and said Oh my, look at thisBill Denbrough went for the chrome dome look. How long you been Turtle Waxing your head, Big Bill? And Bill, with no idea at all of what might come out, opened his mouth and heard himself say Fuck you and the horse you rode in on, Trashmouth. There was a moment of silenceand then the room exploded with laughter. Bill crossed to them and began to shake hands, and while there was something horrible in what he now felt, there was also something comforting about it this sensation of having come home for good. 3 Ben Hanscom Gets Skinny Mike Hanlon ordered drinks, and as if to make up for the prior silence, everyone began to talk at once. Beverly Marsh was now Beverly Rogan, it turned out. She said she was married to a wonderful man in Chicago who had turned her whole life around and who had, by some benign magic, been able to transform his wifes simple talent for sewing into a successful dress business. Eddie Kaspbrak owned a limousine company in New York. For all I know, my wife could be in bed with Al Pacino right now, he said, smiling mildly, and the room broke up. They all knew what Bill and Ben had been up to, but Bill had a peculiar sense that there had been no personal association of their namesBen as an architect, himself as a writerwith people they had known as children until very, very recently. Beverly had paperback copies of Joanna and The Black Rapids in her purse, and asked him if he would sign them. Bill did so, noticing as he did that both books were in mint conditionas if they had been purchased in the airport newsstand as she got off the plane. In like fashion, Richie told Ben how much he had admired the BBC communications center in London ... but there was a puzzled sort of light in his eyes, as if he could not quite reconcile that building with this man ... or with the fat earnest boy who had showed them how to flood out half the Barrens with scrounged boards and a rusty car door. Richie was a disc jockey in California. He told them he was known as the Man of a Thousand Voices and Bill groaned. God, Richie, your Voices were always so terrible. Flattery will get you nowhere, mawster, Richie replied loftily. When Beverly asked him if he wore contacts now, Richie said in a low voice, Come a little closer, baybee. Look in my eyes. Beverly did, and exclaimed delightedly as Richie tilted his head a little so she could see the lower rims of the Hydromist soft lenses he wore. Is the library still the same? Ben asked Mike Hanlon. Mike took out his wallet and produced a snap of the library, taken from above. He did it with the proud air of a man producing snapshots of his kids when asked about his family. Guy in a light plane took this, he said, as the picture went from hand to hand. Ive been trying to get either the City Council or some wellheeled private donor to supply enough cash to get it blown up to mural size for the Childrens Library. So far, no soap. But its a good picture, huh? They all agreed that it was. Ben held it longest, looking at it fixedly. Finally he tapped the glass corridor which connected the two buildings. Do you recognize this from anywhere else, Mike? Mike smiled. Its your communications center, he said, and all six of them burst out laughing. The drinks came. They sat down. That silence, sudden, awkward, and perplexing, fell again. They looked at each other. Well? Beverly asked in her sweet, slightly husky voice. What do we drink to? To us, Richie said suddenly. And now he wasnt smiling. His eyes caught Bills and with a force so great he could barely deal with it, Bill remembered himself and Richie in the middle of Neibolt Street, after the thing which might have been a clown or which might have been a werewolf had disappeared, embracing each other and weeping. When he picked up his glass, his hand was trembling, and some of his drink spilled on the napery. Richie rose slowly to his feet, and one by one the others followed suit Bill first, then Ben and Eddie, Beverly, and finally Mike Hanlon. To us, Richie said, and like Bills hand, his voice trembled a little. To the Losers Club of 1958. The Losers, Beverly said, slightly amused. The Losers, Eddie said. His face was pale and old behind his rimless glasses. The Losers, Ben agreed. A faint and painful smile ghosted at the corners of his mouth. The Losers, Mike Hanlon said softly. The Losers, Bill finished. Their glasses touched. They drank. That silence fell again, and this time Richie did not break it. This time the silence seemed necessary. They sat back down and Bill said, So spill it, Mike. Tell us whats been happening here, and what we can do. Eat first, Mike said. Well talk afterward. So they ate ... and they ate long and well. Like that old joke about the condemned man, Bill thought, but his own appetite was better than it had been in ages ... since he was a kid, he was tempted to think. The food was not stunningly good, but it was far from bad, and there was a lot of it. The six of them began trading stuff back and forthspareribs, moo goo gai pan, chicken wings that had been delicately braised, egg rolls, water chestnuts wrapped in bacon, strips of beef that had been threaded onto wooden skewers. They began with pupu platters, and Richie made a childish but amusing business of broiling a little bit of everything over the flaming pot in the center of the platter he was sharing with Beverlyincluding half an egg roll and a few red kidney beans. Flamb at my table, I love it, he told Ben. Id eat shit on a shingle if it was flamb at my table. And probably has, Bill remarked. Beverly laughed so hard at this she had to spit a mouthful of food into her napkin. Oh God, I think Im gonna ralph, Richie said in an eerily exact imitation of Don Pardo, and Beverly laughed harder, blushing a bright red. Stop it, Richie, she said. Im warning you. The warning is taken, Richie said. Eat well, dear. Rose herself brought them their desserta great mound of baked Alaska which she ignited at the head of the table, where Mike sat. More flamb at my table, Richie said in the voice of a man who has died and gone to heaven. This may be the best meal Ive ever eaten in my life. But of course, Rose said demurely. If I blow that out, do I get my wish? he asked her. At Jade of the Orient, all wishes are granted, sir. Richies smile faltered suddenly. I applaud the sentiment, he said, but you know, I really doubt the veracity. They almost demolished the baked Alaska. As Bill sat back, his belly straining the waistband of his pants, he happened to notice the glasses on the table. There seemed to be hundreds of them. He grinned a little, realizing that he himself had sunk two martinis before the meal and God knew how many bottles of Kirin beer with it. The others had done about as well. In their state, fried chunks of bowling pin would probably have tasted okay. And yet he didnt feel drunk. I havent eaten like that since I was a kid, Ben said. They looked at him and a faint flush of color tinged his cheeks. I mean it literally. That may be the biggest meal Ive eaten since I was a sophomore in high school. You went on a diet? Eddie asked. Yeah, Ben said. I did. The Ben Hanscom Freedom Diet. What got you going? Richie asked. You dont want to hear all that ancient history.... Ben shifted uncomfortably. I dont know about the rest of them, Bill said, but I do. Come on, Ben. Give. What turned Haystack Calhoun into the magazine model we see before us today? Richie snorted a little. Haystack, right. Id forgotten that. Its not much of a story, Ben said. No story at all, really. After that summerafter 1958we stayed in Derry another two years. Then my mom lost her job and we ended up moving to Nebraska, because she had a sister there who offered to take us in until my mother got on her feet again. It wasnt so great. Her sister, my aunt Jean, was a miserly bitch who had to keep telling you what your place in the great scheme of things was, how lucky we were that my mom had a sister who could give us charity, how lucky we were not to be on welfare, all that sort of thing. I was so fat I disgusted her. She couldnt leave it alone. Ben, you ought to get more exercise. Ben, youll have a heart attack before youre forty if you dont lose weight. Ben, with little children starving in the world, you ought to be ashamed of yourself. He paused for a moment and sipped some water. The thing was, she also trotted the starving children out if I didnt clean my plate. Richie laughed and nodded. Anyway, the country was just pulling out of a recession and my mother was almost a year finding steady work. By the time we moved out of Aunt Jeans place in La Vista and got our own in Omaha, Id put on about ninety pounds over when you guys knew me. I think I put on most of it just to spite my Aunt Jean. Eddie whistled. That would have put you at about At about two hundred and ten, Ben said gravely. Anyway, I was going to East Side High School in Omaha, and the phys ed periods were ... well, pretty bad. The other kids called me Jugs. That ought to give you the idea. The ragging went on for about seven months, and then one day, while we were getting dressed in the locker room after the period, two or three of the guys started to ... to kind of slap my gut. They called it fatpaddling. Pretty soon two or three others got in on it. Then four or five more. Pretty soon it was all of them, chasing me around the locker room and up the hall, whacking my gut, my butt, my back, my legs. I got scared and started to scream. That made the rest of them laugh like crazy. You know, he said, looking down and carefully rearranging his silverware, thats the last time I can remember thinking of Henry Bowers until Mike called me two days ago. The kid who started it was a farmboy with these big old hands, and while they were chasing after me I remember thinking that Henry had come back. I thinkno, I know thats when I panicked. They chased me up the hall past the lockers where the guys who played sports kept their stuff. I was naked and red as a lobster. Id lost any sense of dignity or ... or of myself, I guess youd say. Where myself was. I was screaming for help. And here they came after me, screaming Fatpaddling! Fatpaddling! Fatpaddling! There was a bench Ben, you dont have to put yourself through this, Beverly said suddenly. Her face had gone ashypale. She toyed with her waterglass, and almost spilled it. Let him finish, Bill said. Ben looked at him for a moment and then nodded. There was a bench at the end of the corridor. I fell over it and hit my head. They were all around me in another minute or two, and then this voice said Okay. Thats enough. You guys go change up. It was Coach, standing there in the doorway, wearing his blue sweatpants with the white stripe up the sides and his white teeshirt. There was no way of telling how long hed been standing there. They all looked at him, some of them grinning, some of them guilty, some of them just looking sort, of vacant. They went away. And I burst into tears. Coach just stood there in the doorway leading back to the gym, watching me, watching this naked fat boy with his skin all red from the fatpaddling, watching this fat kid crying on the floor. And finally he said, Benny, why dont you just fucking shut up? It shocked me so much to hear a teacher use that word that I did. I looked up at him, and he came over and sat down on the bench Id fallen over. He leaned over me, and the whistle around his neck swung out and bonked me on the forehead. For a second I thought he was going to kiss me or something, and I shrank back from him, but what he did was grab one of my tits in each hand and squeeze. Then he took his hands away and rubbed them on his pants like hed touched something dirty. You think Im going to comfort you? he asked me. Im not. You disgust them and you disgust me as well. We got different reasons, but thats because theyre kids and Im not. They dont know why you disgust them. I do know. Its because I see you burying the good body God gave you in a great big mess of fat. Its a lot of stupid selfindulgence, and it makes me want to puke. Now listen to me, Benny, because this is the only time Im going to say it to you. I got a football team to coach, and basketball, and track, and somewhere in between Ive got swimming team. So Ill just say it once. Youre fat up here. And he tapped my forehead right where his damned whistle had bonked me. Thats where everybodys fat. You put whats between your ears on a diet and youre going to lose weight. But guys like you never do. What a bastard! Beverly said indignantly. Yeah, Ben said, grinning. But he didnt know he was a bastard, thats how dumb he was. Hed probably seen Jack Webb in that movie The D.I. about sixty times, and he actually thought he was doing me a favor. And as it turned out, he was. Because I thought of something right then. I thought ... He looked away, frowningand Bill had the strangest feeling that he knew what Ben was going to say before he said it. I told you that the last time I can remember thinking of Henry Bowers was when the other boys were chasing after me and fatpaddling. Well, when the Coach was getting up to go, that was the last time I really thought of what wed done in the summer of 58. I thought He hesitated again, looking at each of them in turn, seeming to search their faces. He went on carefully. I thought of how good we were together. I thought of what we did and how we did it, and all at once it hit me that if Coach had to face anything like that, his hair would probably have turned white all at once and his heart would have stopped dead in his chest like an old watch. It wasnt fair, of course, but he hadnt been fair to me. What happened was simple enough You got mad, Bill said. Ben smiled. Yeah, thats right, he said. I called, Coach! He turned around and looked at me. You say you coach track? I asked him. Thats right, he said. Not that its anything to you. You listen to me, you stupid stonebrained son of a bitch, I said, and his mouth dropped open and his eyes bugged out. Ill be out there for the track team in March. What do you think about that? I think you better shut your mouth before it gets you into big trouble, he said. Im going to run down everyone you get out, I said. Im going to run down your best. And then I want a fucking apology from you. His fists clenched, and for a minute I thought he was going to come back in there and let me have it. Then they unclenched again. You just keep talking, fatboy, he said softly. You got the motormouth. But the day you can outrun my best will be the day I quit this place and go back to picking corn on the circuit. And he left. You lost the weight? Richie asked. Well, I did, Ben said. But Coach was wrong. It didnt start in my head. It started with my mother. I went home that night and told her I wanted to lose some weight. We ended up having a hell of a fight, both of us crying. |
She started out with that same old song and dance I wasnt really fat, I just had big bones, and a big boy who was going to be a big man had to eat big just to stay even. It was a ... a kind of security thing with her, I think. It was scary for her, trying to raise a boy on her own. She had no education and no real skills, just a willingness to work hard. And when she could give me a second helping... or when she could look across the table at me and see that I was looking solid ... She felt like she was winning the battle, Mike said. Uhhuh. Ben drank off the last of his beer and wiped a small mustache of foam off his upper lip with the heel of his hand. So the biggest fight wasnt with my head; it was with her. She just wouldnt accept it, not for months. She wouldnt take in my clothes and she wouldnt buy me new ones. I was running by then, I ran everywhere, and sometimes my heart pounded so hard I felt like I was going to pass out. The first of my mile runs I finished by puking and then fainting. Then for awhile I just puked. And after awhile I was holding up my pants while I ran. I got a paperroute and I ran with the bag around my neck, bouncing against my chest, while I held up my pants. My shirts started to look like sails. And nights when I went home and would only eat half the stuff on my plate my mother would burst into tears and say that I was starving myself, killing myself, that I didnt love her anymore, that I didnt care about how hard she had worked for me. Christ, Richie muttered, lighting a cigarette. I dont know how you handled it, Ben. I just kept the Coachs face in front of me, Ben said. I just kept remembering the way he looked after he grabbed my tits in the hallway to the boys locker room that time. Thats how I did it. I got myself some new jeans and stuff with the paperroute money, and the old guy in the firstfloor apartment used his awl to punch some new holes in my beltabout five of them, as I remember. I think that I might have remembered the other time I had to buy a pair of new jeansthat was when Henry pushed me into the Barrens that day and they just about got torn off my body. Yeah, Eddie said, grinning. And you told me about the chocolate milk. Remember that? Ben nodded. If I did remember, he went on, it was just for a secondthere and gone. About that same time I started taking Health and Nutrition at school, and I found out you could eat just about all the raw green stuff you wanted and not gain weight. So one night my mother put on a salad with lettuce and raw spinach in it, chunks of apple and maybe a little leftover ham. Now Ive never liked rabbitfood that much, but I had three helpings and just raved on and on to my mother about how good it was. That went a long way toward solving the problem. She didnt care so much what I ate as long as I ate a lot of it. She buried me in salads. I ate them for the next three years. There were times when I had to look in the mirror to make sure my nose wasnt wriggling. So what happened about the Coach? Eddie asked. Did you go out for track? He touched his aspirator, as if the thought of running had reminded him of it. Oh yeah, I went out, Ben said. The twotwenty and the fourforty. By then Id lost seventy pounds and Id sprung up two inches so that what was left was better distributed. On the first day of trials I won the twotwenty by six lengths and the fourforty by eight. Then I went over to Coach, who looked mad enough to chew nails and spit out staples, and I said Looks like its time you got out on the circuit and started picking corn. When are you heading down Kansas way? He didnt say a thing at firstjust swung a roundhouse and knocked me flat on my back. Then he told me to get off the field. Said he didnt want a smartmouth bastard like me on his track team. I wouldnt be on it if President Kennedy appointed me to it, I said, wiping blood out of the corner of my mouth. And since you got me going I wont hold you to it ... but the next time you sit down to a big plate of corn on the cob, spare me a thought. He told me if I didnt get out right then he was going to beat the living crap out of me. Ben was smiling a little ... but there was nothing very pleasant about that smile, certainly nothing nostalgic. Those were his exact words. Everyone was watching us, including the kids Id beaten. They looked pretty embarrassed. So I just said, Ill tell you what, Coach. You get one free, on account of youre a sore loser but too old to learn any better now. But you put one more on me and Ill try to see to it that you lose your job. Im not sure I can do it, but I can make a good try. I lost the weight so I could have a little dignity and a little peace. Those are things worth fighting for. Bill said, All of that sounds wonderful, Ben ... but the writer in me wonders if any kid ever really talked like that. Ben nodded, still smiling that peculiar smile. I doubt if any kid who hadnt been through the things we went through ever did, he said. But I said them ... and I meant them. Bill thought about this and then nodded. All right. The Coach stood back with his hands on the hips of his sweatpants, Ben said. He opened his mouth and then he closed it again. Nobody said anything. I walked off, and that was the last I had to do with Coach Woodleigh. When my homeroom teacher handed me my course sheet for my junior year, someone had typed the word excused next to phys. ed. and hed initialed it. You beat him! Richie exclaimed, and shook his clenched hands over his head. Way to go, Ben! Ben shrugged. I think what I did was beat part of myself. Coach got me going, I guess ... but it was thinking of you guys that made me really believe that I could do it. And I did do it. Ben shrugged charmingly, but Bill believed he could see fine drops of sweat at his hairline. End of True Confessions. Except I sure could use another beer. Talkings thirsty work. Mike signalled the waitress. All six of them ended up ordering another round, and they talked of light matters until the drinks came. Bill looked into his beer, watching the way the bubbles crawled up the sides of the glass. He was both amused and appalled to realize he was hoping someone else would begin to story about the years betweenthat Beverly would tell them about the wonderful man she had married (even if he was boring, as most wonderful men were), or that Richie Tozier would begin to expound on Funny Incidents in the Broadcasting Studio, or that Eddie Kaspbrak would tell them what Teddy Kennedy was really like, how much Robert Redford tipped ... or maybe offer some insights into why Ben had been able to give up the extra pounds while he had needed to hang onto his aspirator. The fact is, Bill thought, Mike is going to start talking any minute now, and Im not sure I want to hear what he has to say. The fact is, my heart is beating just a little too fast and my hands are just a little too cold. The fact is, Im just about twentyfive years too old to be this scared. We all are. So say something, someone. Lets talk of careers and spouses and what its like to look at your old playmates and realize that youve taken a few really good shots in the nose from time itself. Lets talk about sex, baseball, the price of gas, the future of the Warsaw Pact nations. Anything but what we came here to talk about. So say something, somebody. Someone did. Eddie Kaspbrak did. But it was not what Teddy Kennedy was really like or how much Redford tipped or even why he had found it necessary to keep what Richie had sometimes called Eddies lungsucker in the old days. He asked Mike when Stan Uris had died. The night before last. When I made the calls. Did it have to do with... with why were here? I could beg the question and say that, since he didnt leave a note, no one can know for sure, Mike answered, but since it happened almost immediately after I called him, I think the assumption is safe enough. He killed himself, didnt he? Beverly said dully. Oh Godpoor Stan. The others were looking at Mike, who finished his drink and said He committed suicide, yes. Apparently went up to the bathroom shortly after I called him, drew a bath, got into it, and cut his wrists. Bill looked down the table, which seemed suddenly lined with shocked, pale facesno bodies, only those faces, like white circles. Like white balloons, moon balloons, tethered here by an old promise that should have long since lapsed. How did you find out? Richie asked. Was it carried in the papers up here? No. For some time now Ive subscribed to the newpapers of those towns closest to all of you. I have kept tabs over the years. I Spy. Richies face was sour. Thanks, Mike. It was my job, Mike said simply. Poor Stan, Beverly repeated. She seemed stunned, unable to cope with the news. But he was so brave back then. So ... determined. People change, Eddie said. Do they? Bill asked. Stan was He moved his hands on the tablecloth, trying to catch the right words. He was an ordered person. The kind of person who has to have his books divided up into fiction and nonfiction on his shelves ... and then wants to have each section in alphabetical order. I can remember something he said onceI dont remember where we were or what we were doing, at least not yet, but I think it was toward the end of things. He said he could stand to be scared, but he hated being dirty. That seemed to me the essence of Stan. Maybe it was just too much, when Mike called. He saw his choices as being only two stay alive and get dirty or die clean. Maybe people really dont change as much as we think. Maybe they just ... maybe they just stiffen up. There was a moment of silence and then Richie said, All right, Mike. Whats happening in Derry? Tell us. I can tell you some, Mike said. I can tell you, for instance, whats happening nowand I can tell you some things about yourselves. But I cant tell you everything that happened back in the summer of 1958, and I dont believe Ill ever have to. Eventually youll remember it for yourselves. And I think if I told you too much before your minds were ready to remember, what happened to Stan Might happen to us? Ben asked quietly. Mike nodded. Yes. Thats exactly what Im afraid of. Bill said Then tell us what you can, Mike. All right, he said. I will. 4 The Losers Get the Scoop The murders have started again, Mike said flatly. He looked up and down the table, and then his eyes fixed on Bills. The first of the new murdersif youll allow me that rather grisly conceitbegan on the Main Street Bridge and ended underneath it. The victim was a gay and rather childlike man named Adrian Mellon. He had a bad case of asthma. Eddies hand stole out and touched the side of his aspirator. It happened last summer on July 21st, the last night of the Canal Days Festival, which was a kind of celebration, a ... a ... A Derry ritual, Bill said in a low voice. His long fingers were slowly massaging his temples, and it was not hard to guess he was thinking about his brother George ... George, who had almost certainly opened the way the last time this had happened. A ritual, Mike said quietly. Yes. He told them the story of what had happened to Adrian Mellon quickly, watching with no pleasure as their eyes got bigger and bigger. He told them what the News had reported and what it had not ... the latter including the testimony of Don Hagarty and Christopher Unwin about a certain clown which had been under the bridge like the troll in the fabled story of yore, a clown which had looked like a cross between Ronald McDonald and Bozo, according to Hagarty. It was him, Ben said in a sick hoarse voice. It was that fucker Pennywise. Theres one other thing, Mike said, looking at Bill. One of the investigating officersthe one who actually pulled Adrian Mellon out of the Canalwas a town cop named Harold Gardener. Oh Jesus Christ, Bill said in a weak teary voice. Bill? Beverly looked at him, then put a hand on his arm. Her voice was full of startled concern. Bill, whats wrong? Harold would have been about five then, Bill said. His stunned eyes searched Mikes face for confirmation. Yes. What is it, Bill? Richie asked. HHHarold Gardener was the sson of Dave Gardener, Bill said. Dave lived down the street from us back then, when George was kkilled. He was the one who got to Juh Juh ... to my brother first and brought him up to the house, wrapped in a piece of ququilt. They sat silently, saying nothing. Beverly put a hand briefly over her eyes. It all fits rather too well, doesnt it? Mike said finally. Yes, Bill said in a low voice. It fits, all right. Id kept tabs on the six of you over the years, as I said, Mike went on, but it wasnt until then that I began to understand just why I had been doing it, that it had a real and concrete purpose. Still, I held off, waiting to see how things would develop. You see, I felt that I had to be absolutely sure before I ... disturbed your lives. Not ninety percent, not even ninetyfive percent. One hundred was all that would do it. In December of last year, an eightyearold boy named Steven Johnson was found dead in Memorial Park. Like Adrian Mellon, he had been badly mutilated just before or just after his death, but he looked as if he could have died of just plain fright. Sexually assaulted? Eddie asked. No. Just plain mutilated. How many in all? Eddie asked, not looking as if he really wanted to know. Its bad, Mike said. How many? Bill repeated. Nine. So far. It cant be! Beverly cried. I would have read about it in the paper ... seen it on the news! When that crazy cop killed all those women in Castle Rock, Maine ... and those children that were murdered in Atlanta ... Yes, that, Mike said. Ive thought about that a lot. Its really the closest correlative to whats going on here, and Bevs right that really was coasttocoast news. In some ways, the Atlanta comparison is the thing about all of this that frightens me the most. The murder of nine children ... we should have TV news correspondents here, and phony psychics, and reporters from The Atlantic Monthly and Rolling Stone ... the whole media circus, in short. But it hasnt happened, Bill said. No, Mike answered, it hasnt. Oh, there was a Sundaysupplement piece about it in the Portland Sunday Telegram, and another one in the Boston Globe after the last two. A Bostonbased television program called Good Day! did a segment this February on unsolved murders, and one of the experts mentioned the Derry murders, but only passingly ... and he certainly gave no indication of knowing there had been a similar batch of murders in 195758, and another in 192930. There are some ostensible reasons, of course. Atlanta, New York, Chicago, Detroit ... those are big media towns, and in big media towns when something happens it makes a bang. There isnt a single TV or radio station in Derry, unless you count the little FM the English and Speech Department runs up at the high school. Bangors got the corner on the market when it comes to the media. Except for the Derry News, Eddie said, and they all laughed. But we all know that doesnt really cut it with the way the world is today. The communication web is there, and at some point the story should have broken nationally. But it didnt. And I think the reason is just this It doesnt want it to. It, Bill mused, almost to himself. It, Mike agreed. If we have to call It something, it might as well be what we used to call It. Ive begun to think, you see, that It has been here so long ... whatever It really is ... that Its become a part of Derry, something as much a part of the town as the Standpipe, or the Canal, or Bassey Park, or the library. Only Its not a matter of outward geography, you understand. Maybe that was true once, but now Its ... inside. Somehow Its gotten inside. Thats the only way I know to understand all of the terrible things that have happened herethe nominally explicable as well as the utterly inexplicable. There was a fire at a Negro nightclub called the Black Spot in 1930. A year before that, a bunch of halfbright Depression outlaws was gunned down on Canal Street in the middle of the afternoon. The Bradley Gang, Bill said. The FBI got them, right? Thats what the histories say, but thats not precisely true. So far as Ive been able to find outand Id give a lot to believe that it wasnt so, because I love this townthe Bradley Gang, all seven of them, were actually gunned down by the good citizens of Derry. Ill tell you about it sometime. There was the explosion at the Kitchener Ironworks during an Easteregg hunt in 1906. There was a horrible series of animal mutilations that same year that was finally traced to Andrew Rhulin, the granduncle of the man who now runs the Rhulin Farms. He was apparently bludgeoned to death by the three deputies who were supposed to bring him in. None of the deputies were ever brought to trial. Mike Hanlon produced a small notebook from an inner pocket and paged through it, talking without looking up. In 1877 there were four lynchings inside the incorporated town limits. One of those that climbed a rope was the lay preacher of the Methodist Church, who apparently drowned all four of his children in the bathtub as if they were kittens and then shot his wife in the head. He put the gun in her hand to make it look like suicide, but no one was fooled. A year before that four loggers were found dead in a cabin downstream on the Kenduskeag, literally torn apart. Disappearances of children, of whole families, are recorded in old diary extracts ... but not in any public document. It goes on and on, but perhaps you get the idea. I get the idea, all right, Ben said. Somethings going on here, but its private. Mike closed his notebook, replaced it in his inner pocket, and looked at them soberly. If I were an insurance man instead of a librarian, Id draw you a graph, maybe. It would show an unusually high rate of every violent crime we know of, not excluding rape, incest, breaking and entering, auto theft, child abuse, spouse abuse, assault. Theres a mediumsized city in Texas where the violentcrime rate is far below what youd expect for a city of its size and mixed racial makeup. The extraordinary placidity of the people who live there has been traced to something in the water .. a natural trank of some kind. The exact opposite holds true here. Derry is a violent place to live in an ordinary year. But every twentyseven yearsalthough the cycle has never been perfectly exactthat violence has escalated to a furious peak ... and it has never been national news. Youre saying theres a cancer at work here, Beverly said. Not at all. An untreated cancer invariably kills. Derry hasnt died; on the contrary, it has thrived ... in an unspectacular, unnewsworthy way, of course. It is simply a fairly prosperous small city in a relatively unpopulous state where bad things happen too often ... and where ferocious things happen every quarter of a century or so. That holds true all down the line? Ben asked. Mike nodded. All down the line. 171516, 1740 until roughly 1743that must have been a bad one176970, and on and on. Right up to the present time. I have a feeling that its been getting steadily worse, maybe because there have been more people in Derry at the end of each cycle, maybe for some other reason. And in 1958, the cycle appears to have come to a premature end. For which we were responsible. Bill Denbrough leaned forward, his eyes suddenly bright. Youre sure of that? Sure? Yes, Mike said. All the other cycles reached their peak around September and then ended in a big way. Life usually took on its more or less normal tenor by Christmas ... Easter at the latest. In other words, there were bad years of fourteen to twenty months every twentyseven years. But the bad year that began when your brother was killed in October of 1957 ended quite abruptly in August of 1958. Why? Eddie asked urgently. His breath had thinned; Bill remembered that high whistle as Eddie inhaled breath, and knew that he would soon be tooting on the old lungsucker. What did we do? The question hung there. Mike seemed to regard it ... and at last he shook his head. Youll remember, he said. In time youll remember. What if we dont? Ben asked. Then God help us all. Nine children dead this year, Rich said. Christ. Lisa Albrecht and Steven Johnson in late 1984, Mike said. In February a boy named Dennis Torrio disappeared. A highschool boy. His body was found in midMarch, in the Barrens. Mutilated. This was nearby. He took a photograph from the same pocket into which he had replaced the notebook. It made its way around the table. Beverly and Eddie looked at it, puzzled, but Richie Tozier reacted violently. He dropped it as if it were hot. Jesus! Jesus, Mike! He looked up, his eyes wide and shocked. A moment later he passed the picture to Bill. Bill looked at it and felt the world swim into gray tones all around him. For a moment he was sure he would pass out. He heard a groan, and knew he had made the sound. He dropped the picture. What is it? he heard Beverly saying. What does it mean, Bill? Its my brothers school picture, Bill said at last. Its JuhGeorgie. The picture from his album. The one that moved. The one that winked. They handed it around again then, while Bill sat as still as stone at the head of the table, looking out into space. It was a photograph of a photograph. The picture showed a tattered school photo propped up against a white backgroundsmiling lips parted to exhibit two holes where new teeth had never grown (unless they grow in your coffin, Bill thought, and shuddered). On the margin below Georges picture were the words SCHOOL FRIENDS 195758. It was found this year? Beverly asked again. Mike nodded and she turned to Bill. When did you last see it, Bill? He wet his lips, tried to speak. Nothing came out. He tried again, hearing the words echo in his head, aware of the stutter coming back, fighting it, fighting the terror. I havent seen that picture since 1958. That spring, the year after George died. When I tried to show it to Richie, it was ggone. There was an explosive gasping sound that made them all look around. Eddie was setting his aspirator back on the table and looking slightly embarrassed. Eddie Kaspbrak blasts off! Richie cried cheerfully, and then, suddenly and eerily, the Voice of the MovieTone Newsreel Narrator came from Richs mouth Today in Derry, a whole city turns out for Asthmatics on Parade, and the star of the show is Big Ed the Snothead, known all over New England as He stopped abruptly, and one hand moved toward his face, as if to cover his eyes, and Bill suddenly thought Nono, thats not it. Not to cover his eyes but to push his glasses up on his nose. The glasses that arent even there anymore. Oh dear Christ, whats going on here? Eddie, Im sorry, Rich said. That was cruel. I dont know what the hell I was thinking about. He looked around at the others, bewildered. Mike Hanlon spoke into the silence. Id promised myself after Steven Johnsons body was discovered that if anything else happenedif there was one more clear caseI would make the calls that I ended up not making for another two months. It was as if I was hypnotized by what was happening, by the consciousness of itthe deliberateness of it. Georges picture was found by a fallen log less than ten feet from the Torrio boys body. It wasnt hidden; quite the contrary. It was as if the killer wanted it to be found. As Im sure the killer did. How did you get the police photo, Mike? Ben asked. Thats what it is, isnt it? Yes, thats what it is. Theres a fellow in the Police Department who isnt averse to making a little extra money. I pay him twenty bucks a monthall that I can afford. Hes a pipeline. The body of Dawn Roy was found four days after the Torrio boy. McCarron Park. Thirteen years old. Decapitated. April 23rd of this year. Adam Terrault. Sixteen. Reported missing when he didnt come home from band practice. Found the next day just off the path that runs through the greenbelt behind West Broadway. Also decapitated. May 6th. Frederick Cowan. Two and a half. Found in an upstairs bathroom, drowned in the toilet. Oh, Mike! Beverly cried. Yeah, its bad, he said, almost angrily. Dont you think I know that? The police are convinced that it couldnt have beenwell, some kind of accident? Bev asked. Mike shook his head. His mother was hanging clothes in the back yard. She heard sounds of a struggleheard her son screaming. She ran as fast as she could. As she went up the stairs, she says she heard the sound of the toilet flushing repeatedlythat, and someone laughing. She said it didnt sound human. And she saw nothing at all? Eddie asked. Her son, Mike said simply. His back had been broken, his skull fractured. The glass door of the showerstall was broken. There was blood everywhere. The mother is in the Bangor Mental Health Institute, now. My ... my Police Department source says shes quite lost her mind. No fucking wonder, Richie said hoarsely. Whos got a cigarette? Beverly gave him one. Rich lit it with hands that shook badly. The police line is that the killer came in through the front door while the Cowan boys mother was hanging her clothes in the back yard. Then, when she ran up the back stairs, he supposedly jumped from the bathroom window into the yard shed just left and got away clean. But the window is only one of those halfsized jobs; a kid of seven would have to wriggle to get through it. And the drop was twentyfive feet to a stoneflagged patio. Rademacher doesnt like to talk about those things, and no one in the presscertainly no one at the Newshas pressed him about them. Mike took a drink of water and then passed another picture down the line. This was not a police photograph; it was another school picture. It showed a grinning boy who was maybe thirteen. He was dressed in his best for the school photo and his hands were clean and folded neatly in his lap... but there was a devilish little glint in his eyes. He was black. Jeffrey Holly, Mike said. May 13th. A week after the Cowan boy was killed. Torn open. He was found in Bassey Park, by the Canal. Nine days after that, May 22nd, a fifthgrader named John Feury was found dead out on Neibolt Street Eddie uttered a high, quavering scream. He groped for his aspirator and knocked it off the table. It rolled down to Bill, who picked it up. Eddies face had gone a sickish yellow color. His breath whistled coldly in his throat. Get him something to drink! Ben roared. Somebody get him But Eddie was shaking his head. He triggered the aspirator down his throat. His chest heaved as he tore in a gulp of air. He triggered the aspirator again and then sat back, eyes halfclosed, panting. Ill be all right, he gasped. Gimme a minute, Im with you. Eddie, are you sure? Beverly asked. Maybe you ought to lie down Ill be all right, he repeated querulously. It was just ... the shock. You know. The shock. Id forgotten all about Neibolt Street. No one replied; no one had to. Bill thought You believe your capacity has been reached, and then Mike produces another name, and yet another, like a black magician with a hatful of malign tricks, and youre knocked on your ass again. It was too much to face all at once, this outpouring of inexplicable violence, somehow directly aimed at the six people hereor so Georges photograph seemed to suggest. Both of John Feurys legs were gone, Mike continued softly, but the medical examiner says that happened after he died. His heart gave out. He seems to have quite literally died of fear. He was found by the postman, who saw a hand sticking out from under the porch It was 29, wasnt it? Rich said, and Bill looked at him quickly. Rich glanced back at him, nodded slightly, and then looked at Mike again. Twentynine Neibolt Street. Oh yes, Mike said in that same calm voice. It was number 29. He drank more water. Are you really all right, Eddie? Eddie nodded. His breathing had eased. Rademacher made an arrest the day after Feurys body was discovered, Mike said. There was a frontpage editorial in the News that same day, calling for his resignation, incidentally. After eight murders? Ben said. Pretty radical of them, wouldnt you say? Beverly wanted to know who had been arrested. A guy who lives in a little shack way out on Route 7, almost over the town line and into Newport, Mike said. Kind of a hermit. Burns scrapwood in his stove, roofed the place with scavenged shingles and hubcaps. Name of Harold Earl. Probably doesnt see two hundred dollars in cash money over the course of a year. Someone driving by saw him standing out in his dooryard, just looking up at the sky, on the day John Feurys body was discovered. His clothes were covered with blood. Then maybe Rich began hopefully. He had three butchered deer in his shed, Mike said. Hed been jacking over in Haven. The blood on his clothes was deerblood. Rademacher asked him if he killed John Feury, and Earl is supposed to have said, Oh ayuh, I killed a lot of people. I shot most of them in the war. He also said hed seen things in the woods at night. Blue lights sometimes, floating just a few inches off the ground. Corpselights, he called them. And Bigfoot. They sent him up to the Bangor Mental Health. According to the medical report, his livers almost entirely gone. Hes been drinking paintthinner Oh my God, Beverly said. and is prone to hallucinations. Theyve been holding on to him, and until three days ago Rademacher was sticking to his idea that Earl was the most likely suspect. He had eight guys out there, digging around his shack and looking for the missing heads, lampshades made out of human skin, God knows what. Mike paused, head lowered, and then went on. His voice was slightly hoarse now. Id held off and held off. But when I saw this last one, I made the calls. I wish to God Id made them sooner. Lets see, Ben said abruptly. The victim was another fifthgrader, Mike said. A classmate of the Feury boy. He was found just off Kansas Street, near where Bill used to hide his bike when we were in the Barrens. His name was Jerry Bellwood. He was torn apart. What ... what was left of him was found at the foot of a cement retaining wall that was put in along most of Kansas Street about twenty years ago to stop the soil erosion. This police photograph of the section of that wall where Bellwood was found was taken less than half an hour after the body was removed. Here. He passed the picture to Rich Tozier, who looked and passed it on to Beverly. She glanced at it briefly, winced, and passed it on to Eddie, who gazed at it long and raptly before handing it on to Ben. Ben passed it to Bill with barely a glance. Printing straggled its way across the concrete retaining wall. It said Bill looked up at Mike grimly. He had been bewildered and frightened; now he felt the first stirrings of anger. He was glad. Angry was not such a great way to feel, but it was better than the shock, better than the miserable fear. Is that written in what I think its written in? Yes, Mike said. Jerry Bellwoods blood. 5 Richie Gets Beeped Mike had taken his photographs back. He had an idea that Bill might ask for the one of Georges last school picture, but Bill did not. He put them in his inside jacket pocket, and when they were out of sight, all of themMike inctudedfelt a sense of relief. Nine children, Beverly was saying softly. I cant believe it. I mean ... I can believe it, but I cant believe it. Nine kids and nothing? Nothing at all? Its not quite like that, Mike said. People are angry, people are scared ... or so it seems. Its really impossible to tell which ones really feel that way and which ones are faking. Faking? Beverly, do you remember, when we were kids, the man who just folded his newspaper and went inside his house while you were screaming at him for help? For a moment something seemed to jump in her eyes and she looked both terrified and aware. Then she only looked puzzled. No ... when was that, Mike? Never mind. |
It will come to you in time. All I can say now is that everything looks the way it should in Derry. Faced with such a grisly string of murders, people are doing all the things youd expect them to do, and most of them are the same things that went on while kids were disappearing and getting murdered back in 58. The Save Our Children Committee is meeting again, only this time at Derry Elementary School instead of Derry High. There are sixteen detectives from the State Attorney Generals office in town, and a contingent of FBI agents as wellI dont know how many, and although Rademacher talks big, I dont think he does, either. The curfews back in effect Oh yes. The curfew. Ben was rubbing the side of his neck slowly and deliberately. That did wonders back in 58. I remember that much. and there are Mothers Walker Groups to make sure that every child who goes to school, grades K through eight, is chaperoned home. The News has gotten over two thousand letters demanding a solution in the last three weeks alone. And, of course, the outmigration has begun again. I sometimes think thats the only way to really tell whos sincere about wanting it stopped and who isnt. The really sincere ones get scared and leave. People really are leaving? Richie asked. It happens each time the cycle cranks up again. Its impossible to tell just how many go, because the cycle hasnt fallen squarely in a census year since 1850 or so. But its a fairish number. They run like kids who just found out the house was haunted for real after all. Come home, come home, come home, Beverly said softly. When she looked up from her hands it was Bill she looked at, not Mike. It wanted us to come back. Why? It may want us all back, Mike said a little cryptically. Sure. It may. It may want revenge. After all, we balked It once before. Revenge ... or just to set things back in order, Bill said. Mike nodded. Things are out of order with your own lives, too, you know. None of you left Derry untouched ... without Its mark on you. All of you forgot what happened here, and your memories of that summer are still only fragmentary. And then theres the passingly curious fact that youre all rich. Oh, come on now! Richie said. Thats hardly Be soft, be soft, Mike said, holding his hand up and smiling faintly. Im not accusing you of anything, just trying to get the facts out on the table. You are rich by the standards of a smalltown librarian who makes just under eleven grand a year after taxes, okay? Rich shrugged the shoulders of his expensive suit uncomfortably. Ben appeared deeply absorbed in tearing small strips from the edge of his napkin. No one was looking directly at Mike except Bill. None of you are in the H. L. Hunt class, certainly, Mike said, but you are all welltodo even by the standards of the American uppermiddle class. Were all friends here, so fess up if theres one of you who declared less than ninety thousand dollars on his or her 1984 tax return, raise your hand. They glanced around at each other almost furtively, embarrassed, as Americans always seem to be, by the raw fact of their own successas if cash were hardcooked eggs and affluence the farts that inevitably follow an overdose of same. Bill felt hot blood in his cheeks and was helpless to stop its rise. He had been paid ten thousand more than the sum Mike had mentioned just for doing the first draft of the Attic Room screenplay. He had been promised an additional twenty thousand dollars each for two rewrites, if needed. Then there were royalties ... and the hefty advance on a twobook contract just signed .. how much had he declared on his 84 tax return? Just about eight hundred thousand dollars, right? Enough, anyway, to seem almost monstrous in light of Mike Hanlons stated income of just under eleven thousand a year. So thats how much they pay you to keep the lighthouse, Mike old kid, Bill thought. Jesus Christ, somewhere along the line you should have asked for a raise! Mike said Bill Denbrough, a successful novelist in a society where there are only a few novelists and fewer still lucky enough to be making a living from the craft. Beverly Rogan, whos in the rag trade, a field to which more are called but even fewer chosen. She is, in fact, the most soughtafter designer in the middle third of the country right now. Oh, its not me, Beverly said. She uttered a nervous little laugh and lit a fresh cigarette from the smoldering stub of the old one. Its Tom. Toms the one. Without him Id still be relining skirts and sewing up hems. I dont have any business sense at all, even Tom says so. Its just ... you know, Tom. And luck. She took a single deep drag from her cigarette and then snuffed it. Methinks the lady doth protest too much, Richie said slyly. She turned quickly in her seat and gave him a hard look, her color high. Just whats that supposed to mean, Richie Tozier? Doan hits me, Miz Scawlett! Richie cried in a high, trembling Pickaninny Voiceand in that moment Bill could see with an eerie clarity the boy he had known; he was not just a superseded presence lurking under Rich Toziers grownup exterior but a creature almost more real than the man himself. Doan hits me! Lemme bring you anothuh mint joolip, Miz Scawlett! Youse goan drink hit out on de poch where its be a little bit cooluh! Doan whup disyere boy! Youre impossible, Richie, Beverly said coldly. You ought to grow up. Richie looked at her, his grin fading slowly into uncertainty. Until I came back here, he said, I thought I had. Rich, you may just be the most successful disc jockey in the United States, Mike said. Youve certainly got L.A. in the palm of your hand. On top of that there are two syndicated programs, one of them a straight topforty countdown show, the other one something called The Freaky Forty You better watch out, fool, Richie said in a gruff Mr. T Voice, but he was blushing. Ill make your front and back change places. Ill give you brainsurgery with my fist. Ill Eddie, Mike went on, ignoring Richie, youve got a healthy limousine service in a city where you just about have to elbow long black cars out of your way when you cross the street. Two limo companies a week go smash in the Big Apple, but youre doing fine. Ben, youre probably the most successful young architect in the world. Ben opened his mouth, probably to protest, and then closed it again abruptly. Mike smiled at them, spread his hands. I dont want to embarrass anyone, but I do want all the cards on the table. There are people who succeed young, and there are people who succeed in highly specialized jobsif there werent people who bucked the odds successfully, I guess everybody would give up. If it was just one or two of you, we could pass it off as coincidence. But its not just one or two; its all of you, and that includes Stan Uris, who was the most successful young accountant in Atlanta ... which means in the whole South. My conclusion is that your success stems from what happened here twentyseven years ago. If you had all been exposed to asbestos at that time and had all developed lung cancer by now, the correlative would be no less clear or persuasive. Do any of you want to dispute it? He looked at them. No one answered. All except you, Bill said. What happened to you, Mikey? Isnt it obvious? He grinned. I stayed here. You kept the lighthouse, Ben said. Bill jerked around and looked at him, startled, but Ben was staring hard at Mike and didnt see. That doesnt make me feel so good, Mike. In fact, it makes me feel sort of like a bugturd. Amen, Beverly said. Mike shook his head patiently. You have nothing to feel guilty about, any of you. Do you think it was my choice to stay here, any more than it was your choiceany of youto leave? Hell, we were kids. For one reason or another your parents moved away, and you guys were part of the baggage they took along. My parents stayed. And was it really their decisionany of them? I dont think so. How was it decided who would go and who would stay? Was it luck? Fate? It? Some Other? I dont know. But it wasnt us guys. So quit it. Youre not ... not bitter? Eddie asked timidly. Ive been too busy to be bitter, Mike said. Ive spent a long time watching and waiting.... I was watching and waiting even before I knew it, I think, but for the last five years or so Ive been on what you might call red alert. Since the turn of the year Ive been keeping a journal. And when a man writes, he thinks harder ... or maybe just more specifically. And one of the things Ive spent time writing and thinking about is the nature of It. It changes; we know that. I think It also manipulates, and leaves Its marks on people just by the nature of what It isthe way you can smell a skunk on you even after a long bath, if it lets go its bag of scent too near you. The way a grasshopper will spit bugjuice into your palm if you catch it in your hand. Mike slowly unbuttoned his shirt and spread it wide. They could all see the pinkish scrawls of scar across the smooth brown skin of his chest between the nipples. The way claws leave scars, he said. The werewolf, Richie almost moaned. Oh Christ, Big Bill, the werewolf! When we went back to Neibolt Street! What? Bill asked. He sounded like a man called out of a dream. What, Richie? Dont you remember? No ... do you? I ... I almost do ... Looking both confused and scared, Richie subsided. Are you saying this thing isnt evil? Eddie asked Mike abruptly. He was staring at the scars as if hypnotized. That its just some part of the ... the natural order? Its no part of a natural order we understand or condone, Mike said, rebuttoning his shirt, and I see no reason to operate on any other basis than the one we do understand that It kills, kills children, and thats wrong. Bill understood that before any of us. Do you remember, Bill? I remember that I wanted to kill It, Bill said, and for the first time (and ever after) he heard the pronoun gain propernoun status in his own voice. But I didnt have much of a worldview on the subject, if you see what I meanI just wanted to kill It because It killed George. And do you still? Bill considered this carefully. He looked down at his spread hands on the table and remembered George in his yellow slicker, his hood up, the paper boat with its thin glaze of paraffin in one hand. He looked up at Mike. MMMore than ever, he said. Mike nodded as if this were exactly what he had expected. It left Its mark on us. It worked Its will on us, just as It has worked Its will on this whole town, day in and day out, even during those long periods when It is asleep or hibernating or whatever It does between Its more ... more lively periods. Mike raised one finger. But if It worked Its will on us, at some point, in some way, we also worked our will on It. We stopped It before It was doneI know we did. Did we weaken It? Hurt It? Did we, in fact, almost kill It? I think we did. I think we came so close to killing It that we went away thinking we had. But you dont remember that part either, do you? Ben asked. No. I can remember everything up until August 15th 1958 with almost perfect clarity. But from then until September 4th or so, when school was called in again, everything is a total blank. It isnt murky or hazy; it is just completely gone. With one exception I seem to remember Bill screaming about something called the deadlights. Bills arm jerked convulsively. It struck one of his empty beer bottles, and the bottle shattered on the floor like a bomb. Did you cut yourself? Beverly asked. She had halfrisen. No, he said. His voice was harsh and dry. His arms had broken out in gooseflesh. It seemed that his skull had somehow grown; he could feel (the deadlights) it pressing out against the stretched skin of his face in steady numbing throbs. Ill pick up the No, just sit down. He wanted to look at her and couldnt. He couldnt take his eyes off Mike. Do you remember the deadlights, Bill? Mike asked softly. No, he said. His mouth felt the way it did when the dentist got a little too enthusiastic with the novocaine. You will. I hope to God I dont. You will anyway, Mike said. But for now... no. Not me, either. Do any of you? One by one they shook their heads. But we did something, Mike said quietly. At some point we were able to exercise some sort of group will. At some point we achieved some special understanding, whether conscious or unconscious. He stirred restlessly. God, I wish Stan was here. I have a feeling that Stan, with his ordered mind, might have had some idea. Maybe he did, Beverly said. Maybe thats why he killed himself. Maybe he understood that if there was magic, it wouldnt work for grownups. I think it could, though, Mike said. Because theres one other thing we six have in common. I wonder if any of you have realized what that is. It was Bills turn to open his mouth and then shut it again. Go on, Mike said. You know what it is. I can see it on your face. Im not sure I know, Bill replied, but I think wwere all childless. Is that ihit? There was a moment of shocked silence. Yeah, Mike said. Thats it. Jesus Christ Almighty! Eddie spoke up indignantly. What in the world does that have to do with the price of beans in Peru? What gave you the idea that everyone in the world has to have kids? Thats nuts! Do you and your wife have children? Mike asked. If youve been keeping track of us all the way you said, then you know goddam well we dont. But I still say it doesnt mean a damn thing. Have you tried to have children? We dont use birth control, if thats what you mean. Eddie spoke with an oddly moving dignity, but his cheeks were flushed. It just so happens that my wife is a little ... Oh hell. Shes a lot overweight. We went to see a doctor and she told us my wife might never have kids if she didnt lose some weight. Does that make us criminals? Take it easy, Eds, Richie soothed, and leaned toward him. Dont call me Eds and dont you dare pinch my cheek! he cried, rounding on Richie. You know I hate that! I always hated it! Richie recoiled, blinking. Beverly? Mike asked. What about you and Tom? No children, she said. Also no birth control. Tom wants kids... and so do I, of course, she added hastily, glancing around at them quickly. Bill thought her eyes seemed overbright, almost the eyes of an actress giving a good performance. It just hasnt happened yet. Have you had those tests? Ben asked her. Oh yes, of course, she said, and uttered a light laugh that was almost a titter. And in one of those leaps of comprehension that sometimes come to people who are gifted with both curiosity and insight, Bill suddenly understood a great deal about Beverly and her husband Tom, alias the Greatest Man in the World. Beverly had gone to have fertility tests. His guess was that the Greatest Man in the World had refused to entertain even for a moment the notion that there might be something wrong with the sperm being manufactured in the Sacred Sacs. What about you and your wife, Big Bill? Rich asked. Been trying? They all looked at him curiously .. because his wife was someone they knew. Audra was by no means the bestknown or the bestloved actress in the world, but she was certainly part of the celebrity coinage that had somehow replaced talent as a medium of exchange in the latter half of the twentieth century; there had been a picture of her in People magazine when she cut her hair short, and during a particularly boring stretch in New York (the play she had been planning to do Off Broadway fell through) she had done a weeklong stint on Hollywood Squares, over her agents strenuous objections. She was a stranger whose lovely face was known to them. He thought Beverly looked particularly curious. Weve been trying off and on for the last six years, Bill said. For the last eight months or so its been off, because of the movie we were doingAttic Room, its called. You know, we run a little entertainment syndie every day from fivefifteen in the afternoon until fivethirty, Richie said. Seein Stars, its called. They had a feature on that damned movie just last weekHusband and Wife Working Happily Together kind of thing. They said both of your names and I never made the connection. Funny, isnt it? Very, Bill said. Anyway, Audra said it would be just our luck if she caught pregnant while we were in preproduction and she had to do ten weeks of strenuous acting and being morningsick at the same time. But we want kids, yes. And weve tried quite hard. Had fertility tests? Ben asked. Uhhuh. Four years ago, in New York. The doctors discovered a very small benign tumor in Audras womb, and they said it was a lucky thing because, although it wouldnt have prevented her from getting pregnant, it might have caused a tubal pregnancy. She and I are both fertile, though. Eddie repeated stubbornly, It doesnt prove a goddam thing. Suggestive, though, Ben murmured. No little accidents on your front, Ben? Bill asked. He was shocked and amused to find that his mouth had very nearly called Ben Haystack instead. Ive never been married, Ive always been careful, and there have been no paternity suits, Ben said. Beyond that I dont think theres any real way of telling. You want to hear a funny story? Richie asked. He was smiling, but there was no smile in his eyes. Sure, Bill said. You were always good at the funny stuff, Richie. Your face and me own buttocks, boyo, Richie said in the Irish Cops Voice. It was a great Irish Cops Voice. Youve improved out of all measure, Richie, Bill thought. As a kid, you couldnt do an Irish Cop no matter how you busted your brains. Except once ... or twice ... when (the deadlights) was that? Your face and me own buttocks; just keep remembrin that compayrison, me foine bucko. Ben Hanscom suddenly held his nose and cried in a high quavering boyish voice Beepbeep, Richie! Beepbeep! Beepbeep! After a moment, laughing, Eddie held his own nose and joined in. Beverly did the same. Awright! Awright! Richie cried, laughing himself. Awright, I give up! Chrissake! Oh man, Eddie said. He collapsed back in his chair, laughing so hard he was almost crying. We gotcha that time, Trashmouth. Way to go, Ben. Ben was smiling but he looked a little bewildered. Beepbeep, Bev said, and giggled. I forgot all about that. We always used to beep you, Richie. You guys never appreciated true talent, thats all, Richie said comfortably. As in the old days, you could knock him offbalance, but he was like one of those inflatable Joe Palooka dolls with sand in the basehe floated upright again almost at once. That was one of your little contributions to the Losers Club, wasnt it, Haystack? Yeah, I guess it was. What a man! Richie said in a trembling, awestruck voice and then began to salaam over the table, nearly sticking his nose in his teacup each time he went down. What a man! Oh chillun, what a man! Beepbeep, Richie, Ben said solemnly, and then exploded laughter in a hearty baritone utterly unlike his wavering childhood voice. Youre the same old roadrunner. You guys want to hear this story or not? Richie asked. I mean, no big deal one way or the other. Beep away if you want to. I can take abuse. I mean, youre looking at a man who once did an interview with Ozzy Osbourne. Tell it, Bill said. He glanced over at Mike and saw that Mike looked happieror more at restsince the luncheon had begun. Was it because he saw the almost unconscious knittingtogether that was happening, the sort of easy fallingback into old roles that almost never happened when old chums got together? Bill thought so. And he thought, If there are certain preconditions for the belief in magic that makes it possible to use the magic, then maybe those preconditions will inevitably arrange themselves. It was not a very comforting thought. It made him feel like a man strapped to the nosecone of a guided missile. Beepbeep indeed. Well, Richie was saying, I could make this long and sad or I could give you the Blondie and Dagwood comicstrip version, but Ill settle for something in the middle. The year after I moved out to California I met a girl, and we fell pretty hard for each other. Started living together. She was on the pill at first, but it made her feel sick almost all the time. She talked about getting an IUD, but I wasnt too crazy about thatthe first stories about how they might not be completely safe were just starting to come out in the papers. We had talked a lot about kids, and had pretty well decided we didnt want them even if we decided to legalize the relationship. Irresponsible to bring kids into such a shitty, dangerous, overpopulated world ... and blahblahblah, babblebabblebabble, lets go out and put a bomb in the mens room of the Bank of America and then come on back to the crashpad and smoke some dope and talk about the difference between Maoism and Trotskyism, if you see what I mean. Or maybe Im being too hard on both of us. Shit, we were young and reasonably idealistic. The upshot was that I got my wires cut, as the Beverly Hills crowd puts it with their unfailing vulgar chic. The operation went with no problem and I had no adverse aftereffects. There can be, you know. I had a friend whose balls swelled up to roughly the size of the tires on a 1959 Cadillac. I was gonna give him a pair of suspenders and a couple of barrels for his birthdaysort of a designer trussbut they went down before then. All put with your customary tact and dignity, Bill remarked, and Beverly began to laugh again. Richie offered a large, sincere smile. Thank you, Bill, for those words of support. The word fuck was used two hundred and six times in your last book. I counted. Beepbeep, Trashmouth, Bill said solemnly, and they all laughed. Bill found it nearly impossible to believe they had been talking about dead children less than ten minutes ago. Press onward, Richie, Ben said. The hour groweth late. Sandy and I lived together for two and a half years, Richie went on. Came really close to getting married twice. As things turned out, I guess we saved ourselves a lot of heartache and all that communityproperty bullshit by keeping it simple. She got an offer to join a corporate lawfirm in Washington around the same time I got an offer to come to KLAD as a weekend jocknot much, but a foot in the door. She told me it was her big chance and I had to be the most insensitive male chauvinist oinker in the United States to be dragging my feet, and furthermore shed had it with California anyway. I told her I also had a chance. So we thrashed it out, and we trashed each other out, and at the end of all the thrashing and trashing Sandy went. About a year after that I decided to try and get the vasectomy reversed. No real reason for it, and I knew from the stuff Id read that the chances were pretty spotty, but I thought what the hell. You were seeing someone steadily then? Bill asked. Nothats the funny part of it, Richie said, frowning. I just woke up one day with this ... I dunno, this hobbyhorse about getting it reversed. You must have been nuts, Eddie said. General anesthetic instead of a local? Surgery? Maybe a week in the hospital afterward? Yeah, the doctor told me all of that stuff, Richie replied. And I told him I wanted to go ahead anyway. I dont know why. The doc asked me if I understood the aftermath of the operation was sure to be painful while the result was only going to be a cointoss at best. I said I did. He said okay, and I asked him whenmy attitude being the sooner the better, you know. So he says hold your horses, son, hold your horses, the first step is to get a sperm sample just to make sure the reversal operation is necessary. I said, Come on, I had the exam after the vasectomy. It worked. He told me that sometimes the vasa reconnected spontaneously. Yo mamma! I says. Nobody ever told me that. He said the chances were very smallinfinitesimal, reallybut because the operation was so serious, we ought to check it out. So I popped into the mens room with a Fredericks of Hollywood catalogue and jerked off into a Dixie cup Beepbeep, Richie, Beverly said. Yeah, youre right, Richie said. The part about the Fredericks catalogue is a lieyou never find anything that good in a doctors office. Anyway, the doc called me three days later and asked me which I wanted first, the good news or the bad news. Gimme the good news first, I said. The good news is the operation wont be necessary, he said. The bad news is that anybody youve been to bed with over the last two or three years could hit you with a paternity suit pretty much at will. Are you saying what I think youre saying? I asked him. Im telling you that you arent shooting blanks and havent been for quite awhile now, he said. Millions of little wigglies in your sperm sample. Your days of going gaily in bareback with no questions asked have temporarily come to an end, Richard. I thanked him and hung up. Then I called Sandy in Washington. Rich! she says to me, and Richies voice suddenly became the voice of this girl Sandy whom none of them had ever met. It was not an imitation or even a likeness, exactly; it was more like an auditory painting. Its great to hear from you! I got married! Yeah, thats great, I said. You should have let me know. I would have sent you a blender. She goes, Same old Richie, always full of gags. So I said Sure, same old Richie, always full of gags. By the way, Sandy, you didnt happen to have a kid or anything after you left L.A., did you? Or maybe an unscheduled d and c, or something? That gag isnt so funny, Rich, she said, and I had a brainwave that she was getting ready to hang up on me, so I told her what happened. She started laughing, only this time it was real hardshe was laughing the way I always used to laugh with you guys, like somebody had told her the worlds biggest bellybuster. So when she finally starts slowing down I ask her what in Gods name is funny. Its just so wonderful, she said. This time the jokes on you. After all these years the joke is finally on Records Tozier. How many bastards have you sired since I came east, Rich? I take it that means you still havent experienced the joys of motherhood? I ask her. Im due in July, she says. Were there any more questions? Yeah, I go. When did you change your mind about the immorality of bringing children into such a shitty world? When I finally met a man who wasnt a shit, she answers, and hangs up. Bill began to laugh. He laughed until tears rolled down his cheeks. Yeah, Richie said. I think she cut it off quick so shed really get the last word, but she could have hung on the line all day. I know when Ive been aced. I went back to the doctor a week later and asked him if he could be a little clearer on the odds against that sort of spontaneous regeneration. He said hed talked with some of his colleagues about the matter. It turned out that in the threeyear period 198082,the California branch of the AMA logged twentythree reports of spontaneous regeneration. Six of those turned out to be simply botched operations. Six others were either hoaxes or consguys looking to take a bite out of some doctors bank account. So ... eleven real ones in three years. Eleven out of how many? Beverly asked. Twentyeight thousand six hundred and eighteen, Richie said calmly. Silence around the table. So I went and beat Irish Sweepstakes odds, Richie said, and still no kid to show for it. That give you any good chucks, Eds? Eddie began stubbornly It still doesnt prove No, Bill said, it doesnt prove a thing. But it certainly suggests a link. The question is, what do we do now? Have you thought about that, Mike? Ive thought about it, sure, Mike said, but it was impossible to decide anything until you all got together again and talked, the way youve been doing. There was no way I could predict how this reunion would go until it actually happened. He paused for a long time, looking thoughtfully at them. Ive got one idea, he said, but before I tell you what it is, I think we have to agree on whether or not we have business to do here. Do we want to try again to do what we tried to do once before? Do we want to try to kill It again? Or do we just divide the check up six ways and go back to what we were doing? It seems as if Beverly began, but Mike shook his head at her. He wasnt done. You have to understand that our chances of success are impossible to predict. I know theyre not good, just as I know they would have been a little better if Stan was here, too. Still not real good, but better. With Stan gone, the circle we made that day is broken. I dont really think we can destroy It, or even send It away for a little while, as we did before, with a broken circle. I think It will kill us, one by one by one, and probably in some extremely horrible ways. As children we made a complete circle in some way I dont understand even now. I think that, if we agree to go ahead, well have to try to form a smaller circle. I dont know if that can be done. I believe it might be possible to think wed done it, only to discoverwhen it was too latewett ... that it was too late. Mike regarded them again, eyes sunken and tired in his brown face. So I think we need to take a vote. Stay and try it again, or go home. Those are the choices. I got you here on the strength of an old promise I wasnt even sure youd remember, but I cant hold you here on the strength of that promise. The results of that would be worse and more of it. He looked at Bill, and in that moment Bill understood what was coming. He dreaded it, was helpless to stop it, and then, with the same feeling of relief he imagined must come to a suicide when he takes his hands off the wheel of the speeding car and simply uses them to cover his eyes, he accepted it. Mike had gotten them here, Mike had laid it all neatly out for them ... and now he was relinquishing the mantle of leadership. He intended that mantle to go back to the person who had worn it in 1958. What do you say, Big Bill? Call the question. Before I do, Bill said, ddoes everyone understand the question? You were going to say something, Bev. She shook her head. All right; I gguess the question is, do we stay and fight or do we forget the whole thing? Those in favor of staying? No one at the table moved at all for perhaps five seconds, and Bill was reminded of auctions he had attended where the price on an item suddenly soared into the stratosphere and those who didnt want to bid anymore almost literally played statues; one was afraid to scratch an itch or wave a fly off the end of ones nose for fear the auctioneer would take it for another five grand or twentyfive. Bill thought of Georgie, Georgie who had meant no one any harm, who had only wanted to get out of the house after being cooped up all week, Georgie with his color high, his newspaper boat in one hand, snapping the buckles of his yellow rainslicker with the other, Georgie thanking him ... and then bending over and kissing Bills feverheated cheek Thanks, Bill. Its a neat boat. He felt the old rage rise in him, but he was older now and his perspective was wider. It wasnt just Georgie now. A horrid slew of names marched through his head Betty Ripsom, found frozen into the ground, Cheryl Lamonica, fished out of the Kenduskeag, Matthew Clements, torn from his tricycle, Veronica Grogan, nine years old and found in a sewer, Steven Johnson, Lisa Albrecht, all the others, and God only knew how many of the missing. He raised his hand slowly and said, Lets kill It. This time lets really kill It. For a moment his hand hung there alone, like the hand of the only kid in class who knows the right answer, the one all the other kids hate. Then Richie sighed, raised his own hand, and said What the hell. It cant be any worse than interviewing Ozzy Osbourne. Beverly raised her hand. Her color was back now, but in hectic patches that flared along her cheekbones. She looked both tremendously excited and scared to death. Mike raised his hand. Ben raised his. |
Eddie Kaspbrak sat back in his chair, looking as if he wished he could actually melt into it and thus disappear. His face, thin and delicatelooking, was miserably afraid as he looked first right and then left and then back to Bill. For a moment Bill felt sure Eddie was simply going to push back his chair, rise, and bolt from the room without looking back. Then he raised one hand in the air and grasped his aspirator tightly in the other. Way to go, Eds, Richie said. Were really gonna have ourselves some chucks this time, I bet. Beepbeep, Richie, Eddie said in a wavering voice. 6 The Losers Get Dessert So whats your one idea, Mike? Bill asked. The mood had been broken by Rose, the hostess, who had come in with a dish of fortune cookies. She looked around at the six people who had their hands in the air with a carefully polite lack of curiosity. They lowered them hastily, and no one said anything until Rose was gone again. Its simple enough, Mike said, but it might be pretty damn dangerous, too. Spill it, Richie said. I think we ought to split up for the rest of the day. I think each of us ought to go back to the place in Derry he or she remembers best ... outside the Barrens, that is. I dont think any of us should go therenot yet. Think of it as a series of walkingtours, if you like. Whats the purpose, Mike? Ben asked. Im not entirely sure. You have to understand that Im going pretty much on intuition here But this has got a good beat and you can dance to it, Richie said. The others smiled. Mike did not; he nodded instead. Thats as good a way of putting it as any. Going on intuition is like picking up a beat and dancing to it. Using intuition is a hard thing for grownups to do, and thats the main reason I think it might be the right thing for us to do. Kids, after all, operate on it about eighty percent of the time, at least until theyre fourteen or so. Youre talking about plugging back into the situation, Eddie said. I suppose so. Anyway, thats my idea. If no specific place to go comes to you, just follow your feet and see where they take you. Then we meet tonight, at the library, and talk over what happened. If anything happens, Ben said. Oh, I think things will. What sort of things? Bill asked. Mike shook his head. I have no idea. I think whatever happens is apt to be unpleasant. I think its even possible that one of us may not turn up at the library tonight. No reason for thinking that... except that intuition thing again. Silence greeted this. Why alone? Beverly asked finally. If were supposed to do this as a group, why do you want us to start alone, Mike? Especially if the risk really turns out to be as high as you think it might be? I think I can answer that, Bill said. Go ahead, Bill, Mike said. It started alone for each of us, Bill said to Beverly. I dont remember everythingnot yetbut I sure remember that much. The picture in Georges room that moved. Bens mummy. The leper that Eddie saw under the porch on Neibolt Street. Mike finding the blood on the grass near the Canal in Bassey Park. And the bird ... there was something about a bird, wasnt there, Mike? Mike nodded grimly. A big bird. Yes, but not as friendly as the one on Sesame Street. Richie cackled wildly. Derrys answer to James Brown Gets Off A Good One! Oh chillun, is we blessed or is we blessed! Beepbeep, Richie, Mike said, and Richie subsided. For you it was the voice from the pipe and the blood that came out of the drain, Bill said to Beverly. And for Richie ... But here he paused, puzzled. I must be the exception that proves the rule, Big Bill, Richie said. The first time I came in contact with anything that summer that was weirdI mean really bigleague weirdwas in Georges room, with you. When you and I went back to your house that day and looked at his photo album. The picture of Center Street by the Canal started to move. Do you remember? Yes, Bill said. But are you sure there was nothing before that, Richie? Nothing at all? I Something flickered in Richies eyes. He said slowly, Well, there was the day Henry and his friends chased mebefore the end of school, this was, and I got away from them in the toy department of Freeses. I went up by City Center and sat down on a park bench for awhile and I thought I saw ... but that was just something I dreamed. What was it? Beverly asked. Nothing, Richie said, almost brusquely. A dream. Really. He looked at Mike. I dont mind taking a walk, though. Itll kill the afternoon. Views of the old homestead. So were agreed? Bill asked. They nodded. And well meet at the library tonight at ... when do you suggest, Mike? Seven oclock. Ring the bell if youre late. The libe closes at seven on weekdays until summer vacation starts for the kids. Seven it is, Bill said, and let his eyes range soberly over them. And be careful. You want to remember that none of us really knows what were dddoing. Think of this as reconnaissance. If you should see something, dont fight. Run. Im a lover, not a fighter, Richie said in a dreamy Michael Jackson Voice. Well, if were going to do it, we ought to get going, Ben said. A small smile pulled up the left corner of his mouth. It was more bitter than amused. Although Ill be damned if I could tell you right this minute where Im going to go, if the Barrens are out. That was the best of it for megoing down there with you guys. His eyes moved to Beverly, held there for a moment, moved away. I cant think of anyplace else that means very much to me. Probably Ill just wander around for a couple of hours, looking at buildings and getting wet feet. Youll find a place to go, Haystack, Richie said. Visit some of your old foodstops and gas up. Ben laughed. My capacitys gone down a lot since I was eleven. Im so full you guys may just have to roll me out of here. Well, Im all set, Eddie said. Wait a sec! Beverly cried as they began to push back from their chairs. The fortune cookies! Dont forget those! Yeah, Richie said. I can see mine now. YOU WILL SOON BE EATEN UP BY A LARGE MONSTER. HAVE A NICE DAY. They laughed and Mike passed the little bowl of fortune cookies to Richie, who took one and then sent it on around the table. Bill noticed that no one opened his or her cookie until each had one; they sat with the little hatshaped cookies either in front of them or held in their hands, and even as Beverly, still smiling, picked hers up, Bill felt a cry rising in his throat No! No, dont do that, its part of it, put it back, dont open it! But it was too late. Beverly had broken hers open, Ben was doing the same to his, Eddie was cutting into his with the edge of his fork, and just before Beverlys smile turned to a grimace of horror Bill had time to think We knew, somehow we knew, because no one simply bit into his or her fortune cookie. That would have been the normal thing to do, but no one did it. Somehow, some part of us still remembers ...everything. And he found that insensate underknowledge somehow the most horrifying realization of all; it spoke more eloquently than Mike could have about how surely and deeply It had touched each one of them ... and how Its touch was still upon them. Blood spurted up from Beverlys fortune cookie as if from a slashed artery. It splashed across her hand and then gouted onto the white napery which covered the table, staining it a bright red that sank in and then spread out in grasping pink fingers. Eddie Kaspbrak uttered a strangled cry and pushed himself away from the table with such a sudden revolted confusion of arms and legs that his chair nearly tipped over. A huge bug, its chitinous carapace an ugly yellowbrown, was pushing its way out of his fortune cookie as if from a cocoon. Its obsidian eyes stared blindly forward. As it lurched onto Eddies breadandbutter plate, cookie crumbs fell from its back in a little shower that Bill heard clearly and which came back to haunt his dreams when he slept for awhile later that afternoon. As it freed itself entirely it rubbed its thin rear legs together, producing a dry reedy hum, and Bill realized it was some sort of terribly mutated cricket. It lumbered to the edge of the dish and tumbled onto the tablecloth on its back. Oh God! Richie managed in a choked voice. Oh God Big Bill its an eye dear God its an eye a fucking eye Bills head snapped around and he saw Richie staring down at his fortune cookie, his lips drawn back from his teeth in a kind of sickened leer. A chunk of his cookies glazed surface had fallen onto the tablecloth, revealing a hole from which a human eyeball stared with glazed intensity. Cookie crumbs were scattered across its blank brown iris and embedded in its sclera. Ben Hanscom threw hisnot a calculated throw but the startled reaction of a person who has been utterly surprised by some piece of nasty work. As his fortune cookie rolled across the table Bill saw two teeth inside its hollow, their roots dark with clotted blood. They rattled together like seeds in a hollow gourd. He looked back at Beverly and saw she was hitching in breath to scream. Her eyes were fixed on the thing that had crawled out of Eddies cookie, the thing that was now kicking its sluggish legs as it lay overturned on the tablecloth. Bill got moving. He was not thinking, only reacting. Intuition, he thought crazily as he lunged out of his seat and clapped his hand over Beverlys mouth just before she could utter the scream. Here I am, acting on intuition. Mike should be proud of me. What came out of Beverlys mouth was not a scream but a strangled Mmmmph! Eddie was making those whistling sounds that Bill remembered so well. No problem there, a good honk on the old lungsucker would set Eddie right. Right as a trivet, Freddie Firestone would have said, and Bill wonderednot for the first timewhy a person had such weird thoughts at times like these. He glanced around fiercely at the others, and what came out was something else from that summer, something that sounded both impossibly archaic and exactly right Dummy up! All of you! Not one sound! Just dummy up! Rich wiped a hand across his mouth. Mikes complexion had gone a dirty gray, but he nodded at Bill. All of them moved away from the table. Bill had not opened his own fortune cookie, but now he could see its sides moving slowly in and outbulge and relax, bulge and relax, bulge and relaxas his own partyfavor tried to escape. Mmmmmph! Beverly said against his hand again, her breath tickling his palm. Dummy up, Bev, he said, and took his hand away. Her face seemed to be all eyes. Her mouth twitched. Bill ... Bill, did you see ... Her eyes strayed back to the cricket and then fixed there. The cricket appeared to be dying. Its rugose eyes stared back at her, and presently Beverly began to moan. QuhQuhQuit that, he said grimly. Pull back to the table. I cant, Billy, I cant get near that thi You can! You hhave to! He heard footsteps, light and quick, coming up the short hall on the other side of the beaded curtain. He looked around at the others. All of you! Pull up to the table! Talk! Look natural! Beverly looked at him, eyes pleading, and Bill shook his head. He sat down and pulled his chair in, trying not to look at the fortune cookie on his plate. It had swelled like some unimaginable boil which was filling with pus. And still it pulsed slowly in and out. I could have bitten into that, he thought faintly. Eddie triggered his aspirator down his throat again, gasping mist into his lungs in a long, thin screaming sound. So who do you thinks going to win the pennant? Bill asked Mike, smiling insanely. Rose came through the curtain just then, her face politely questioning. Out of the corner of his eye Bill saw that Bev had pulled up to the table again. Good girl, he thought. I think the Chicago Bears look good, Mike said. Everything is all right? Rose asked. FFine, Bill said. He cocked a thumb in Eddies direction. Our friend had an asthma attack. He took his medication. Hes better now. Rose looked at Eddie, concerned. Better, Eddie wheezed. You would like that I clear now? Very shortly, Mike said, and offered a large false smile. Was good? Her eyes surveyed the table again, a bit of doubt overlaying a deep well of serenity. She did not see the cricket, the eye, the teeth, or the way Bills fortune cookie appeared to be breathing. Her eye similarly passed over the bloodstain splotched on the tablecloth without trouble. Everything was very good, Beverly said, and smileda more natural smile than either Bills or Mikes. It seemed to set Roses mind at rest, convinced her that if something had gone wrong in here, it had been the fault of neither Roses service nor her kitchen. Girls got a lot of guts, Bill thought. Fortunes were good? Rose asked. Well, Richie said, I dont know about the others, but I for one got a real eyeful. Bill heard a minute cracking sound. He looked down at his plate and saw a leg poking blindly out of his fortune cookie. It scraped at his plate. 1 could have bitten into that, he thought again, but held onto his smile. Very fine, he said. Richie was looking at Bills plate. A great grayishblack fly was slowing birthing itself from the collapsing remains of his cookie. It buzzed weakly. Yellowish goo flowed sluggishly out of the cookie and puddled on the tablecloth. There was a smell now, the bland thick smell of an infected wound. Well, if I can help you in no way at this moment... Not right now, Ben said. A wonderful meal. Most ... most unusual. I leave you then, she said, and bowed out through the beaded curtain. The beads were still swaying and clacking together when all of them pushed away from the table again. What is it? Ben asked huskily, looking at the thing on Bills plate. A fly, Bill said. A mutant fly. Courtesy of a writer named George Langlahan, I think. He wrote a story called The Fly. A movie was made out of itnot a terribly good one. But the story scared the bejesus out of me. Its up to Its old tricks, all right. That fly business has been on my mind a lot lately, because Ive sort of been planning this novelRoadbugs, Ive been thinking of calling it. I know the title sounds ppretty stupid, but you see Excuse me, Beverly said distantly. I have to vomit, I think. She was gone before any of the men could rise. Bill shook out his napkin and threw it over the fly, which was the size of a baby sparrow. Nothing so large could have come from something as small as a Chinese fortune cookie ... but it had. It buzzed twice under the napkin and then fell silent. Jesus, Eddie said faintly. Lets get the righteous fuck out of here, Mike said. We can meet Bev in the lobby. Beverly was just coming out of the womens room as they gathered by the cash register. She looked pale but composed. Mike paid the check, kissed Roses cheek, and then they all went out into the rainy afternoon. Does this change anyones mind? Mike asked. I dont think it changes mine, Ben said. No, Eddie said. What mind? Richie said. Bill shook his head and then looked at Beverly. Im staying, she said. Bill, what did you mean when you said Its up to Its old tricks? Ive been thinking about writing a bug story, he said. That Langlahan story had woven itself into my thinking. And so I saw a fly. Yours was blood, Beverly. Why was blood on your mind? I guess because of the blood from the drain, Beverly said at once. The blood that came out of the bathroom drain in the old place, when I was eleven. But was that really it? She didnt really think so. Because what had flashed immediately to mind when the blood spurted across her fingers in a warm little jet had been the bloody footprint she had left behind her after stepping on the broken perfume bottle. Tom. And (Bevvie sometimes I worry a lot) her father. You got a bug, too, Bill said to Eddie. Why? Not just a bug, Eddie said. A cricket. There are crickets in our basement. Twohundredthousanddollar house and we cant get rid of the crickets. They drive us crazy at night. A couple of nights before Mike called, I had a really terrible nightmare. I dreamed I woke up and my bed was full of crickets. I was trying to shoot them with my aspirator, but all it would do when I squeezed it was make crackling noises, and just before I woke up I realized it was full of crickets, too. The hostess didnt see any of it, Ben said. He looked at Beverly. Like your folks never saw the blood that came out of the drain, even though it was everywhere. Yes, she said. They stood looking at each other in the fine spring rain. Mike looked at his watch. Therell be a bus in twenty minutes or so, he said, or I can take four of you in my car, if we cram. Or I can call some cabs. Whatever way you want to do it. I think Im going to walk from here, Bill said. I dont know where Im going, but a little fresh air seems like a great idea along about now. Im going to call a cab, Ben said. Ill share it with you, if youll drop me off downtown, Richie said. Okay. Where you going? Richie shrugged. Not really sure yet. The others elected to wait for the bus. Seven tonight, Mike reminded. And be careful, all of you. They agreed to be careful, although Bill did not know how you could truthfully make a promise like that when dealing with such a formidable array of unknown factors. He started to say so, then looked at their faces and saw that they knew it already. He walked away instead, raising one hand briefly in farewell. The misty air felt good against his face. The walk back to town would be a long one, but that was all right. He had a lot to think about. He was glad that the reunion was over and the business had begun. CHAPTER 11 Walking Tours 1 Ben Hanscom Makes a Withdrawal Richie Tozier got out of the cab at the threeway intersection of Kansas Street, Center Street, and Main Street, and Ben dismissed it at the top of UpMile Hill. The driver was Bills religious fella, but neither Richie nor Ben knew it Dave had lapsed into a morose silence. Ben could have gotten off with Richie, he supposed, but it seemed better somehow that they all start off alone. He stood on the corner of Kansas Street and Daltrey Close, watching the cab pull back into traffic, hands stuffed deeply into his pockets, trying to get the lunchs hideous conclusion out of his mind. He couldnt do it; his thoughts kept returning to that blackgray fly crawling out of the fortune cookie on Bills plate, its veined wings plastered to its back. He would try to divert his mind from this unhealthy image, think he had succeeded, only to discover five minutes later that his mind was back at it. Im trying to justify it somehow, he thought, meaning it not in the moral sense but rather in the mathematical one. Buildings are built by observing certain natural laws; natural laws may be expressed by equations; equations must be justified. Where was the justification in what had happened less than half an hour ago? Let it alone, he told himself, not for the first time. You cant justify it, so let it alone. Very good advice; the problem was that he couldnt take it. He remembered that the day after he had seen the mummy on the icedup Canal, his life had gone on as usual. He had known that whatever it had been had come very close to getting him, but his life had gone on he had attended school, taken an arithmetic test, visited the library when school was over, and eaten with his usual heartiness. He had simply incorporated the thing he had seen on the Canal into his life, and if he had almost been killed by it ... well, kids were always almost getting killed. They dashed across streets without looking, they got horsing around in the lake and suddenly realized they had floated far past their depth on their rubber rafts and had to paddle back, they fell off monkeybars on their asses and out of trees on their heads. Now, standing here in the fading drizzle in front of a Trustworthy Hardware Store that had been a pawnshop in 1958 (Frati Brothers, Ben recalled, the double windows always full of pistols and rifles and straightrazors and guitars hung up by their necks like exotic animals), it occurred to him that kids were better at almost dying, and they were also better at incorporating the inexplicable into their lives. They believed implicitly in the invisible world. Miracles both bright and dark were to be taken into consideration, oh yes, most certainly, but they by no means stopped the world. A sudden upheaval of beauty or terror at ten did not preclude an extra cheesedog or two for lunch at noon. But when you grew up, all that changed. You no longer lay awake in your bed, sure something was crouching in the closet or scratching at the window ... but when something did happen, something beyond rational explanation, the circuits overloaded. The axons and dendrites got hot. You started to jitter and jive, you started to shake rattle and roll, your imagination started to hop and bop and do the funky chicken all over your nerves. You couldnt just incorporate what had happened into your life experience. It didnt digest. Your mind kept coming back to it, pawing it lightly like a kitten with a ball of string ... until eventually, of course, you either went crazy or got to a place where it was impossible for you to function. And if that happens, Ben thought, Its got me. Us. Cold. He started to walk up Kansas Street, not conscious of heading anyplace in particular. And thought suddenly What did we do with the silver dollar? He still couldnt remember. The silver dollar, Ben ... Beverly saved your life with it. Yours ... maybe all the others ... and especially Bills. It almost ripped my guts out before Beverly did... what? What did she do? And how was it able to work? She backed it off, and we all helped her. But how? A word came to him suddenly, a word that meant nothing at all but which tightened his flesh Chd. He looked down at the sidewalk and for a moment saw the shape of a turtle chalked there, and the world seemed to swim before his eyes. He shut them tightly and when he opened them saw it was not a turtle; only a hopscotch grid halferased by the light rain. Chd. What did that mean? I dont know, he said aloud, and when he looked around quickly to see if anyone had heard him talking to himself, he saw that he had turned off Kansas Street and onto Costello Avenue. At lunch he had told the others that the Barrens were the only place in Derry where he had felt happy as a kid ... but that wasnt quite true, was it? There had been another place. Either accidentally or unconsciously, he had come to that other place the Derry Public Library. He stood in front of it for a minute or two, hands still in his pockets. It hadnt changed; he admired its lines as much now as he had as a child. Like so many stone buildings that had been welldesigned, it succeeded in confounding the closely observing eye with contradictions its stone solidity was somehow balanced by the delicacy of its arches and slim columns; it looked both banksafe squat and yet slim and clean (well, it was slim as city buildings went, especially those erected around the turn of the century, and the windows, crisscrossed with narrow strips of iron, were graceful and rounded). These contradictions saved it from ugliness, and he was not entirely surprised to feel a wave of love for the place. Nothing much had changed on Costello Avenue. Glancing along it, he could see the Derry Community House, and he found himself wondering if the Costello Avenue Market was still there at the point where the avenue, which was semicircular, rejoined Kansas Street. He walked across the library lawn, barely noticing that his dress boots were getting wet, to have a look at that glassedin passageway between the grownups library and the Childrens Library. It was also unchanged, and from here, standing just outside the bowed branches of a weeping willow tree, he could see people passing back and forth. The old delight flooded him, and he really forgot what had happened at the end of the reunion lunch for the first time. He could remember walking around to this very same spot as a kid, only in the winter, plowing his way through snow that was almost hipdeep, and then standing for as long as fifteen minutes. He would come at dusk, he remembered, and again it was the contrasts that drew him and held him there with the tips of his fingers going numb and snow melting inside his green gumrubber boots. It would be drawingdowndark out where he was, the world going purple with early winter shadows, the sky the color of ashes in the east and embers in the west. It would be cold where he was, ten degrees perhaps, and chillier than that if the wind was blowing across from the frozen Barrens, as it so often did. But there, less than forty yards from where he stood, people walked back and forth in their shirtsleeves. There, less than forty yards from where he stood, was a tubeway of bright white light, thrown by the overhead fluorescents. Little kids giggled together, highschool sweethearts held hands (and if the librarian saw them, she would make them stop). It was somehow magical, magical in a good way that he had been too young to account for with such mundane things as electric power and oil heat. The magic was that glowing cylinder of light and life connecting those two dark buildings like a lifeline, the magic was in watching people walk through it across the dark snowfield, untouched by either the dark or the cold. It made them lovely and Godlike. Eventually he would walk away (as he was doing now) and circle the building to the front door (as he was doing now), but he would always pause and look back once (as he was doing now) before the bulking stone shoulder of the adult library cut off the sightline to that delicate umbilicus. Ruefully amused at the ache of nostalgia around his heart, Ben went up the steps to the door of the adult library, paused for a moment on the narrow verandah just inside the pillars, always so high and cool no matter how hot the day. Then he pulled open the ironbound door with the bookdrop slot in it and went into the quiet. The force of memory almost dizzied him for a moment as he stepped into the mild light of the hanging glass globes. The force was not physicalnot like a shot to the jaw or a slap. It was more akin to that queer feeling of time doubling back on itself that people call, for want of a better term, djvu. Ben had had the feeling before, but it had never struck him with such disorienting power; for the moment or two he stood inside the door, he felt literally lost in time, not really sure how old he was. Was he thirtyeight or eleven? Here was the same murmuring quiet, broken only by an occasional whisper, the faint thud of a librarian stamping books or overdue notices, the hushed riffle of newspaper or magazine pages being turned. He loved the quality of the light as much now as then. It slanted through the high windows, gray as a pigeons wing on this rainy afternoon, a light that was somehow somnolent and dozey. He walked across the wide floor with its redandblack linoleum pattern almost completely worn away, trying as he had always tried back then to hush the sound of his footfallsthe adult library rose up to a dome in the middle, and all sounds were magnified. He saw that the circular iron staircases leading to the stacks were still there, one on either side of the horseshoeshaped main desk, but he also saw that a tiny cagework elevator had been added at some point in the twentyfive years since he and his mamma had moved away. It was something of a reliefit drove a wedge into that suffocating feeling of djvu. He felt like an interloper crossing the wide floor, a spy from another country. He kept expecting the librarian at the desk to raise her head, look at him, and then challenge him in clear, ringing tones that would shatter the concentration of every reader here and focus every eye upon him You! Yes, you! What are you doing here? You have no business here! Youre from Outside! Youre from Before! Go back where you came from! Go back right now, before I call the police! She did look up, a young girl, pretty, and for one absurd moment it seemed to Ben that the fantasy was really going to come true, and his heart rose into his throat as her paleblue eyes touched his. Then they passed on indifferently, and Ben found he could walk again. If he was a spy, he hadnt been found out. He passed under the coil of one of the narrow and almost suicidally steep wroughtiron staircases on his way to the corridor leading to the Childrens Library, and was amused to realize (only after he had done it) that he had run down another old track of his childhood behavior. He had looked up, hoping, as he had hoped as a kid, to see a girl in a skirt coming down those steps. He could remember (now he could remember) glancing up there for no reason at all one day when he was eight or nine and looking right up the chino skirt of a pretty highschool girl and seeing her clean pink underwear. As the sudden sunlit glint of Beverly Marshs anklebracelet had shot an arrow of something more primitive than simple love or affection through his heart on the last day of school in 1958, so had the sight of the highschool girls panties affected him; he could remember sitting at a table in the Childrens Library and thinking of that unexpected view for perhaps as long as twenty minutes, his cheeks and forehead hot, a book about the history of trains open and unread before him, his penis a hard little branch in his pants, a branch that had sunk its roots all the way up into his belly. He had fantasized the two of them married, living in a small house on the outskirts of town, indulging in pleasures he did not in the least understand. The feelings had passed off almost as suddenly as they had come, but he had never walked under the stairway again without glancing up. He hadnt ever seen anything else as interesting or affecting (once a fat lady working her way down with ponderous care, but he had looked away from that sight hastily, feeling ashamed, like a violator), but the habit persistedhe had done it again now, as a grown man. He walked slowly down the glassedin passageway, noticing other changes now Yellow decals that said OPEC LOVES IT WHEN YOU WASTE ENERGY, SO SAVE A WATT! had been plastered over the switchplates. The framed pictures on the far wall when he entered this scaleddown world of blondewood tables and small blondewood chairs, this world where the drinking fountain was only four feet high, were not of Dwight Eisenhower and Richard Nixon but of Ronald Reagan and George BushReagan, Ben recalled, had been host of GE Theater in the year that Ben had graduated from the fifth grade, and George Bush would not have seen thirty yet. But That feeling of djvu swept him again. He was helpless before it, and this time he felt the numb horror of a man who finally realizes, after half an hour of helpless splashing, that the shore is growing no closer and he is drowning. It was story hour, and over in the corner a group of roughly a dozen little ones sat solemnly on their tiny chairs in a semicircle, listening. Who is that triptrapping upon my bridge? the librarian said in the low, growling tones of the troll in the story, and Ben thought When she raises her head Ill see that its Miss Davies, yes, itll be Miss Davies and she wont look a day older But when she did raise her head, he saw a much younger woman than Miss Davies had been even then. Some of the children covered their mouths and giggled, but others only watched her, their eyes reflecting the eternal fascination of the fairy story would the monster be bested ... or would it feed? It is I, Billy Goat Gruff, triptrapping on your bridge, the librarian went on, and Ben, pale, walked past her. How can it be the same story? The very same story? Am I supposed to believe thats just coincidence? Because I dont ... goddammit, I just dont! He bent to the drinking fountain, bending so far he felt like Richie doing one of his salamisalamibaloney routines. |
I ought to talk to someone, he thought, panicked. Mike ... Bill ... someone. Is something really stapling the past and present together here, or am I only imagining it? Because if Im not, Im not sure I bargained for this much. I He looked at the checkout desk, and his heart seemed to stop in his chest for a moment before beginning to race doubletime. The poster was simple, stark ... and familiar. It said simply REMEMBER THE CURFEW. 7 P.M. DERRY POLICE DEPARTMENT In that instant it all seemed to come clear to himit came in a grisly flash of light, and he realized that the vote they had taken was a joke. There was no turning back, never had been. They were on a track as preordained as the memorytrack which had caused him to look up when he passed under the stairway leading to the stacks. There was an echo here in Derry, a deadly echo, and all they could hope for was that the echo could be changed enough in their favor to allow them to escape with their lives. Christ, he muttered, and scrubbed a palm up one cheek, hard. Can I help you, sir? a voice at his elbow asked, and he jumped a little. It was a girl of perhaps seventeen, her darkblonde hair held back from her pretty highschoolers face with barrettes. A library assistant, of course; theyd had them in 1958 too, highschool girls and boys who shelved books, showed kids how to use the card catalogue, discussed book reports and school papers, helped bewildered scholars with their footnotes and bibliographies. The pay was a pittance, but there were always kids willing to do it. It was agreeable work. On the heels of this, reading the girls pleasant but questioning look a little more closely, he remembered that he no longer really belonged herehe was a giant in the land of little people. An intruder. In the adults library he had felt uneasy about the possibility of being looked at or spoken to, but here it was something of a relief. For one thing, it proved he was still an adult, and the fact that the girl was clearly braless under her thin Westernstyle shirt was also more relief than turnon if proof that this was 1985 and not 1958 was needed, the clearly limned points of her nipples against the cotton of her shirt was it. No thank you, he said, and then, for no reason at all that he could understand, he heard himself add I was looking for my son. Oh? Whats his name? Maybe Ive seen him. She smiled. I know most of the kids. His name is Ben Hanscom, he said. But I dont see him here. Tell me what he looks like and Ill give him a message, if there is one. Well, Ben said, uncomfortable now and beginning to wish he had never started this, hes on the stout side, and he looks a little bit like me. But its no big deal, miss. If you see him, just tell him his dad popped by on his way home. I will, she said, and smiled, but the smile didnt reach her eyes, and Ben suddenly realized that she hadnt come over and spoken to him out of simple politeness and a wish to help. She happened to be a library assistant in the Childrens Library in a town where nine children had been slain over a span of eight months. You see a strange man in this scaleddown world where adults rarely come except to drop their kids off or pick them up. Youre suspicious ... of course. Thank you, he said, gave her a smile he hoped was reassuring, and then got the hell out. He walked back through the corridor to the adults library and went to the desk on an impulse he didnt understand ... but of course they were supposed to follow their impulses this afternoon, werent they? Follow their impulses and see where they led. The name plate on the circulation desk identified the pretty young librarian as Carole Danner. Behind her, Ben could see a door with a frostedglass panel; lettered on this was MICHAEL HANLON HEAD LIBRARIAN. May I help you? Ms. Danner asked. I think so, Ben said. That is, I hope so. Id like to get a library card. Very good, she said, and took out a form. Are you a resident of Derry? Not presently. Home address, then? Rural Star Route 2, Hemingford Home, Nebraska. He paused for a moment, a little amused by her stare, and then reeled off the Zip Code 59341. Is this a joke, Mr. Hanscom? Not at all. Are you moving to Derry, then? I have no plans to, no. This is a long way to come to borrow books, isnt it? Dont they have libraries in Nebraska? Its kind of a sentimental thing, Ben said. He would have thought telling a stranger this would be embarrassing, but he found it wasnt. I grew up in Derry, you see. This is the first time Ive been back since I was a kid. Ive been walking around, seeing whats changed and what hasnt. And all at once it occurred to me that I spent about ten years of my life here between ages three and thirteen, and I dont have a single thing to remember those years by. Not so much as a postcard. I had some silver dollars, but I lost one of them and gave the rest to a friend. I guess what I want is a souvenir of my childhood. Its late, but dont they say better late than never? Carole Danner smiled, and the smile changed her pretty face into one that was beautiful. I think thats very sweet, she said. If youd like to browse for ten or fifteen minutes, Ill have the card made up for you when you come back to the desk. Ben grinned a little. I guess therell be a fee, he said. Outoftowner and all. Did you have a card when you were a boy? I sure did. Ben smiled. Except for my friends, I guess that library card was the most important Ben, would you come up here? a voice called suddenly, cutting across the library hush like a scalpel. He turned around, jumping guiltily the way people do when someone shouts in a library. He saw no one he knew ... and realized a moment later that no one had looked up or shown any sign of surprise or annoyance. The old men still read their copies of the Derry News, the Boston Globe, National Geographic, Time, Newsweek, U.S. News World Report. At the tables in the Reference Room, two highschool girls still had their heads together over a stack of papers and a pile of filecards. Several browsers went on looking through the books on the shelves marked CURRENT FICTIONSEVENDAYLOAN. An old man in a ridiculous drivingcap, a cold pipe clenched between his teeth, went on leafing through a folio of Luis de Vargas sketches. He turned back to the young woman, who was looking at him, puzzled. Is anything wrong? No, Ben said, smiling. I thought I heard something. I guess Im more jetlagged than I thought. What were you saying? Well, actually you were saying. But I was about to add that if you had a card when you were a resident, your name will still be in the files, she said. We keep everything on microfiche now. Some change from when you were a kid here, I guess. Yes, he said. A lot of things have changed in Derry ... but a lot of things also seem to have remained the same. Anyway, I can just look you up and give you a renewal card. No charge. Thats great, Ben said, and before he could add thanks the voice cut through the librarys sacramental silence again, louder now, ominously jolly Come on up, Ben! Come on up, you fat little fuck! This is Your Life, Ben Hanscom! Ben cleared his throat. I appreciate it, he said. Dont mention it. She cocked her head at him. Has it gotten warm outside? A little, he said. Why? Youre Ben Hanscom did it! the voice screamed. It was coming from abovecoming from the stacks. Ben Hanscom killed the children! Get him! Grab him! perspiring, she finished. Am I? he said idiotically. Ill have this made up right away, she said. Thank you. She headed for the old Royal typewriter at the corner of her desk. Ben walked slowly away, his heart a thudding drum in his chest. Yes, he was sweating; he could feel it trickling down from his forehead, his armpits, matting the hair on his chest. He looked up and saw Pennywise the Clown standing at the top of the lefthand staircase, looking down at him. His face was white with greasepaint. His mouth bled lipstick in a killers grin. There were empty sockets where his eyes should have been. He held a bunch of balloons in one hand and a book in the other. Not he, Ben thought. It. I am standing here in the middle of the Derry Public Librarys rotunda on a latespring afternoon in 1985, I am a grown man, and I am face to face with my childhoods greatest nightmare. I am face to face with It. Come on up, Ben, Pennywise called down. I wont hurt you. Ive got a book for you! A book ... and a balloon! Come on up! Ben opened his mouth to call back. Youre insane if you think Im going up there, and suddenly realized that if he did that, everyone here would be looking at him, everyone here would be thinking, Who is that crazyman? Oh, I know you cant answer, Pennywise called down, and giggled. Almost fooled you there for a minute, though, didnt I? Pardon me, sir, do you have Prince Albert in a can? ... You do? ... Better let the poor guy out! Pardon me, maam, is your refrigerator running? ... It is? ... Then hadnt you better go catch it? The clown on the landing threw its head back and shrieked laughter. It roared and echoed in the dome of the rotunda like a flight of black bats, and Ben was only able to keep from clapping his hands over his ears with a tremendous effort of will. Come on up, Ben, Pennywise called down. Well talk. Neutral ground. What do you say? Im not coming up there, Ben thought. When I finally come to you, you wont want to see me, I think. Were going to kill you. The clown shrieked laughter again. Kill me? Kill me? And suddenly, horribly, the voice was Richie Toziers voice, not his voice, precisely, but Richie Tozier doing his Pickaninny Voice Doan kill me, massa, I be a good nigguh, doan kill thisyere black boy, Haystack! Then that shrieking laughter again. Trembling, whitefaced, Ben walked across the echoing center of the adults library. He felt that soon he would vomit. He stood in front of a shelf of books and took one down at random with a hand that trembled badly. His cold fingers flittered the pages. This is your one chance, Haystack! the voice called from behind and above him. Get out of town. Get out before it gets dark tonight. Ill be after you tonight ... you and the others. Youre too old to stop me, Ben. Youre all too old. Too old to do anything but get yourselves killed. Get out, Ben. Do you want to see this tonight? He turned slowly, still holding the book in his icy hands. He didnt want to look, but it was as if there were an invisible hand under his chin, tilting his head up and up and up. The clown was gone. Dracula was standing at the top of the lefthand stairway, but it was no movie Dracula; it was not Bela Lugosi or Christopher Lee or Frank Langella or Francis Lederer or Reggie Nalder. An ancient manthing with a face like a twisted root stood there. Its face was deadly pale, its eyes purplishred, the color of bloodclots. Its mouth dropped open, revealing a mouthful of Gillette BlueBlades that had been set in the gums at angles; it was like looking into a deadly mirrormaze where a single misstep could get you cut in half. KEEERUNCH! it screamed, and its jaws snapped closed. Blood gouted from its mouth in a redblack flood. Chunks of its severed lips fell to the glowing white silk of its formal shirt and slid down its front, leaving snailtrails of blood behind. What did Stan Uris see before he died? the vampire on the landing screamed down at him, laughing through the bloody hole of its mouth. Was it Prince Albert in a can? Was it Davy Crockett, King of the Wild Frontier? What did he see, Ben? Do you want to see it too? What did he see? What did he see? Then that shrieking laughter again, and Ben knew that he would scream now himself, yes, there was no way to stop the scream, it was going to come. Blood was pattering down from the landing in a grisly shower. One drop had landed on the arthritisbunched hand of an old man who was reading The Wall Street Journal. It was running down between his knuckles, unseen and unfelt. Ben hitched in breath, sure the scream would follow, unthinkable in the quiet of this softly drizzling spring afternoon, as shocking as the slash of a knife ... or a mouthful of razorblades. Instead, what came out in a shaky, uneven rush, spoken instead of screamed, spoken low like a prayer, were these words We made slugs out of it, of course. We made the silver dollar into silver slugs. The gentleman in the drivingcap who had been perusing the de Vargas sketches looked up sharply. Nonsense, he said. Now people did look up; someone hissed Shhh! at the old man in an annoyed voice. Im sorry, Ben said in a low, trembling voice. He was faintly aware that his face was now running with sweat, and that his shirt was plastered to his body. I was thinking aloud Nonsense, the old gentleman repeated, in a louder voice. Cant make silver bullets from silver dollars. Common misconception. Pulp fiction. Problem is with specific gravity Suddenly the woman, Ms. Danner, was there. Mr. Brockhill, youll have to be quiet, she said kindly enough. People are reading Mans sick, Brockhill said abruptly, and went back to his book. Give him an aspirin, Carole. Carole Danner looked at Ben and her face sharpened with concern. Are you ill, Mr. Hanscom? I know its terribly impolite to say so, but you look terrible. Ben said, I ... I had Chinese food for lunch. I dont think its agreed with me. If you want to lie down, theres a cot in Mr. Hanlons office. You could No. Thanks, but no. What he wanted was not to lie down but to get the hell out of the Derry Public Library. He looked up at the landing. The clown was gone. The vampire was gone. But tied to the low wroughtiron railing which surrounded the landing was a balloon. Written on its bulging skin were the words HAVE A GOOD DAY! TONIGHT YOU DIE! Ive got your library card, she said, putting a tentative hand on his arm. Do you still want it? Yes, thanks, Ben said. He drew a deep, shuddery breath. Im very sorry about this. I just hope it isnt foodpoisoning, she said. Wouldnt work, Mr. Brockhill said without looking up from de Vargas or removing his dead pipe from the corner of his mouth. Device of pulp fiction. Bullet would tumble. And speaking again with no foreknowledge that he was going to speak, Ben said Slugs, not bullets. We realized almost right away that we couldnt make bullets. I mean, we were just kids. It was my idea to Shhhh! someone said again. Brockhill gave Ben a slightly startled look, seemed about to speak, then went back to the sketches. At the desk, Carole Danner handed him a small orange card with DERRY PUBLIC LIBRARY stamped across the top. Bemused, Ben realized it was the first adult librarycard he had owned in his whole life. The one hed had as a kid had been canaryyellow. Are you sure you dont want to lie down, Mr. Hanscom? Im feeling a little better, thanks. Sure? He managed a smile. Im sure. You do look a little better, she said, but she said it doubtfully, as if understanding that this was the proper thing to say but not really believing it. Then she was holding a book under the microfilm gadget they used these days to record bookloans, and Ben felt a touch of almost hysterical amusement. Its the book I grabbed off the shelf when the clown started to do its Pickaninny Voice, he thought. She thought I wanted to borrow it. Ive made my first withdrawal from the Derry Public Library in twentyfive years, and I dont even know what the book is. Furthermore, I dont care. Just let me out of here, okay? Thatll be enough. Thank you, he said, putting the book under his arm. Youre more than welcome, Mr. Hanscom. Are you sure you wouldnt like an aspirin? Quite sure, he saidand then hesitated. You wouldnt by any chance know what happened to Mrs. Starrett, would you? Barbara Starrett? She used to be the head of the Childrens Library. She died, Carole Danner said. Three years ago. It was a stroke, I understand. It was a great shame. She was relatively young ... fiftyeight or nine, I think. Mr. Hanlon closed the library for the day. Oh, Ben said, and felt a hollow place open in his heart. Thats what happened when you got back to your usedtobe, as the song put it. The frosting on the cake was sweet, but the stuff underneath was bitter. People forgot you, or died on you, or lost their hair and teeth. In some cases you found that they had lost their minds. Oh it was great to be alive. Boy howdy. Im sorry, she said. You liked her, didnt you? All the kids liked Mrs. Starrett, Ben said, and was alarmed to realize that tears were now very close. Are you If she asks me if Im all right one more time, I really am going to cry, I think. Or scream. Or something. He glanced at his watch and said, I really have to run. Thanks for being so nice. Have a nice day, Mr. Hanscom. Sure. Because tonight I die. He tipped a finger her way and started back across the floor. Mr. Brockhill glanced up at him once, sharply and suspiciously. He looked up at the landing which topped the lefthand staircase. The balloon still floated there, tied by its string to lacy wroughtiron. But now the printing on its side read I KILLED BARBARA STARRETT! PENNYWISE THE CLOWN He looked away, feeling the pulse in his throat starting to run again. He let himself out and was startled by sunlightthe clouds overhead were coming unravelled and a warm lateMay sun was shafting down, making the grass look impossibly green and lush. Ben felt something start to lift from his heart. It seemed to him that he had left some insupportable burden behind in the library ... and then he looked down at the book he had inadvertently withdrawn and his teeth clamped together with sudden, painful force. It was Bulldozer, by Stephen W. Meader, one of the books he had withdrawn from the library on the day he had dived into the Barrens to get away from Henry Bowers and his friends. And speaking of Henry, the track of his engineer boot was still on the books cover. Shaking, fumbling at the pages, he turned to the back. The library had gone over to a microfilm checkout system; he had seen that. But there was still a pocket in the back of this book with a card tucked into it. There was a name written on each line of the card followed by the librarians returndate stamp. Looking at the card, Ben saw this And, on the last line of the card, his own childish signature, written in heavy pencilstrokes Stamped across this card, stamped across the books flyleaf, stamped across the thickness of the pages, stamped again and again in smeary red ink that looked like blood, was one word CANCEL. Oh dear God, Ben murmured. He did not know what else to say; that seemed to cover the entire situation. Oh dear God, dear God. He stood in the new sunlight, suddenly wondering what was happening to the others. 2 Eddie Kaspbrak Makes a Catch Eddie got off the bus at the comer of Kansas Street and Kossuth Lane. Kossuth was a street that ran a quarter of a mile downhill before deadending abruptly where the crumbling earth sloped into the Barrens. He had absolutely no idea why he had chosen this place to leave the bus; Kossuth Lane meant nothing to him, and he had known no one on this particular section of Kansas Street. But it seemed like the right place. That was all he knew, but at this point it seemed to be enough. Beverly had climbed off the bus with a little wave at one of the Lower Main Street stops. Mike had taken his car back to the library. Now, watching the small and somehow absurd Mercedes bus pull away, he wondered exactly what he was doing here, standing on an obscure streetcorner in an obscure town nearly five hundred miles away from Myra, who was undoubtedly worried to tears about him. He felt an instant of almost painful vertigo, touched his jacket pocket, and remembered that he had left his Dramamine back at the Town House along with the rest of his pharmacopeia. He had aspirin, though. He would no more have gone out sans aspirin than he would have gone out sans pants. He chugged a couple dry and began to walk along Kansas Street, thinking vaguely that he might go to the Public Library or perhaps cross over to Costello Avenue. It was beginning to clear now, and he supposed he could even walk across to West Broadway and admire the old Victorian houses that stood there along the only two really handsome residential blocks in Derry. He used to do that sometimes when he was a kidjust walk along West Broadway, sort of casual, like he was on his way to somewhere else. There was the Muellers, near the corner of Witcham and West Broadway, a red house with turrets on either side and hedges in front. The Muellers had a gardener who always looked at Eddie with suspicious eyes until he had passed on his way. Then there was the Bowies house, which was four down from the Muellers on the same sideone of the reasons, he supposed, that Greta Bowie and Sally Mueller had been such great friends in grammar school. It was greenshingled and also had turrets ... but while the turrets on the Muellers house were squared off, those on the Bowies house were capped with funny coneshaped things that looked to Eddie like squatty duncecaps. In the summer there was always lawnfurniture on the side lawna table with a sporty yellow umbrella over it, wicker chairs, a rope hammock stretched between two trees. There was always a croquet game set up out back, too. Eddie knew this although he had never been invited over to Gretas house to play croquet. Walking by casually (like he was on his way to somewhere else) Eddie would sometimes hear the click of the balls, laughter, groans as someones ball was sent away. Once he had seen Greta herself, a lemonade in one hand and her croquet mallet in the other, looking slim and pretty beyond the words of all the poets (even her sunburned shoulders seemed wonderfully pretty to Eddie Kaspbrak, who had at that time been nine), going after her ball, which had been sent away; it had ricocheted off a tree and had thus brought Greta into Eddies view. He fell in love with her a little that dayher shining blonde hair falling to the shoulders of her culotte dress, which was a cool blue. She glanced around and for a moment he thought she had seen him, but that proved not to be so, because when he raised his hand in a timid hello, she did not raise hers in return but only whacked her ball back onto the rear lawn and then ran after it. He had walked on with no resentment at the unreturned hello (he genuinely believed she must not have see him) or at the fact that he had never been invited to attend one of the Saturdayafternoon croquet games why would a beautiful girl like Greta Bowie want to invite a kid like him? He was thinchested, asthmatic, and had the face of a drowned waterrat. Yeah, he thought, walking aimlessly back down Kansas Street, I should have gone over to West Broadway and looked at all those houses again... the Muellers, the Bowies, Dr. Hales place, the Trackers His thoughts broke off abruptly at that last name, becausespeak of the devil!here he was, standing in front of Tracker Brothers Truck Depot. Still right here, Eddie said aloud, and laughed. Son of a gun! The house on West Broadway which belonged to Phil and Tony Tracker, a pair of lifelong bachelors, was probably the loveliest of the large houses on that street, a spotlessly white midVictorian with green lawns and great beds of flowers that rioted (in a neatly landscaped way, of course) all the spring and summer long. Their driveway was freshly sealed each fall so that it always remained as black as a dark mirror, the slate shingles on the many slants of the roof were always a perfect mint green that almost exactly matched the lawn, and people sometimes stopped to take pictures of the mullioned windows, which were very old and quite remarkable. Any two men who bother keeping a house so nice must be queers, Eddies mother had once said in a disgruntled sort of way, and Eddie hadnt dared ask for clarification. The Truck Depot was the exact opposite of the Tracker house on West Broadway. It was a low brick structure; the bricks were old and crumbling in places, their dirtyorange hue shading to a sooty black at the buildings footings. The windows were uniformly filthy except for a small circular place on one of the lower panes of the starters office. This one pane had been kept spotlessly clean by kids before Eddie and those who came after, because the starter kept a Playboy calendar over his desk. No boy came to play scratch baseball in the back lot without first stopping to wipe at the glass with his ballglove and examine that months pinup. The depot was surrounded by a waste of gravel on three sides. Longdistance haulersJimmyPetes and Kenworths and Riosall painted with the words TRACKER BROS. DERRY NEWTON PROVIDENCE HARTFORD NEW YORK, sometimes stood here in tangled disordered profusion. Sometimes they were put together and sometimes there were just cabs or bodyboxes, standing silent on their rear wheels and supportstruts. The brothers kept their trucks out of the lot at the back of the building as much as they could, because they were both avid baseball fans and liked the kids to come and play. Phil Tracker drove freight himself so the boys rarely saw him, but Tony Tracker, a man with huge slab arms and a gut to match, kept the books and the accounts, and Eddie (who never playedhis mother would have killed him if she had heard he was playing baseball, racing around and getting dust in his delicate lungs, risking broken legs, concussions, and God alone knew what else) got used to seeing him. He was a summer fixture, his voice as much a part of the game to Eddie then as Mel Allens later became Tony Tracker, large but somehow ghostlike, his white shirt glimmering as summer dusk drew down and fireflies began to loom the air with their lace of lights, yelling You got to get under that bawl before you can catch it, Red! ... You took your eye offn the bawl, HalfPint! You cant hit the goddam thing, if you aint looking at it! ... Slide, Horsefoot! You get the soles of them Keds in that secondbasemans face, he aint never goan tag you out! Never called any of them by name, Eddie remembered. It was always hey Red, hey Blondie, hey FourEyes, hey HalfPint. It was never a ball, it was always a bawl. It was never a bat, it was always something Tony Tracker called an ashhandle, as in You aint never goan hit that bawl if you dont choke up on the ashhandle, Horsefoot. Grinning, Eddie walked a little closer ... and then the grin faded. The long brick building where orders had been processed, trucks repaired, and goods stored on a shortterm basis was now dark and silent. Weeds were growing up through the gravel, and there were no trucks in either side yard ... only a single box, its sides rusty and dull. Getting closer still, he saw that there was a realtors FOR SALE sign in the window. Trackers out of business, he thought, and was surprised at the sadness the thought carried with it ... as if someone had died. He was glad now he hadnt walked over to West Broadway. If Tracker Brothers could have gone underTracker Brothers, which had seemed eternalwhat might have happened on that street he had liked so much to walk down as a kid? He realized uneasily that he didnt want to know. He didnt want to see Greta Bowie with gray in her hair, her hips and legs thickened with much sitting and much eating and much drinking; it was bettersaferto just stay away. Thats what we all should have done, just stayed away. Weve got no business here. Coming back to where you grew up is like doing some crazy yoga trick, putting your feet in your own mouth and somehow swallowing yourself so theres nothing left; it cant be done, and any sane person ought to be fucking glad it cant ... what do you suppose happened to Tony and Phil Tracker, anyway? A heart attack for Tony, perhaps; he had been carrying maybe seventyfive extra pounds of meat on his bones. You had to watch out for what your heart might be up to. The poets might romance about broken hearts and Barry Manilow sing about them, and that was fine by Eddie (he and Myra had every album Barry Manilow had ever recorded), but he himself preferred a good solid EKG every year. Sure, Tonys heart had probably given it up as a bad job. And Phil? Bad luck on the highway maybe. Eddie, who made his living behind the wheel himself (or had; these days he only drove the celebs and spent the rest of his time driving a desk), knew about bad luck on the highway. Old Phil might have jackknifed a rig somewhere in New Hampshire or in the Hainesville Woods up north in Maine when the going was icy or maybe he had lost his brakes on some long hill south of Derry, heading into Haven in a driving springtime rain. Those things or any of the others you heard in those shitkicking country songs about truckdrivers who wore Stetson hats and had cheating on their minds. Driving a desk was sometimes lonely, but Eddie had been in the drivers seat himself more than once, his aspirator riding there with him on the dashboard, its trigger reflected ghostly in the windshield (and a bucketload of pills in the glove compartment), and he knew that real loneliness was a smeary red the color of the taillights of the car ahead of you reflected on wet hottop in a driving rain. Oh shit the time goes by, Eddie Kaspbrak said in a sighing sort of whisper, and was not even aware that he had spoken aloud. Feeling both mellow and unhappya state more common to him than he ever would have believedEddie skirted the building, Gucci loafers crunching in the gravel, to look at the lot where the baseball games had been played when he was a kidwhen, it seemed, ninety percent of the world had been made up of kids. The lot wasnt much changed, but a look was enough to convince him beyond doubt that the games had stoppeda tradition that had simply died out at some point in the years between, for reasons of its own. In 1958 the diamond shape of the infield had been defined not by limed basepaths but in ruts made by running feet. They had no actual bases, those boys who had played baseball here (boys who were all older than the Losers, although Eddie remembered now that Stan Uris had sometimes played; his batting was only fair, but in the outfield he could run fast and he had the reflexes of an angel), but four pieces of dirty canvas were always kept under the loadingbay behind the long brick building, to be ceremonially taken out when enough kids had drifted into the back lot to play ball, and just as ceremonially returned when the shades of evening had fallen thickly enough to end further play. Standing here now, Eddie could see no trace of those rutted basepaths. Weeds had grown up through the gravel in patchy profusion. Broken soda and beer bottles twinkled here and there; in the old days, such shards of broken glass had been religiously removed. The only thing that was the same was the chainlink fence at the back of the lot, twelve feet high and as rusty as dried blood. It framed the sky in droves of diamond shapes. That was homerun territory, Eddie thought, standing bemused with his hands in his pockets at the place where home plate had been twentyseven years ago. Over the fence and down into the Barrens. They used to call it The Automatic. He laughed out loud and then looked around nervously, as if it were a ghost who had laughed out loud instead of a guy in sixtydollar slacks, a guy as solid as ... well, as solid as ... as... Get off it, Eds, Richies voice seemed to whisper. You aint solid at all, and in the last few years the chucks have been few and far between. Right? Yeah, right, Eddie said in a low voice, and kicked a few loose stones away in a rattle. In truth, he had only seen two balls go over the fence at the back of the lot behind Tracker Brothers, both of them hit by the same kid Belch Huggins. Belch had been almost comically big, already six feet tall at twelve, weighing maybe a hundred and seventy. |
He had gotten his nickname because he was able to articulate belches of amazing length and loudnessat his best, he sounded like a cross between a bullfrog and a cicada. Sometimes he would pat a hand rapidly across his open mouth while belching, emitting a sound like a hoarse Indian. Belch had been big and not really fat, Eddie remembered now, but it was as if God had never really intended for a boy of twelve to attain such remarkable size; if he had not died that summer, he might have grown to sixsix or better, and might have learned along the way how to maneuver his outsized body through a world of smaller denizens. He might even, Eddie thought, have learned gentleness. But at twelve he had been both clumsy and mean, not retarded but almost seeming so because all his bodys actions seemed so amazingly graceless and lunging. He had none of Stanleys builtin rhythms; it was as if Belchs body did not talk to his brain at all but existed in its own cosmos of slow thunder. Eddie could remember the evening a long, slow fly ball had been hit directly to Belchs position in the outfieldBelch didnt even have to move. He stood looking up, raised his glove in an almost aimless punching gesture, and instead of settling into his glove, the ball had struck him squarely on top of the head, producing a hollow bonk! sound. It was as if the ball had been dropped from three stories up onto the roof of a Ford sedan. It bounced up a good four feet and came down neatly into Belchs glove. An unfortunate kid named Owen Phillips had laughed at that bonking sound. Belch had walked over to him and had kicked his ass so hard that the Phillips kid had run screaming for home with a hole in the seat of his pants. No one else laughed ... at least not on the outside. Eddie supposed that if Richie Tozier had been there, he wouldnt have been able to help it, and Belch probably would have put him in the hospital. Belch was similarly slow at the plate. He was easy to strike out, and if he hit a grounder even the most fumblefingered infielders had no trouble throwing him out at first. But when he got all of one, it went a long, long way. The two balls Eddie had seen Belch hit over the fence had both been wonders. The first had never been recovered, although more than a dozen boys had tramped back and forth over the steeply slanting slope which plunged down into the Barrens, looking for it. The second, however, had been recovered. The ball belonged to another sixthgrader (Eddie could not now remember what his real name had been, only that all the other kids called him Snuffy because he always had a cold) and had been in use for most of the late spring and early summer of 58. As a result, it was no longer the nearly perfect spherical creation of white horsehide and red stitching that it had been when it came out of the box; it was scuffed, grassstained, and cut in several places by its hundreds of bouncing trips over the gravel in the outfield. Its stitching was beginning to come unravelled in one place, and Eddie, who shagged foul balls when his asthma wasnt too bad (relishing every casual Thanks, kid! when he threw the ball back to the playing field), knew that soon someone would produce a roll of Black Cat friction tape and embalm it so they could get another week or so out of it. But before that day came, a seventhgrader with the unlikely name of Stringer Dedham tossed what he fancied a change of speed pitch to Belch Huggins. Belch timed the pitch perfectly (the slow ones were, you should pardon the pun, just his speed) and hit Snuffys elderly Spalding so hard that the cover came right off and fluttered down just a few feet shy of second base like a big white moth. The ball itself had continued up and up into a gorgeous twilit sky, unravelling and unravelling as it went, kids turning to follow its progress in dumb wonder; up and over the chainlink fence it went, still rising, and Eddie remembered Stringer Dedham had said Holy shit! in a soft and awestruck voice as it went, riding a track into the sky, and they had all seen the unwinding string, and maybe even before it hit, six boys had been monkeying up that fence, and Eddie could remember Tony Tracker laughing in an amazed loonlike way and crying That one would have been out of Yankee Stadium! Do you hear me? That one would have been out of fucking Yankee Stadium! It had been Peter Gordon who found the ball, not far from the stream the Losers Club would dam up less than three weeks later. What was left was not even three inches through the center; it was some kind of cockeyed miracle that the twine had never broken. By unspoken consent, the boys had brought the remains of Snuffys ball back to Tony Tracker, who examined it without saying a word, surrounded by boys who were likewise silent. Seen from a distance that circle of boys standing around the tall man with the big sloping belly might have seemed almost religious in its intentthe veneration of a holy object. Belch Huggins had not even run around the bases. He only stood among the others like a boy who had no precise idea of where he was. What Tony Tracker handed him that day was smaller than a tennis ball. Eddie, lost in these memories, walked from the place where home had been, across the pitchers mound (only it had never been a mound; it had been a depression from which the gravel had been scraped clean), and out into shortstop country. He paused briefly, struck by the silence, and then strolled on out to the chainlink fence. It was rustier than ever, and overgrown by some sort of ugly climbing vine, but still there. Looking through it, he could see how the ground sloped away, aggressively green. The Barrens were more junglelike than ever, and for the first time he found himself wondering why a stretch of such tangled and virulent growth should have been called the Barrens at all it was many things, but barren was not one of them. Why not the Wilderness? Or the Jungle? Barrens. It had an ominous, almost sinister sound, but what it conjured up in the mind were not tangles of shrubs and trees so thick they had to fight for sunspace; it called up pictures of sand dunes shifting away endlessly, or gray slate expanses of hardpan and desert. Barren. Mike had said earlier that they were all barren, and it seemed true enough. Seven of them, and not a kid among them. Even in these days of planned parenthood, that was bucking the odds. He looked through the rusty diamondshapes, hearing the faraway drone of cars on Kansas Street, the faraway trickle and rush of water down below. He could see glints of it in the spring sunshine, like flashes of glass. The bamboo stands were still down there, looking unhealthily white, like patches of fungus in all the green. Beyond them, in the marshy stretches of ground bordering the Kenduskeag, there was supposed to have been quickmud. I spent the happiest times of my childhood down there in that mess, he thought, and shivered. He was about to turn away when something else caught his eye a cement cylinder with a heavy steel cap on the top. Morlock holes, Ben used to call them, laughing with his mouth but not quite laughing with his eyes. If you went over to one, it would stand maybe waisthigh on you (if you were a kid) and you would see the words DERRY DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC WORKS stamped in raised metal in a semicircle. And you could hear a humming noise from deep inside. Some sort of machinery. Morlock holes. Thats where we went. In August. In the end. We went into one of Bens Morlock holes, into the sewers, but after awhile they werent sewers anymore. They were ... were ... what? Patrick Hockstetter was down there. Before It took him Beverly saw him doing something bad. It made her laugh but she knew it was bad. Something to do with Henry Bowers, wasnt it? Yes, I think so. And He turned away suddenly and started back toward the abandoned depot, not wanting to look down into the Barrens anymore, not liking the thoughts they conjured up. He wanted to be home with Myra. He didnt want to be here. He... Catch, kid! He turned toward the sound of the voice and here came some sort of a ball, right over the fence and toward him. It struck the gravel and bounced. Eddie stuck out his hand and caught it. In his unthinking reflex the catch was so neat it was almost elegant. He looked down at what was in his hand and everything inside him went cool and loose. Once it had been a baseball. Now it was only a stringwrapped sphere, because the cover had been knocked off. He could see the string trailing away. It went over the top of the fence like a strand of spiderweb and disappeared into the Barrens. Oh Jesus, he thought. Oh Jesus, Its here, Its here with me NOW Come on down and play, Eddie, the voice on the other side of the fence said, and Eddie realized with a fainting sort of horror that it was the voice of Belch Huggins, who had been murdered in the tunnels under Derry in August of 1958. And now here was Belch himself, struggling up and over the bank on the other side of the fence. He wore a pinstriped New York Yankees baseball uniform that was flecked with bits of autumn leaves and smeared with green. He was Belch but he was also the leper, a creature hideously arisen from long years in a wet grave. The flesh of his heavy face hung in putrescent strings and runners. One eyesocket was empty. Things squirmed in his hair. He wore a mossslimed baseballglove on one hand. He poked the rotting fingers of his right hand through the diamonds of the chainlink fence, and when he curled them, Eddie heard a dreadful squirting sound which he thought might drive him mad. That one would have been out of Yankee Stadium, Belch said, and grinned. A toad, noxiously white and squirming, dropped from his mouth and tumbled to the ground. Do you hear me? That one would have been out of fucking Yankee Stadium! And by the way, Eddie, do you want a blowjob? Ill do it for a dime. Hell, Ill do it for free. Belchs face changed. The jellylike bulb of nose fell in, revealing two raw red channels that Eddie had seen in his dreams. His hair coarsened and drew back from his temples, turned cobwebwhite. The rotting skin on his forehead split open, revealing white bone covered with a mucusy substance, like the bleared lens of a searchlight. Belch was gone; the thing which had been under the porch at 29 Neibolt Street was here now. Bobby blows me for a dime, it crooned, beginning to climb the fence. It left little pieces of its flesh in the diamond shapes the crisscrossing wires made. The fence jingled and rattled with its weight. When it touched the climbing, vinelike weeds, they turned black. He will do it anytime. Fifteen cents for overtime. Eddie tried to scream. Nothing but a dry senseless squeak came out of him. His lungs felt like the worlds oldest ocarinas. He looked down at the ball in his hand and suddenly blood began to sweat up from between the wrapped strings. It pattered to the gravel and splashed on his loafers. He threw it down and took two lurching staggersteps backward, his eyes bulging from his face, rubbing his hands on the front of his shirt. The leper had reached the top of the fence. Its head swayed in silhouette against the sky, a nightmare shape like a bloated Halloween jackolantern. Its tongue lolled out, four feet long, perhaps six. It twined its way down the fence like a snake from the lepers grinning mouth. There one second ... gone the next. It did not fade, like a ghost in a movie; it simply winked out of existence. But Eddie heard a sound which confirmed its essential solidity a pop! sound, like a cork blowing out of a champagne bottle. It was the sound of air rushing in to fill the place where the leper had been. He turned and began to run, but before he had gone ten feet, four stiff shapes flew out from the shadows under the loadingbay of the abandoned brick depot. He thought at first they were bats and he screamed and covered his head. ... Then he saw that they were squares of canvasthe squares of canvas that had been the bases when the big kids played here. They whirled and twirled in the still air; he had to duck to avoid one of them. They settled in their accustomed places all at once, kicking up little puffs of grit home, first, second, third. Gasping, his breath short in his throat, Eddie ran past home plate, his lips drawn back, his face as white as cottage cheese. WHACK! The sound of a bat hitting a phantom ball. And then Eddie stopped, the strength going out of his legs, a groan passing his lips. The ground was bulging in a straight line from home to first, as if a gigantic gopher was tunneling rapidly just below the surface of the ground. Gravel rolled off to either side. The shape under the earth reached the base and the canvas flipped up into the air. It went up so hard and fast it made a popping soundthe sound a shoeshine kid makes when hes feeling good and pops the rag. The ground began to ridge between first and second, racing and racing. Second base flew into the air with a similar popping sound and had barely settled back before the shape under the ground had reached third and was racing for home. Home plate flew up as well, but before it could come down the thing had popped out of the ground like some grisly partyfavor, and the thing was Tony Tracker, his face a skull to which a few blackened chunks of flesh still clung, his white shirt a mess of rotted linen strings. He poked out of the earth at home plate from the waist up, swaying back and forth like a grotesque worm. Dont matter how much you choke up on that ashhandle, Tony Tracker said in a gritty, grinding voice. Exposed teeth grinned in lunatic chumminess. Dont matter, Wheezy. Well get you. You and your friends. Well have a BAWL! Eddie shrieked and staggered away. There was a hand on his shoulder. He shrank away from it. The hand tightened for a moment, then gave way. He turned. It was Greta Bowie. She was dead. Half of her face was gone; maggots crawled in the churned red meat that was left. She held a green balloon in one hand. Car crash, the recognizable half of her mouth said, and grinned. The grin caused an unspeakable ripping sound, and Eddie could see raw tendons moving like terrible.straps. I was eighteen, Eddie. Drunk and done up on reds. Your friends are here, Eddie. Eddie backed away from her, his hands held up in front of his face. She walked toward him. Blood had splashed, then dried on her legs in long splotches. She was wearing pennyloafers. And now, beyond her, he saw the ultimate horror Patrick Hockstetter was shambling toward him across the outfield. He too was wearing a New York Yankees uniform. Eddie ran. Greta clutched at him again, tearing his shirt and spilling some terrible liquid down the back of his collar. Tony Tracker was pulling himself out of his mansized gopherrun. Patrick Hockstetter stumbled and staggered. Eddie ran, not knowing where he was finding the breath to run, but running somehow anyway. And as he ran, he saw words floating in front of him, the words that had been printed on the side of the green balloon Greta Bowie had been holding ASTHMA MEDICINE CAUSES LUNG CANCER! COMPLIMENTS OF CENTER STREET DRUG Eddie ran. He ran and ran and at some point he collapsed in a dead faint near McCarron Park and some kids saw him and steered clear of him because he looked like a wino to them like he might have some kind of weird disease for all they knew he might even be the killer and they talked about reporting him to the police but in the end they didnt. 3 Bev Rogan Pays a Call Beverly walked absently down Main Street from the Derry Town House, where she had gone to change into a pair of bluejeans and a bright yellow smockblouse. She was not thinking about where she was going. Instead she thought this Your hair is winter fire, January embers. My heart burns there, too. She had hidden that in her bottom drawer, beneath her underwear. Her mother might have seen it, but that was all right. The important thing was, that was one drawer her father never looked in. If he had seen it, he might have looked at her with that bright, almost friendly, and utterly paralyzing stare of his and asked in his almost friendly way You been doing something you shouldnt be doing, Bev? You been doing something with some boy? And if she said yes or if she said no, there would be a quick whambam, so quick and so hard it didnt even hurt at firstit took a few seconds for the vacuum to dissipate and the pain to fill the place were the vacuum had been. Then his voice again, almost friendly I worry a lot about you, Beverly. I worry an awful lot. You got to grow up, isnt that so? Her father might still be living here in Derry. He had been living here the last time she had heard from him, but that had been ... how long ago? Ten years? Long before she had married Tom, anyway. She had gotten a postcard from him, not a plain postcard like the one the poem had been written on but one showing the hideous plastic statue of Paul Bunyan which stood in front of City Center. The statue had been erected sometime in the fifties, and it had been one of the landmarks of her childhood, but her fathers card had called up no nostalgia or memories for her; it might as well have been a card showing Gateway Arch in Saint Louis or the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco. Hope you are doing well and being good, the card read. Hope you will send me something if you can, as I dont have much. I love you Bevvie. Dad. He had loved her, and in some ways she supposed that had everything to do with why she had fallen so desperately in love with Bill Denbrough that long summer of 1958because of all the boys, Bill was the one who projected the sense of authority she associated with her father ... but it was a different sort of authority, somehowit was authority that listened. She saw no assumption in either his eyes or his actions that he believed her fathers kind of worrying to be the only reason authority needed to exist ... as if people were pets, to be both cosseted and disciplined. Whatever the reasons, by the end of their first meeting as a complete group in July of that year, that meeting of which Bill had taken such complete and effortless charge, she had been madly, headoverheels in love with him. Calling it a simple schoolgirl crush was like saying a RollsRoyce was a vehicle with four wheels, something like a haywagon. She did not giggle wildly and blush when she saw him, nor did she chalk his name on trees or write it on the walls of the Kissing Bridge. She simply lived with his face in her heart all the time, a kind of sweet, hurtful ache. She would have died for him. It was natural enough, she supposed, for her to want to believe it had been Bill who sent her the lovepoem ... although she had never gotten so far gone as to actually convince herself it was so. No, she had known who wrote the poem. And later onat some pointhadnt its author admitted this to her? Yes, Ben had told her so (although she could not now remember, not for the life of her, just when or under what circumstances he had actually said it out loud), and although his love for her had been almost as well hidden as the love she had felt for Bill (but you told him Bevvie you did you told him you loved) it was obvious to anyone who really looked (and who was kind)it was in the way he was always careful to keep some space between them, in the draw of his breath when she touched his arm or his hand, in the way he dressed when he knew he was going to see her. Dear, sweet, fat Ben. It had ended somehow, that difficult preadolescent triangle, but just how it had ended was one of the things she still couldnt remember. She thought that Ben had confessed authoring and sending the little lovepoem. She thought she had told Bill she loved him, that she would love him forever. And somehow, those two tellings had helped save all of their lives ... or had they? She couldnt remember. These memories (or memories of memories that was really closer to what they were) were like islands that were not really islands at all but only knobs of a single coral spine which happened to poke up above the waterline, not separate at all but one piece. Yet whenever she tried to dive deep and see the rest, a maddening image intervened the grackles which came back each spring to New England, crowding the telephone lines, trees and rooftops, jostling for places and filling the thawing lateMarch air with their raucous gossip. This image came to her again and again, foreign and disturbing, like a heavy radio beam that blankets the signal you really want to pick up. She realized with sudden shock that she was standing outside of the KleenKloze Washateria, where she and Stan Uris and Ben and Eddie had taken the rags that day in late Junerags stained with blood which only they could see. The windows were now soaped opaque and there was a handlettered FOR SALE BY OWNER sign taped to the door. Peering between the swashes of soap, she could see an empty room with lighter squares on the dirty yellow walls where the washers had stood. Im going home, she thought dismally, but walked on anyway. This neighborhood hadnt changed much. A few more of the trees were gone, probably elms felled by disease. The houses looked a little tackier; broken windows seemed slightly more common than they had been when she was a girl. Some of the broken panes had been replaced with cardboard. Some hadnt. And here she stood in front of the apartment house, 127 Lower Main Street. Still here. The peeling white she remembered had become a peeling chocolate brown at some point during the years between, but it was still unmistakable. There was the window which looked in on what had been their kitchen; there was the window of her bedroom. (Jim Doyon, you come out of that road! Come out right now, you want to get run over and killed?) She shivered, hugging her arms across her breasts in an X, cupping her elbows in her palms. Daddy could still be living here; oh yes he could. He wouldnt move unless he had to. Just walk on up there, Beverly. Look at the mailboxes. Three boxes for three apartments, just like in the old days. And if theres one which says MARSH, you can ring the bell and pretty soon therell be the shuffle of slippers down the hall and the door will open and you can look at him, the man whose sperm made you redheaded and lefthanded and gave you the ability to draw ... remember how he used to draw? He could draw anything he wanted. If he felt like it, that is. He didnt feel like it often. I guess he had too many things to worry about. But when he did, you used to sit for hours and watch while he drew cats and dogs and horses and cows with MOO coming out of their mouths in balloons. Youd laugh and hed laugh and then hed say Now you, Bevvie, and when you held the pen hed guide your hand and youd see the cow or the cat or the smiling man unspooling beneath your own fingers while you smelled his Mennen Skin Bracer and the warmth of his skin. Go on up, Beverly. Ring the bell. Hell come and hell be old, the lines will be drawn deep in his face and his teeththose that are leftwill be yellow, and hell look at you, and hell say Why its Bevvie, Bevvies come home to see her old dad, come on in Bevvie, Im so glad to see you, Im glad because I worry about you Bevvie, I worry a LOT. She walked slowly up the path, and the weeds growing up between the cracked concrete sections brushed at the legs of her jeans. She looked closely at the firstfloor windows, but they were curtained off. She looked at the mailboxes. Third floor, STARKWEATHER. Second floor, BURKE. First floorher breath caughtMARSH. But I wont ring. I dont want to see him. I wont ring the bell. This was a firm decision, at last! The decision that opened the gate to a full and useful lifetime of firm decisions! She walked down the path! Back to downtown! Up to the Derry Town House! Packed! Cabbed! Flew! Told Tom to bug out! Lived successfully! Died happily! Rang the bell. She heard the familiar chimes from the living roomchimes that had always sounded to her like a Chinese name ChingChong! Silence. No answer. She shifted on the porch from one foot to the other, suddenly needing to pee. No one home, she thought, relieved. I can go now. Instead she rang again ChingChong! No answer. She thought of Bens lovely little poem and tried to remember exactly when and how he had confessed its authorship, and why, for a brief second, it called up an association with having her first menstrual period. Had she begun menstruating at eleven? Surely not, although her breasts had begun their first achy growth around midwinter. Why ... ? Then, intervening, a mental picture of thousands of grackles on phone lines and rooftops, all babbling at a white spring sky. Ill leave now. Ive rung twice; thats enough. But she rang again. ChingChong! Now she heard someone approaching, and the sound was just as she had imagined the tired whisper of old slippers. She looked around wildly and came very, very close to just taking to her heels. Could she make it down the cement walk and around the corner, leaving her father to think it had been nothing but kids playing pranks? Hey mister, you got Prince Albert in a can ... ? She let out a sudden sharp breath and had to tighten her throat because what wanted to come out was a laugh of relief. It wasnt her father at all. Standing in the doorway and looking out at her was a tall woman in her late seventies. Her hair was long and gorgeous, mostly white but shot through with lodes of purest gold. Behind her rimless spectacles were eyes as blue as the water in the fjords her ancestors had perhaps hailed from. She wore a purple dress of watered silk. It was shabby but still dignified. Her wrinkled face was kind. Yes, miss? Im sorry, Beverly said. The urge to laugh had passed as swiftly as it had come. She noticed that the old woman wore a cameo at her throat. It was almost certainly real ivory, surrounded by a band of gold so thin it was nearly invisible. I must have rung the wrong bell. Or rang the wrong bell on purpose, her mind whispered. I meant to ring for Marsh. Marsh? Her forehead wrinkled delicately. Yes, you see Theres no Marsh here, the old woman said. But Unless ... you dont mean Alvin Marsh, do you? Yes! Beverly said. My father! The old womans hand rose to the cameo and touched it. She peered more closely at Beverly, making her feel ridiculously young, as if she should perhaps have a box of Girl Scout cookies in her hands, or maybe some tagssupport the Derry High School Tigers. Then the old woman smiled ... a kind smile that was nonetheless sad. Why you have fallen out of touch, miss. I dont want to be the one who tells you this, a stranger, but your father has been dead these last five years. But ... on the bell ... She looked again and uttered a small, bewildered sound that was not quite a laugh. In her agitation, in her subconscious but rocksolid certainty that her old man would still be here, she had read KERSH as MARSH. Youre Mrs. Kersh? she asked. She was staggered by this news of her father, but she also felt stupid about the mistakethe lady would think her little more than illiterate. Mrs. Kersh, she agreed. You ... did you know my dad? Very little did I know him, Mrs. Kersh said. She sounded a little like Yoda in The Empire Strikes Back, and Beverly felt like laughing again. When had her emotions gone whipsawing so violently back and forth? The truth was she couldnt remember a time ... but she was dismally afraid she would before much longer. He rented the groundfloor apartment before me. We saw each other, me coming and him going, over a space of a few days. He moved down to Roward Lane. Do you know it? Yes, Beverly said. Roward Lane branched off from Lower Main Street four blocks farther down, where the apartment buildings were smaller and even more desperately shabby. I used to see him at the Costello Avenue Market sometimes, Mrs. Kersh said, and at the Washateria before they closed it. We passed a word from time to time. Wegirt, youre pale. Im sorry. Come in and let me give you tea. No, I couldnt, Beverly said weakly, but in fact she actually felt pale, like clouded glass that you could nearly look through. She could use tea, and a chair in which to sit and drink it. You could and you will, Mrs. Kersh said warmly. Its the least I can do for having told you such unpleasant news. Before she could protest, Beverly found herself being led up the gloomy hall and into her old apartment, which now seemed much smaller but safe enoughsafe, she supposed, because almost everything was different. Instead of the pinktopped Formica table with its three chairs, there was a small round table, really not much bigger than an endtable, with silk flowers in a pottery vase. Instead of the old Kelvinator refrigerator with the round drum on top (her father tinkered with it constantly to keep it going), there was a coppercolored Frigidaire. The stove was small but efficientlooking. There was an Amana RadarRange above it. Bright blue curtains hung in the windows, and she could see flowerboxes outside them. The floor, linoleum when she was a girl here, had been stripped to its original wood. Many applications of oil made it glow mellowly. Mrs. Kersh looked around from the stove, where she was placing a teapot. You grew up here? Yes, Beverly said. But its very different now ... so trim and tidy ... wonderful! How kind you are, Mrs. Kersh said, and her smile made her younger. It was radiant. I have a little money, you see. Not much, but with my Social Security I am comfortable. Once I was a girl in Sweden. I came to this country in 1920, a girl of fourteen with no moneywhich is the best way to learn the value of money, would you agree? Yes, Bev sad. At the hospital I worked, Mrs. Kersh said. Many yearsfrom 1925 I worked there. I rose to the position of head housekeeper. All the keys I had. My husband invested our money quite well. Now I have reached a little harbor. Look around, miss, while the water boils! No, I couldnt Please ... still I feel guilty. Look, if you like! And so she did look. Her parents bedroom was now Mrs. Kershs bedroom, and the difference was profound. The room seemed brighter and airier now. A large cedar chest, the initials R.G. inlaid into it, breathed its gentle aroma into the air. A gigantic surprisequilt lay on the bed. On it she could see women drawing water, boys driving cattle, men building haystacks. A wonderful quilt. Her room had become a sewing room. A black Singer machine stood on a wroughtiron table under a pair of starkly efficient Tensor lamps. A picture of Jesus hung on one wall, a picture of John F. Kennedy on another. A beautiful breakfront stood below the picture of JFKit was filled with books instead of china, but seemed none the worse for that. She went into the bathroom last. It had been redone in a rose color that was too low and pleasant to seem gaudy. All of the fixtures were new, and yet she approached the basin feeling that the old nightmare had gripped her again; she would peer down into that black and lidless eye, the whispering would begin, and then the blood She leaned over the sink, catching a glimpse of her pallid face and dark eyes in the mirror over the basin, and then she stared into that eye, waiting for the voices, the laughter, the groans, the blood. How long might she have stood there, bent over the sink, waiting for the sights and sounds twentyseven years gone, she didnt know; it was Mrs. Kershs voice that bid her return Tea, miss! She jerked back, the semihypnosis broken, and left the bathroom. If there had been dark magic somewhere down in that drain, it was gone now ... or was sleeping. Oh, you shouldnt have! Mrs. Kersh looked up at her brightly, smiling a little. O miss, if you knew how seldom company calls these days, youd not say so. |
Why, I put on more than this for the man from the Bangor Hydro who comes to read my meter! Im making him fat! Delicate cups and saucers stood on the round kitchen table, a clean bonewhite edged with blue. There was a plate of small cakes and cookies. Beside the sweets a pewter teapot chuffed mild steam and pleasant fragrance. Bemused, Bev thought that the only things missing were the tiny sandwiches with the crusts cut off auntsandwiches, shed thought them, always one word. Three main types of auntsandwiehescream cheese and olive, watercress, and egg salad. Sit down, said Mrs. Kersh. Sit down, miss, and Ill pour out. Im not a miss, Beverly said, and raised her left hand so that her ring would show. Mrs. Kersh smiled and pushed a hand through the airpshaw! the gesture said. I call all the pretty young girls miss, she said. Just a habit. Dont take offense. No, Beverly said, not at all. But for some reason she felt a feathertouch of unease there was something in the old womans smile that had seemed a little ... what? Unpleasant ? False? Knowing? But that was ridiculous, wasnt it? I love what youve done to the place. Do you? Mrs. Kersh said, and poured out. The tea looked dark, muddy. Beverly wasnt sure she wanted to drink it ... and suddenly she wasnt sure she wanted to be here at all. It did say Marsh under the doorbell, her mind whispered suddenly, and she was frightened. Mrs. Kersh passed her tea. Thank you, Beverly said. The look of it might have been muddy; the aroma, however, was wonderful. She tasted. It was fine. Stop jumping at shadows, she told herself. That cedar chest in particular is a wonderful piece. An antique, that one! Mrs. Kersh said, and laughed. Beverly noticed that the old womans beauty was flawed on only one score, and that was common enough here in the northlands. Her teeth were very badstronglooking, but bad all the same. They were yellow, and the front two had crossed each other. The canines seemed very long, almost like tusks. They were white ... when she came to the door she smiled and you thought to yourself how white they were. Suddenly she was not just a little frightened. Suddenly she wantedneededto be away from here. Very old, oh yes! Mrs. Kersh exclaimed, and drank her cup of tea off at a single gulp, with a sudden, shocking slurping sound. She smiled at Beverlygrtwted at herand Beverly saw that the womans eyes had changed, too. The corneas were now yellow, ancient, threaded with bleary stitches of red. Her hair was thinner; the braid looked malnourished, no longer silver shot with bright yellow but a dull gray. Very old, Mrs. Kersh reminisced over her empty cup, looking slyly at Beverly from her yellowed eyes. Her snaggle teeth showed in that repulsive, almost leering grin. From home with me it came. The RG carved into it? You noticed? Yes. Her voice came from far away, and a part of her brain yammered If she doesnt know youve seen the change perhaps youre still all right, if she doesnt know, doesnt see My father, she said, pronouncing it fadder, and Beverly saw that her dress had also changed. It had become a scabrous, peeling black. The cameo was a skull, its jaw hung in a diseased gape. His name was Robert Gray, better known as Bob Gray, better known as Pennywise the Dancing Clown. Although that was not his name, either. But he did love his joke, my fadder. She laughed again. Some of her teeth had turned as black as her dress. The wrinkles in her skin now cut deep. Her milkrose skin had gone a sickly yellow. Her fingers were claws. She grinned at Beverly. Have something to eat, dear. Her voice had risen half an octave, but the octave was cracked in this register, and her voice was the sound of a crypt door swinging mindlessly on hinges clogged with black earth. No, thank you, Beverly heard her mouth say in a childs high ohImustbegoing voice. The words did not seem to originate in her brain; rather they came out of her mouth and then had to travel around to her ears before she was aware of what she had said. No? the witch asked, and grinned. Her claws scrabbled on the plate and she began to cram thin molasses cookies and delicate frosted slices of cake into her mouth with both hands. Her horrid teeth plunged and reared, plunged and reared; her fingernails, long and dirty, dug into the sweets; crumbs tumbled down the bony slab of her chin. Her breath was the smell of longdead things burst wide open by the gases of their own decay. Her laugh was now a dead cackle. Her hair was thinner. Scaly scalp showed in patches. Oh, he loved his joke, my fadder! This is a joke, miss, if you enjoy them my fadder bore me rather than my mutter. He shat me from his asshole! Hee! Hee! Hee! I ought to go, Beverly heard herself say in that same high wounded voicethe voice of a small girl who has been viciously embarrassed at her first party. There was no strength in her legs. She was dimly aware that it was not tea in her cup but shit, liquid shit, a little partyfavor from the sewers under the city. She had drunk some of that, not much but a sip, oh God, oh God, oh blessed Jesus, please, please The woman was shrinking before her eyes, thinning; it was now a crone with an appledolls face who sat across from her, giggling in a high, squealing voice and rocking back and forth. Oh my fadder and I are one, she said, just me, just him, and dear, if you are wise you will run, run back to where you came from, run quickly, because to stay will mean worse than your death. No one who dies in Derry really dies. You knew that before; believe it now. In slow motion Beverly gathered her legs under her. As if from outside she saw herself gaining her feet and backing away from the table and from the witch in an agony of horror and disbelief, disbelief because she realized for the first time that the neat little diningroom table was not dark oak but fudge. Even as she watched, the witch, still giggling, her ancient yellow eyes slanted slyly off into the corner of the room, broke a piece of it off and stuffed it avidly into the blackringed trap that was her mouth. The cups, she saw, were white bark that had been carefully looped with bluedyed frosting. The pictures of Jesus and John Kennedy were creations of nearly transparent spun sugar, and as she looked at them, Jesus stuck out His tongue and Kennedy dropped a stinky wink. Were all waiting for you! the witch screamed, and her fingernails scrabbled over the surface of the fudge table, drawing deep scars in its shining surface. Oh yes! Oh yes! The overhead lights were globes of hard candy. The wainscotting was caramel taffy. She looked down and saw that her shoes were leaving prints on the floorboards, which were not boards at all but slices of chocolate. The smell of candy was cloying. Oh God its Hansel and Gretel its the witch the one that always scared me the worst because she ate the children You and your friends! the witch screamed, laughing. You and your friends! In the cage! In the cage until the ovens hot! She screamed laughter, and Beverly ran for the door, but she ran as if in slow motion. The witchs laughter beat and swirled around her head, a cloud of bats. Beverly shrieked. The hall stank of sugar and nougat and toffee and sickening synthetic strawberries. The doorknob, mock crystal when she came in, was now a monstrous sugar diamond. I worry about you, Bevvie ... I worry a LOT! She turned, swirls of red hair floating around her face, to see her father staggering toward her down the hallway, wearing the witchs black dress and skull cameo; her fathers face hung with doughy, running flesh, his eyes as black as obsidian, his hands clenching and unclenching, his mouth grinning with soupy fervor. I beat you because I wanted to FUCK you, Bevvie, thats all I wanted to do, I wanted to FUCK you, I wanted to EAT you, I wanted to eat your PUSSY, I wanted to SUCK your CLIT up between my teeth, YUMYUM, Bevvie, oooohhhhh, YUMMY IN MY TUMMY, I wanted to put you in the cage ... and get the oven hot ... and feel your CUNT ... your plump CUNT ... and when it was plump enough to eat ... to eat ... EAT... Screaming, she grasped the sticky doorknob and bolted out onto a porch that was decorated with praline doodads and floored with fudge. Far away, dim, seeming to swim in her vision, she saw cars passing back and forth, and a woman pushing a cartful of groceries back from Costellos. I have to get out there, she thought, just barely coherent. Thats reality out there, if I can only get out to the sidewalk Wont do you any good to run, Bevvie, her father (my fadder) told her, laughing. Weve waited a long time for this. This is going to be fun. This is going to be YUMMY in our TUMMIES. She looked back again and now her dead father was not wearing the witchs black dress but the clown suit with the big orange buttons. There was a 1958style coonskin cap, the kind popularized by Fess Parker in the Disney movie about Davy Crockett, perched on its head. In one hand it held a bunch of balloons. In the other it held the leg of a child like a chicken drumstick. Written on each balloon was the legend IT CAME FROM OUTER SPACE. Tell your friends I am the last of a dying race, it said, grinning its sunken grin as it staggered and lurched down the porch steps after her. The only survivor of a dying planet. I have come to rob all the women ... rape all the men ... and learn to do the Peppermint Twist! It began to do a mad shuckandjive, balloons in one hand, severed, bleeding leg in the other. The clown costume writhed and flapped, but Beverly felt no wind. Her legs tangled in each other and she spilled to the pavement, throwing out her palms to take up the shock, which went all the way to her shoulders. The woman pushing the grocery cart paused and looked back doubtfully, then hurried on a little faster. The clown came toward her again, casting the severed leg aside. It landed on the lawn with an indescribable thud. Beverly only lay sprawled on the pavement for a moment, sure somewhere inside that she must wake soon, this couldnt be real, had to be a dream She realized that wasnt true a moment before the clowns crooked, longclawed fingers touched her. It was real; it could kill her. As it had killed the children. The grackles know your real name! she screamed at it suddenly. It recoiled, and it seemed to her that for a moment the grin on the lips inside the great red grin that had been painted on and around them became a grimace of hate and pain ... and perhaps of fear as well. It might only have been her imagination, and she certainly had no idea why she had said such a crazy thing, but it bought her an instant of time. She was on her feet and running. Brakes squealed and a hoarse voice, both mad and scared, yelled Why dont you look where youre going, you dumb quiff! She had a blurred impression of the bakery truck that had almost hit her when she bolted into the street like a child after a rubber ball, and then she was standing on the opposite sidewalk, panting, a hot stitch in her left side. The bakery truck went on down Lower Main. The clown was gone. The leg was gone. The house still stood there, but she saw now that it was crumbling and deserted, the windows boarded up, the steps leading up to the porch cracked and broken. Was I really in there, or did I dream it all? But her jeans were dirty, her yellow blouse smeared with dust. And there was chocolate on her fingers. She rubbed them on the legs of her jeans and walked away fast, her face hot, her back cold as ice, her eyeballs seeming to pulse in and out with the rapid thud of her heart. We cant beat It. Whatever It is, we cant beat It. It even wants us to tryIt wants to settle the old score. Cant be happy with a draw, I guess. We ought to get out of here ... just leave. Something brushed against her calf, light as a cats questing paw. She jerked away from it with a little shriek. She looked down and cringed, one hand against her mouth. It was a ballon, as yellow as her blouse. Written on the side of it in electric blue were the words THATS WIGHT, WABBIT. As she watched, it went bouncing lightly up the street, urged by the pleasant latespring breeze. 2 Richie Tozier Makes Tracks Well, there was the day Henry and his friends chased mebefore the end of school, this was.... Richie was walking along Outer Canal Street, past Bassey Park. Now he stopped, hands stuffed in his pockets, looking toward the Kissing Bridge but not really seeing it. I got away from them in the toy department of Freeses.... Since the mad conclusion of the reunion lunch, he had been walking aimlessly, trying to make his peace with the awful things which had been in the fortune cookies ... or the things which had seemed to be in the cookies. He thought that most likely nothing at all had come out of them. It had been a group hallucination brought on by all the spooky shit they had been talking about. The best proof of the hypothesis was that Rose had seen nothing at all. Of course, Beverlys parents had never seen any of the blood that came out of the bathroom drain either, but this wasnt the same. No? Why not? Because were grownups now, he muttered, and discovered the thought had absolutely no power or logic at all; it might as well have been a nonsense line from a kids skiprope chant. He started to walk again. I went up by City Center and sat down on a park bench for awhile and I thought I saw ... He stopped again, frowning. Saw what? ... but that was just something I dreamed. Was it? Was it really? He looked to the left and saw the big glassbrickandsteel building that had looked so modern in the late fifties and now looked rather antique and tacky. And here I am, he thought. Right back to fucking City Center. Scene of that other hallucination. Or dream. Or whatever it was. The others saw him as the Klass Klown, the Krazy Kutup, and he had fallen neatly and easily into that role again. Ah, we all fell neatly and easily back into our old roles again, didnt you notice? But was there anything very unusual about that? He thought you would probably see much the same thing at any tenth or twentieth highschool reunionthe class comedian who had discovered a vocation for the priesthood in college would, after two drinks, revert almost automatically to the wiseacre he had been; the Great English Brain who had wound up with a GM truck dealership would suddenly begin spouting off about John Irving or John Cheever; the guy who had played with the Moondogs on Saturday nights and who had gone on to become a mathematics professor at Cornell would suddenly find himself on stage with the band, a Fender guitar strapped over his shoulder, whopping out Gloria or Surfin Bird with gleeful drunken ferocity. What was it Springsteen said? No retreat, baby, no surrender ... but it was easier to believe in the oldies on the recordplayer after a couple of drinks or some pretty good Panama Red. But, Richie believed, it was the reversion that was the hallucination, not the present life. Maybe the child was the father of the man, but fathers and sons often shared very different interests and only a passing resemblance. They But you say grownups and now it sounds like nonsense; it sounds like so much bibblebabble. Why is that, Richie? Why? Because Derry is as weird as ever. Why dont we just leave it at that? Because things werent that simple, that was why. As a kid he had been a goofoff, a sometimes vulgar, sometimes amusing comedian, because it was one way to get along without getting killed by kids like Henry Bowers or going absolutely loonytunes with boredom and loneliness. He realized now that a lot of the problem had been his own mind, which was usually moving at a speed ten or twenty times that of his classmates. They had thought him strange, weird, or even suicidal, depending on the escapade in question, but maybe it had been a simple case of mental overdriveif anything about being in constant mental overdrive was simple. Anyway, it was the sort of thing you got under control after awhileyou got it under control or you found outlets for it, guys like Kinky Briefcase or Buford Kissdrivel, for instance. Richie had discovered that in the months after he had wandered into the college radio station, pretty much on a whim, and had discovered everything he had ever wanted during his first week behind the microphone. He hadnt been very good at first; he had been too excited to be good. But he had understood his potential not to be just good at the job but great at it, and just that knowledge had been enough to put him over the moon on a cloud of euphoria. At the same time he had begun to understand the great principle that moved the universe, at least that part of the universe which had to do with careers and success you found the crazy guy who was running around inside of you, fucking up your life. You chased him into a corner and grabbed him. But you didnt kill him. Oh no. Killing was too good for the likes of that little bastard. You put a harness over his head and then started plowing. The crazy guy worked like a demon once you had him in the traces. And he supplied you with a few chucks from time to time. That was really all there was. And that was enough. He had been funny, all right, a laugh a minute, but in the end he had outgrown the nightmares that were on the dark side of all those laughs. Or he thought he had. Until today, when the word grownup suddenly stopped making sense to his own ears. And now here was something else to cope with, or at least think about; here was the huge and totally idiotic statue of Paul Bunyan in front of City Center. I must be the exception that proves the rule, Big Bill. Are you sure there was nothing, Richie? Nothing at all? Up by City Center ... I thought I saw ... Sharp pain needled at his eyes for the second time that day and he clutched at them, a startled moan coming out of him. Then it was gone again, as quickly as it had come. But he had also smelled something, hadnt he? Something that wasnt really there, but something that had been there, something that made him think of (Im right here with you Richie hold my hand can you catch hold) Mike Hanlon. It was smoke that had made his eyes sting and water. Twentyseven years ago they had breathed that smoke; in the end there had just been Mike and himself left and they had seen But it was gone. He took a step closer to the plastic Paul Bunyan statue, as amazed by its cheerful vulgarity now as he had been overwhelmed by its size as a child. The mythical Paul stood twenty feet high, and the base added another six feet. He stood smiling down at the car and pedestrian traffic on Outer Canal Street from the edge of the City Center lawn. City Center had been erected in the years 195455 for a minorleague basketball team that had never materialized. The Derry City Council had voted money for the statue a year later, in 1956. It had been hotly debated both in the councils public meetings and in the letterstotheeditor columns of the Derry News. Many thought it would be a perfectly lovely statue, certain to become a tourist attraction of note. There were others who found the idea of a plastic Paul Bunyan horrible, garish, and unbelievably gauche. The art teacher at Derry High School, Richie remembered, had written a letter to the News saying that if such a monstrosity were actually to be erected in Derry, she would blow it up. Grinning, Richie wondered if that babes contract had been renewed. The controversywhich Richie recognized now as an utterly typical bigtownsmallcity tempest in a teapothad raged for six months, and of course it had been entirely meaningless; the statue had been purchased, and even if the City Council had done something as aberrant (especially for New England) as deciding not to use an item for which money had been paid, where in Gods name could it have been stored? Then the statue, not really sculpted at all but simply cast in some Ohio plastics plant, had been set in place, still shrouded in a whack of canvas big enough to serve as a clippership sail. It had been unveiled on May 13th, 1957, which was the incorporated townships onehundredandfiftieth birthday. One faction gave voice to predictable moans of outrage; the other to equally predictable moans of rapture. When Paul was revealed that day he was wearing his bib overalls and a redandwhitechecked shirt. His beard was splendidly black, splendidly full, splendidly lumberjacky. A plastic axe, surely the Godzilla of all plastic axes, was slung over one shoulder, and he grinned unceasingly at the northern skies, which on the day of the unveiling had been as blue as the skin of Pauls reputed companion (Babe was not present at the unveiling, however; the cost estimate of adding a blue ox to the tableau had been prohibitive). The children who attended the ceremonies (there were hundreds of them, and tenyearold Richie Tozier, in the company of his dad, had been among them) were totally and uncritically delighted by the plastic giant. Parents boosted toddlers up onto the square pedestal on which Paul stood, took photos, and then watched with mixed apprehension and amusement as the kids climbed and crawled, laughing, over Pauls huge black boots (correction huge black plastic boots). It had been March of the following year when Richie, exhausted and terrified, had finished up on one of the benches in front of the statue after eludingby the barest of marginsMessrs. Bowers, Criss, and Huggins in a chase that had led from Derry Elementary School across most of the downtown area. He had finally ditched them in the toy department of Freeses Department Store. The Derry branch of Freeses was a poor thing compared with the grand downtown department store in Bangor, but Richie had been far past caring about such thingsby then it was a case of any port in a storm. Henry Bowers had been right behind him and by then Richie had been flagging badly. He had dodged into the mouth of the department stores revolving door as a last resort. Henry, who apparently didnt understand the physics of such devices, had nearly lost the tips of his fingers trying to grab Richie as Richie trundled around and into the store. Pelting downstairs, shirttail flying out behind him, he had heard the revolving door give off a series of reports almost as loud as TV gunfire and understood that Larry, Moe, and Curly were still after him. He was laughing as he went down the stairs to the basement level but that was only a nervous tic; he was as full of terror as a rabbit caught in a wire snare. They really meant to beat him up good this time (he had no idea that in another ten weeks or so he would believe the three of them, Henry in particular, capable of anything short of murder, and he surely would have whitened with shock if he had known of the apocalyptic rockfight in July, when even that last qualification would disappear from his mind). And the whole thing had been so utterly, typically stupid. Richie and the other boys in his fifthgrade class had been filing into the gym. A sixthgrade class, Henry hulking among them like an ox among cows, had been coming out. Although he was still in the fifth grade, Henry went to gym with the older boys. The overhead pipes had been dripping again and Mr. Fazio hadnt yet gotten around to putting up his CAUTION! WET FLOOR! sign on its little easel. Henry had slipped in a puddle and had landed on his keister. Before he could stop it Richies traitor mouth had bugled Way to go, bananaheels! There had been an explosion of laughter from both Henrys classmates and Richies, but there had been no laughter on Henrys face as he picked himself uponly a dull flush the color of freshly fired brick. Later for you, foureyes, he said, and walked on. The laughter died at once. The boys in the hall looked at Richie as one already dead. Henry did not pause to check reactions; he simply walked off, head down, elbows red from catching the fall, a large wet place on the seat of his pants. Looking at that wet spot, Richie felt his suicidally witty mouth drop open again ... but this time he snapped it shut again, so fast he almost amputated the tip of his tongue with the falling gate of his teeth. Well, but hell forget, he told himself uneasily as he changed up for gym. Sure he will. Ole Hank just hasnt got that many memory circuits working. Every time he takes a shit he probably has to look up the directions in the instruction booklet, haha. Haha. Youre dead, Trashmouth, Vince Boogers Taliendo told him, pulling his jock up over a dork roughly the size and shape of an anemic peanut. He said it with a certain sad respect. Dont worry, though. Ill bring flowers. Cut off your ears and bring cauliflowers, Richie had come back smartly, and everyone laughed, even ole Boogers Taliendo laughed, why not, they could all afford to laugh. What, me worry? They would all be home watching Jimmy Dodd and the Mouseketeers on the Mickey Mouse Club or Frankie Lymon singing Im Not a Juvenile Delinquent on American Bandstand while Richie went shagging ass through ladies lingerie and housewares on his way to the toy department with sweat pouring down his back into the crack of his ass and his terrified balls strung up so high they felt like they might be hung over his bellybutton. Sure, they could laugh. Hardeharharhar. Henry hadnt forgotten. Richie had left by the door at the kindergarten end of the school building just in case, but Henry had stuck Belch Huggins there, also just in case. Hardeharharhar. Richie saw Belch first or there would have been no contest at all. Belch was looking out toward Derry Park, holding an unlit cigarette in one hand and dreamily picking the seat of his chinos out of his ass with the other. Heart pounding hard, Richie had walked quietly across the playground and was most of the way down Charter Street before Belch turned his head and saw him. He yelled for Henry and Victor, and since then the chase had been on. When Richie reached the toy department it had been utterly, horribly deserted. There wasnt even a sales clerk hanging outa welcome adult to put a stop to things before they got entirely out of hand. He could hear the three dinosaurs of the apocalypse closing in now. And he simply couldnt run anymore. Each breath produced a deep hurting stitch in his left side. His eye fixed on a door which read EMERGENCY EXIT ONLY! ALARM WILL SOUND! Hope kindled in his chest. Richie ran down an aisle crammed with Donald Duck jackintheboxes, United States Army tanks made in Japan, Lone Ranger cap pistols, windup robots. He reached the door and slammed the pushbar as hard as he could. The door opened, letting in cool midMarch air. The alarm went off with a strident bray. Richie immediately doubled back and dropped to his hands and knees in the next aisle over. He was down before the door could settle closed again. Henry, Belch, and Victor thundered into the toy department just as the door clicked shut and the alarm cut off. They raced for it, Henry in the lead, his face set and intent. A sales clerk finally appeared, coming on the run. He wore a blue nylon duster over a plaid sportcoat of excruciating ugliness. The rims of his spectacles were as pink as the eyes of a white rabbit. Richie thought he looked like Wally Cox in his Mr. Peepers role, and he had to slam his traitor mouth into the fat part of his forearm to keep from screaming out gales of exhausted laughter. You boys! Mr. Peepers exclaimed. You boys cant go out there! Thats an emergency exit! You! Hey! You boys! Victor glanced at him a little nervously, but Henry and Belch never turned from their course and Victor followed them. The alarm brayed again, longer this time as they charged into the alley. Before it stopped clanging Richie was on his feet and trotting back toward ladies lingerie. You boys will be barred from the store! the clerk yelled after him. Looking back over his shoulder Richie squealed in his Granny Grunt Voice, Did anyone ever tell you you look just like Mr. Peepers, young man? And so he had escaped. And so he had finished up almost a mile from Freeses, in front of City Center ... and, he devoutly hoped, out of harms way. At least for the time being. He was spent. He sat down on a bench just to the left of the Paul Bunyan statue, wanting only a little peace while he got himself back together. In a bit he would get up and head home, but for now it felt too good to just sit here in the afternoon sun. The day had opened in a cold drizzly gloom, but now you could believe spring might actually be on the way. Farther up the lawn he could see the City Center marquee, which on that March day bore this message in large blue translucent letters HEY TEENS! COMING MARCH 28TH! THE ARNIE WOOWOO GINSBERG ROCK AND ROLL SHOW! JERRY LEE LEWIS THE PENGUINS FRANKIE LYMON AND THE TEENAGERS GENE VINCENT AND THE BLUE CAPS FREDDY BOOMBOOM CANNON AN EVENING OF WHOLESOME ENTERTAINMENT!! That was a show Richie really wanted to see, but he knew there wasnt a chance. His mothers idea of wholesome entertainment did not include Jerry Lee Lewis telling the young people of America we got chicken in the barn, whose barn, what barn, my barn. Nor, for that matter, did it include Freddy Cannon, whose Tallahassee lassie had a hifi chassis. She was willing to admit that she had done her share of screaming for Frank Sinatra (whom she now called Frankie the Snot) as a bobbysoxer, but, like Bill Denbroughs mother, she was death on rock and roll. Chuck Berry terrified her, and she declared that Richard Penniman, better known to his teen and subteen constituency as Little Richard, made her want to barf like a chicken. This was a phrase for which Richie had never asked a translation. His dad was neutral on the subject of rock and roll and could perhaps have been swayed, but Richie knew in his heart that his mothers wishes would rule on this subjectuntil he was sixteen or seventeen, anywayand by then, his mother was firmly convinced, the countrys rock and roll mania would have passed. Richie thought Danny and the Juniors were more right on that subject than his momrock and roll would never die. He himself loved it, although his sources were really only twoAmerican Bandstand on Channel 7 in the afternoon and WMEX out of Boston at night, when the air had thinned and the hoarse enthusiastic voice of Arnie Ginsberg came wavering in and out like the voice of a ghost called up at a seance. The beat did more than make him happy. It made him feel bigger, stronger, more there. When Frankie Ford sang Sea Cruise or Eddie Cochran sang Summertime Blues, Richie was actually transported with joy. There was power in that music, a power which seemed to most rightfully belong to all the skinny kids, fat kids, ugly kids, shy kidsthe worlds losers, in short. In it he felt a mad hilarious voltage which had the power to both kill and exalt. He idolized Fats Domino (who made even Ben Hanscom look slim and trim) and Buddy Holly, who, like Richie, wore glasses, and Screaming Jay Hawkins, who popped out of a coffin at his concerts (or so Richie had been told), and the Dovells, who danced as good as black guys. Well, almost. He would have his rock and roll someday if he wanted ithe was confident it would still be there for him when his mother finally gave in and let him have itbut that would not be on March 28th, 1958 ... or in 1959 ... or ... His eyes had drifted away from the marquee and then ... well ... then he must have fallen asleep. It was the only explanation that made sense. What had happened next could only happen in dreams. And now here he was again, a Richie Tozier who had finally gotten all the rock and roll he had ever wanted ... and who had found, happily, that it still wasnt enough. |
His eyes went to the marquee in front of City Center and saw that, with a hideous kind of serendipity, those same blue letters spelled out JUNE 14TH HEAVY METAL MANIA!! JUDAS PRIEST IRON MAIDEN BUY YOUR TICKETS HERE OR AT ANY TICKETRON OUTLET Somewhere along the way they dropped the wholesome entertainment line, but as far as I can tell thats just about the only difference, Richie thought. And heard Danny and the Juniors, dim and distant, like voices heard down a long corridor coming out of a cheap radio Rock and roll will never die, Ill dig it to the end ... Itll go down in history, just you watch my friend.... Richie looked back at Paul Bunyan, patron saint of DerryDerry, which had come into being, according to the stories, because this was where the logs fetched up when they came downriver. There had been a time when, in the spring, both the Penobscot and the Kenduskeag would have been solid logs from one side to the other, their black bark hides glistening in the spring sun. A fellow who was fast on his feet could walk from Wallys Spa in Hells HalfAcre over to Rampers in Brewster (Rampers was a tavern of such horrible repute that it was commonly called the Bucket of Blood) without getting his boots wet over the third crossing of his rawhide laces. Or so it had been storied in Richies youth, and he supposed there was a bit of Paul Bunyan in all such stories. Old Paul, he thought, looking up at the plastic statue. What you been doing since Ive been gone? Made any new riverbeds coming home tired and dragging your axe behind you? Made any new lakes on account of wanting a bathtub big enough so you could sit in water up to your neck? Scared any more little kids the way you scared me that day? Ah, and suddenly he remembered it all, the way you will sometimes suddenly remember a word which has been dancing on the tip of your tongue. There he had been, sitting in that mellow March sunshine, drowsing a little, thinking about going home and catching the last half hour of Bandstand, and suddenly there had been a warm swash of air into his face. It blew his hair back from his forehead. He looked up and Paul Bunyans huge plastic face had been right in front of his, bigger than a face on a movie screen, filling everything. The rush of air had been caused by Pauls bending down ... although he did not precisely look like Paul anymore. The forehead was now low and beetling; tufts of wiry hair poked from a nose as red as the nose of a longtime drunkard; his eyes were bloodshot and one had a slight cast to it. The axe was no longer on his shoulder. Paul was leaning on its haft, and the blunt end of its head had crushed a trench in the concrete of the sidewalk. He was still grinning, but there was nothing cheery about it now. From between gigantic yellow teeth there drifted a smell like small animals rotting in hot underbrush. Im going to eat you up, the giant had said in a low rumbling voice. It was the sound of boulders rocking against each other during an earthquake. Unless you give me back my hen and my harp and my bags of gold, Im going to eat you right the fuck up! The breath of these words made Richies shirt flutter and flap like a sail in a hurricane. He shrank back against the bench, eyes bugging, hair standing out to all sides like quills, wrapped in a pocket of carrionstink. The giant began to laugh. It settled its hands on the haft of its axe the way Ted Williams might have laid hold of his favorite baseball bat (or ashhandle, if you prefer), and pulled it out of the hole it had made in the sidewalk. The axe began to rise into the air. It made a low lethal rushing sound. Richie suddenly understood that the giant meant to split him right down the middle. But he felt that he could not move; a logy sort of apathy had stolen over him. What did it matter? He was dozing, having a dream. Any moment now some driver would blow his horn at a kid running across the street and he would wake up. Thats right, the giant had rumbled, youll wake up in hell! And at the last instant, as the axe slowed to its apogee and balanced there, Richie understood that this wasnt a dream at all ... and if it was, it was a dream that could kill. Trying to scream but making no sound at all, he rolled off the bench and onto the raked gravel plot which surrounded what had been a statue and was now only a base with two huge steel bolts sticking out of it where the feet had been. The sound of the descending axe filled the world with its pressing insistent whisper; the giants grin had become a murderers grimace. Its lips had pulled back so far from its teeth that its plastic red gums, hideously red, gleamed. The blade of the axe struck the bench where Richie had been only an instant before. The edge was so sharp that there was almost no sound at all, but the bench was sheared instantly in two. The halves sagged away from each other, the wood inside the greenpainted skin a bright and somehow sickening white. Richie was on his back. Still trying to scream, he pushed himself with his heels. Gravel went down the collar of his shirt, down the back of his pants. And there was Paul, towering above him, looking down at him with eyes the size of manhole covers; there was Paul, looking down at one small boy cowering on the gravel. The giant took a step toward him. Richie felt the ground shudder when the black boot came down. Gravel spumed up in a cloud. Richie rolled over onto his stomach and staggered to his feet. His legs were already trying to run before he was balanced, and as a result he fell flat on his belly again. He heard the wind whoof out of his lungs. His hair fell in his eyes. He could see the traffic going back and forth on Canal and Main Streets as it did every day, as if nothing was happening, as if no one in any of those cars could see or care that Paul Bunyan had come to life and stepped down from its pedestal in order to commit murder with an axe roughly the size of a deluxe motor home. The sunshine was blotted out. Richie lay in a patch of shade that looked like a man. He scrambled to his knees, almost fell over sideways, managed to get to his feet, and ran as fast as he couldhe ran with his knees popping almost all the way up to his chest and his elbows pistoning. Behind him he could hear that awful persistent whisper building again, a sound that seemed to be not really sound at all but pressure on the skin and eardrums Swiiipppppp! The earth shook. Richies upper and lower teeth rattled against each other like china plates in an earthquake. He did not have to look to know that Pauls axe had buried itself haftdeep in the sidewalk inches behind his feet. Madly, in his mind, he heard the Dovells Oh the kids in Bristol are sharp as a pistol When they do the Bristol Stomp.... He passed out of the giants shadow into sunlight again, and as he did he began to laughthe same exhausted laughter that had come from him when he bolted downstairs in Freeses. Panting, that hot stitch in his side again, he had at last risked a glance back over his shoulder. There was the statue of Paul Bunyan, standing on its pedestal where it always stood, axe on its shoulder, head cocked toward the sky, lips parted in the eternal optimistic grin of the mythhero. The bench which had been sheared in two was whole and intact, thank you very much. The gravel where Tall Paul (Hesa my all, Annette Funicello sang maniacally in Richies head) had planted his huge foot was raked and immaculate except for the scuffed spot where Richie had fallen off while he was (getting away from the giant) dreaming. There was no footprint, no axeslash in the concrete. There was nothing here but a boy who had been chased by other boys, bigger boys, and so had had himself a very small (but very potent) dream about a homicidal Colossus ... the Giant EconomySize Henry Bowers, if you pleased. Shit, Richie said in a tiny wavering voice, and then uttered an uncertain laugh. He stood there awhile longer, waiting to see if the statue would move againperhaps wink, perhaps shift its axe from one shoulder to the other, perhaps come down and have at him again. But of course none of those things happened. Of course. What, me worry? Hardeharharhar. A doze. A dream. No more than that. But, as Abraham Lincoln or Socrates or someone like that had once observed, enough was enough. It was time to go home and cool out; to make like Kookie on 77 Sunset Strip and just lay chilly. And although it would have been quicker to cut through the City Center grounds, he decided not to. He didnt want to get close to that statue again. So he had gone the long way around and by that evening he had nearly forgotten the incident. Until now. Here sits a man, he thought, here sits a man dressed in a mossygreen sportcoat purchased at one of the best shops on Rodeo Drive; here sits a man with Bass Weejuns on his feet and Calvin Klein underwear to cover his ass; here sits a man with soft contact lenses resting easily on his eyes; here sits a man remembering the dream of a boy who thought an Ivy League shirt with a fruitloop on the back and a pair of SnapJack shoes was the height of fashion; here sits a grownup looking at the same old statue, and hey, Paul, Tall Paul, Im here to say youre the same in every way, you aint aged a motherfucking day. The old explanation still rang true in his mind a dream. He supposed he could believe in monsters if he had to; monsters were no big deal. Hadnt he sat in radio studios at one time or another reading news copy about such fellows as Idi Amin Dada and Jim Jones and that guy who had blown away all those folks in a McDonalds just down the road apiece? Shitfire and save matches, monsters were cheap! Who needed a fivebuck movie ticket when you could read about them in the paper for thirtyfive cents or hear about them on the radio for free? And he supposed if he could believe in the Jim Jones variety, he could believe in Mike Hanlons version, at least for awhile; It even had Its own sorry charm, because It came from Outside and no one had to claim responsibility for It. He could believe in a monster that had as many faces as there are rubber masks in a novelty shop (if youre gonna have one, you might as well have a pack of em, he thought, cheaper by the dozen, right, gang?), at least for the sake of argument ... but a thirtyfoothigh plastic statue that stepped off its pedestal and then tried to carve you up with its plastic axe? That was just a little too ripe. As Abraham Lincoln or Socrates or someone had also said, Ill eat fish and Ill eat meat, but there is some shit I will not eat. It just wasnt That sharp needling pain struck his eyes again, without warning, jerking a dismayed cry from him. This was the worst yet, going deeper and lasting longer, scaring the bejesus out of him. He clapped his hands to his eyes and then groped instinctively for the bottom lids with his forefingers, meaning to pop his contacts out. Its maybe some kind of infection, he thought dimly. But Jesus it hurts! He pulled the lids down and was ready to give the single practiced blink that would send them tumbling out (and he would spend the next fifteen minutes grovelling myopically for them in the gravel surrounding the bench but Jesus God who gave a shit, right now it felt like there were nails in his eyes), when the pain disappeared. It did not dwindle; it just went. One moment there, the next moment gone. His eyes teared briefly and then stopped. He lowered his hands slowly, his heart running fast in his chest, ready to blink them out the instant the pain started again. It didnt. And suddenly he found himself thinking about the only horror movie that had ever really scared him as a kid, possibly because he had taken so much shit about his glasses and had spent so much time thinking about his eyes. That movie had been The Crawling Eye, with Forrest Tucker. Not very good. The other kids had laughed themselves into hysterics over it, but Richie had not laughed. Richie had been rendered cold and white and dumb, for once with not a single Voice to command, as that gelatinous tentacled eye came out of the manufactured fog of some English movie set, waving its fibrous tentacles in front of it. The sight of that eye had been very bad, the embodiment of a hundred notquiterealized fears and disquiets. On some night not long after, he had dreamed of looking at himself in a mirror and bringing a large pin up and sticking it slowly into the black iris of his eye and feeling a numb, watery springiness as the bottom of his eye filled up with blood. He rememberednow he rememberedwaking up and discovering that he had wet the bed. The best indicator of how gruesome that dream had been was that his primary feeling had been not shame at his nocturnal indiscretion but relief; he had embraced the warm wet patch with his body and blessed the reality of his sight. Fuck this, Richie Tozier said in a low voice that was not quite steady, and started to get up. He would go back to the Derry Town House and take a nap. If this was Memory Lane, he preferred the L.A. Freeway at rushhour. The pain in his eyes was probably no more than a signal of exhaustion and jetlag, plus the stress of meeting the past all at once, in one afternoon. Enough shocks; enough exploring. He didnt like the way his mind was skittering from one subject to the next. What was that Peter Gabriel tune? Shock the Monkey. Well, this monkey had been shocked enough. It was time to catch some zs and maybe gain a little perspective. As he rose his eyes went to the marquee in front of City Center again. All at once the strength ran out of his legs and he sat down again. Hard. RICHIE TOZIER MAN OF 1000 VOICES RETURNS TO DERRY LAND OF 1000 DANCES IN HONOR OF TRASHMOUTHS RETURN CITY CENTER PROUDLY PRESENTS THE RICHIE TOZIER ALLDEAD ROCK SHOW BUDDY HOLLY RICHIE VALENS THE BIG BOPPER FRANKIE LYMON GENE VINCENT MARVIN GAYE HOUSE BAND JIMI HENDRIX LEAD GUITAR JOHN LENNON RHYTHM GUITAR PHIL LINOTT BASS GUITAR KEITH MOON DRUMS SPECIAL GUEST VOCALIST JIM MORRISON WELCOME HOME RICHIE! YOURE DEAD TOO! He felt as if someone had whopped all the breath out of him ... and then he heard that sound again, that sound that was half pressure on the skin and eardrums, that keen homicidal whispering rushSwiipppp! He rolled off the bench onto the gravel, thinking So this is what they mean by djvu, now you know, youll never have to ask anybody again He hit on his shoulder and rolled, looking up at the Paul Bunyan statueonly it was no longer Paul Bunyan. The clown stood there instead, resplendent and evident, fantastic in plastic, twenty feet of DayGlo colors, its painted face surmounting a cosmic comic ruff. Orange pompom buttons cast in plastic, each as big as a volleyball, ran down the front of the silvery suit. Instead of an axe it held a huge bunch of plastic balloons. Engraved on each were two legends ITS STILL ROCK AND ROLL TO ME and RICHIE TOZIERS ALLDEAD ROCK SHOW. He scrambled backward, using his heels and his palms. Gravel went down the back of his pants. He heard a seam tear loose in the underarm of his Rodeo Drive sportcoat. He rolled over, gained his feet, staggered, looked back. The clown looked down at him. Its eyes rolled wetly in their sockets. Did I give you a scare, mman? it rumbled. And Richie heard his mouth say, quite independently of his frozen brain Cheap thrills in the back of my car, Bozo. Thats all. The clown grinned and nodded as if it had expected no more. Red paintbleeding lips parted to show teeth like fangs, each one coming to a razor point. I could have you now if I wanted you now, it said. But this is going to be too much fun. Fun for me too, Richie heard his mouth say. The most fun of all when we come to take your fucking head off, baby. The clowns grin spread wider and wider. It raised one hand, clad in a white glove, and Richie felt the wind of the movement blow the hair off his forehead as it had on that day twentyseven years ago. The clowns index finger popped out at him. It was as big as a beam. Big as a bea, Richie thought, and then the pain struck again. It drove rusty spikes into the soft jelly of his eyes. He screamed and clutched at his face. Before removing the mote from thy neighbors eye, attend the beam in thine own, the clown intoned, its words rumbling and vibrating, and Richie was again enveloped in the sweet stink of its carrion breath. He looked up, and took half a dozen hurried steps backward. The clown was bending down, its gloved hands on its gaily pantalooned knees. Want to play some more, Richie? How about if I point at your pecker and give you prostate cancer? Or I could point at your head and give you a good old brain tumoralthough Im sure some people would say that would only be adding to what was already there. I can point at your mouth and your stupid flapping tongue will turn into so much running pus. I can do it, Richie. Want to see? Its eyes were widening, widening, and in those black pupils, each as big as a softball, Richie saw the mad darkness that must exist over the rim of the universe; he saw a shitty happiness that he felt would drive him insane. In that moment he understood It could do any of these things and more. And yet again he heard his mouth, but this time it was not his voice, or any of his created Voices, past or present; it was a Voice he had never heard before. Later he would tell the others, hesitantly, that it was a kind of Mr. Jiveass Nigger Voice, loud and proud, selfparodying and screechy. Git off mah case you big ole honky clown! he shouted, and suddenly he was laughing again. No shit an no shine, muhfuh! I got dwalk, I got dtalk, and I got dbig boppin cock! I got dtime, I got dmine, Im a man wit a plan an if you doan shit, you goan git! You hear me, you whiteface bunghole? Richie thought the clown recoiled, but he did not stick around to find out for sure. He ran, elbows pumping, sportcoat flying out in wings behind him, not caring that a father who had stopped so his toddler could admire Paul was now staring warily at him, as if he had gone crazy. As a matter of fact, folks, Richie thought, I feel like Ive gone crazy. Oh God do I ever. And that had to have been the shittiest Grandmaster Flash imitation in history but somehow it did the trick, somehow And then the clowns voice thundered after him. The father of the little boy did not hear it, but the toddlers face suddenly pinched in upon itself and he began to wail. The dad picked his son up and hugged him, bewildered. Even through his own terror, Richie observed this little sideshow closely. The voice of the clown was perhaps angrily gleeful, perhaps just angry Weve got the eye down here, Richie ... you hear me? The one that crawls. If you dont want to fly, dont wanna say goodbye, you come on down under this here town and give a great big hi to one great big eye! You come down and see it anytime. Just any old time you like. You hear me, Richie? Bring your yoyo. Have Beverly wear a big full skirt with four or five petticoats underneath. Have her wear her husbands ring around her neck! Get Eddie to wear his saddleshoes! Well play some bop, Richie! Well play AAALLLL THE HITS! Reaching the sidewalk, Richie dared to look back over his shoulder, and what he saw was in no way comforting. Paul Bunyan was still gone, and now the clown was gone, too. Where they had stood there was now a twentyfoothigh plastic statue of Buddy Holly. He was wearing a button on one of the narrow lapels of his plaid sportcoat. RICHIE TOZIERS ALLDEAD ROCK SHOW, the button read. One bow of Buddys glasses had been mended with adhesive tape. The little boy was still crying hysterically; his father was walking rapidly back toward downtown with the weeping child in his arms. He gave Richie a wide berth. Richie got walking (feets dont fail me now) trying not to think about (well play AAALLLL THE HITS!) what had just happened. All he wanted to think about was the monster jolt of Scotch he was going to have in the Derry Town House bar before he went up to take that nap. The thought of a drinkjust your ordinary gardenvariety drinkmade him feel a little better. He looked over his shoulder one more time and the fact that Paul Bunyan was back, grinning at the sky, plastic axe over his shoulder, made him feel better still. Richie began to walk faster, making tracks, putting distance between himself and that statue. He had even begun to think about the possibility of hallucinations when the pain struck his eyes again, deep and agonizing, causing him to cry out hoarsely. A pretty young girl who had been walking ahead of him, looking dreamily up at the breaking clouds, looked back at him, hesitated, then hurried over. Mister, are you all right? Its my contacts, he said in a strained voice. My damned contact leoh my God that hurts! This time he got his forefingers up so quickly he almost jabbed them into his eyes. He pulled down the lower lids and thought, I wont be able to blink them out, thats whats going to happen, I wont be able to blink them out and its just going to go on hurting and hurting and hurting until I go blind go blind go bl But one blink did it as one blink always had. The sharp and defined world, where colors stayed inside the lines and where faces that you saw were clear and obvious, simply fell away. Wide bands of pastel fuzz took their place. And although he and the highschool girl, who was both helpful and concerned, searched the paving of the sidewalk for almost fifteen minutes, neither could find even a single lens. In the back of his head Richie seemed to hear the clown laughing. 5 Bill Denbrough Sees a Ghost Bill did not see Pennywise that afternoonbut he did see a ghost. A real ghost. So Bill believed then, and no subsequent event caused him to change his mind. He had walked up Witcham Street and paused for some time by the drain where George met his end on that rainy October day in 1957. He squatted down and peered into the drain, which was cut into the stonework of the curbing. His heart was beating hard, but he looked anyway. Come out, why dont you, he said in a low voice, and he had the notquitemad idea that his voice was floating along dark and dripping passageways, not dying out but continuing onward and onward, feeding on its own echoes, bouncing off mosscovered stone walls and longdead machinery. He felt it float over still and sullen waters and perhaps issue softly from a hundred different drains in other parts of the city at the same time. Come out of there or well come in and gget you. He waited nervily for a response, crouched down with his hands between his thighs like a catcher between pitches. There was no response. He was about to stand up when a shadow fell over him. Bill looked up sharply, eagerly, ready for anything ... but it was only a little kid, maybe ten, maybe eleven. He was wearing faded Boy Scout shorts which displayed his scabby knees to good advantage. He had a FreezePop in one hand and a Fiberglas skateboard which looked almost as battered as his knees in the other. The FreezePop was a fluorescent orange. The skateboard was a fluorescent green. You always talk into the sewers, mister? the boy asked. Only in Derry, Bill said. They looked at each other solemnly for a moment and then burst into laughter at the same time. I want to ask you a stupid quehquestion, Bill said. Okay, the kid said. You ever hhear anything down in one of these? The kid looked at Bill as though he had flipped out. OOkay, Bill said, forget I aasked. He started to walk away and had gotten maybe twelve stepshe was headed up the hill, vaguely thinking he would take a look at the home placewhen the kid called, Mister? Bill turned back. He had his sportcoat hooked on his finger and slung over his shoulder. His collar was unbuttoned, his tie loosened. The boy was watching him carefully, as if already regretting his decision to speak further. Then he shrugged, as if saying Oh what the hell. Yeah. Yeah? Yeah. What did it say? I dont know. It talked some foreign language. I heard it coming out of one of those pumpin stations down in the Barrens. One of those pumpin stations, they look like pipes coming out of the ground I know what you mean. Was it a kid you heard? At first it was a kid, then it sounded like a man. The boy paused. I was some scared. I ran home and told my father. He said maybe it was an echo or something, coming all the way down the pipes from someones house. Do you believe that? The boy smiled charmingly. I read in my Ripleys Believe It or Not book that there was this guy, he got music from his teeth. Radio music. His fillings were, like, little radios. I guess if I believed that, I could believe anything. AAyuh, Bill said. But did you believe it? The boy reluctantly shook his head. Did you ever hear those voices again? Once when I was taking a bath, the boy said. It was a girls voice. Just crying. No words. I was ascared to pull the plug when I was done because I thought I might, you know, drownd her. Bill nodded again. The kid was looking at Bill openly now, his eyes shining and fascinated. You know about those voices, mister? I heard them, Bill said. A long, long time ago. Did you know any of the kkids that have been murdered here, son? The shine went out of the kids eyes; it was replaced by caution and disquiet. My dad says Im not supposed to talk to strangers. He says anybody could be that killer. He took an additional step away from Bill, moving into the dappled shade of an elm tree that Bill had once driven his bike into twentyseven years ago. He had taken a spill and bent his handlebars. Not me, kid, he said. Ive been in England for the last four months. I just got into Derry yesterday. I still dont have to talk to you, the kid replied. Thats right, Bill agreed. Its a fffree country. He paused and then said, I used to pal around with Johnny Feury some of the time. He was a good kid. I cried, the boy finished matteroffactly, and slurped down the rest of his FreezePop. As an afterthought he ran out his tongue, which was temporarily bright orange, and lapped off his arm. Keep away from the sewers and drains, Bill said quietly. Keep away from empty places and deserted places. Stay out of trainyards. But most of all, stay away from the sewers and the drains. The shine was back in the kids eyes, and he said nothing for a very long time. Then Mister? You want to hear something funny? Sure. You know that movie where the shark ate all the people up? Everyone does. JJJaws. Well, I got this friend, you know? His names Tommy Vicananza, and hes not that bright. Toys in the attic, you get what I mean? Yeah. He thinks he saw that shark in the Canal. He was up there by himself in Bassey Park a couple of weeks ago, and he said he seen this fin. He says it was eight or nine feet tall. Just the fin was that tall, you get me? He goes, Thats what killed Johnny and the other kids. It was Jaws, I know because I saw it. So I go, That Canals so polluted nothing could live in it, not even a minnow. And you think you saw Jaws in there. You got toys in the attic, Tommy. Tommy says it reared right out of the water like it did at the end of that movie and tried to bite him and he just got back in time. Pretty funny, huh, mister? Pretty funny, Bill agreed. Toys in the attic, right? Bill hesitated. Stay away from the Canal too, son. You follow? You mean you believe it? Bill hesitated. He meant to shrug. Instead he nodded. The kid let out his breath in a low, hissing rush. He hung his head as if ashamed. Yeah. Sometimes I think I must have toys in the attic. I know what you mean. Bill walked over to the kid, who glanced up at him solemnly but didnt shy away this time. Youre killing your knees on that board, son. The kid glanced down at his scabby knees and grinned. Yeah, I guess so. I bail out sometimes. Can I try it? Bill asked suddenly. The kid looked at him gapemouthed at first, then laughing. Thatd be funny, he said. I never saw a grownup on a skateboard. Ill give you a quarter, Bill said. My dad said Never take money or ccandy from strangers. Good advice. Ill still give you a qquarter. What do you say? Just to the corner of JuhJackson Street. Never mind the quarter, the kid said. He burst into laughter againa gay and uncomplicated sound. A fresh sound. I dont need your quarter. I got two bucks. Im practically rich. I got to see this, though. Just dont blame me if you break something. Dont worry, Bill said. Im insured. He turned one of the skateboards scuffed wheels with his finger, liking the speedy ease with which it turnedit sounded like there was about a million ballbearings in there. It was a good sound. It called up something very old in Bills chest. Some desire as warm as want, as lovely as love. He smiled. What do you think? the kid asked. I think Im ggonna kill myself, Bill said, and the kid laughed. Bill put the skateboard on the sidewalk and put one foot on it. He rolled it back and forth experimentally. The kid watched. In his mind Bill saw himself rolling down Witcham Street toward Jackson on the kids avocadogreen skateboard, the tails of his sportcoat ballooning out behind him, his bald head gleaming in the sun, his knees bent in that fragile way snowbunnies bend their knees their first day on the slopes. It was a posture that told you that in their heads they were already falling down. He bet the kid didnt ride the board like that. He bet the kid rode (to beat the devil) like there was no tomorrow. That good feeling died out of his chest. He saw, all too clearly, the board going out from under his feet, shooting unencumbered down the street, an improbable fluorescent green, a color that only a child could love. He saw himself coming down on his ass, maybe on his back. Slow dissolve to a private room at the Derry Home Hospital, like the one they had visited Eddie in after his arm had been broken. Bill Denbrough in a full bodycast, one leg held up by pullies and wires. A doctor comes in, looks at his chart, looks at him, and then says You were guilty of two major lapses, Mr. Denbrough. The first was mismanagement of a skateboard. The second was forgetting that you are now approaching forty years of age. He bent, picked the skateboard back up, and handed it back to the kid. I guess not, he said. Chicken, the kid said, not unkindly. Bill hooked his thumbs into his armpits and flapped his elbows. Buckbuckbuck, he said. The kid laughed. Listen, I got to get home. Be careful on that, Bill said. You cant be careful on a skateboard, the kid replied, looking at Bill as if he might be the one with toys in the attic. Right, Bill said. Okay. As we say in the movie biz, I hear you. But stay away from drains and sewers. And stay with your friends. The kid nodded. Im right near home. So was my brother, Bill thought. Itll be over soon, anyway, Bill told the kid. Will it? the kid asked. I think so, Bill said. Okay. See you later ... chicken! The kid put one foot on the board and pushed off with the other. Once he was rolling he put the other foot on the board as well and went thundering down the street at what seemed to Bill a suicidal pace. But he rode as Bill had suspected he would with lazy hipshot grace. Bill felt love for the boy, and exhilaration, and a desire to be the boy, along with an almost suffocating fear. The boy rode as if there were no such things as death or getting older. The boy seemed somehow eternal and ineluctable in his khaki Boy Scout shorts and scuffed sneakers, his ankles sockless and quite dirty, his hair flying back behind him. Watch out, kid, youre not going to make the corner! Bill thought, alarmed, but the kid shot his hips to the left like a breakdancer, his toes revolved on the green Fiberglas board, and he zoomed effortlessly around the corner and onto Jackson Street, simply assuming no one would be there to get in his way. Kid, Bill thought, it wont always be that way. |
He walked up to his old house but did not stop; he only slowed his walk down to an idlers pace. There were people on the lawna mother in a lawn chair, a sleeping baby in her arms, watching two kids, maybe ten and eight, play badminton in grass that was still wet from the rain earlier. The younger of the two, a boy, managed to hit the bird back over the net and the woman called, Good one, Sean! The house was the same darkgreen color and the fanlight was still over the door, but his mothers flowerbeds were gone. So, from what he could see, was the junglegym his father had built from scavenged pipes in the back yard. He remembered the day Georgie had fallen off the top and chipped a tooth. How he had screamed! He saw these things (the ones there and the ones gone), and thought of walking over to the woman with the sleeping baby in her arms. He thought of saying Hello, my name is Bill Denbrough. I used to live here. And the woman saying, Thats nice. What else could there be? Could he ask her if the face he had carved carefully in one of the attic beamsthe face he and Georgie sometimes used to throw darts atwas still there? Could he ask her if her kids sometimes slept on the screenedin back porch when the summer nights were especially hot, talking together in low tones as they watched heatlightning dance on the horizon? He supposed he might be able to ask some of those things, but he felt he would stutter quite badly if he tried to be charming ... and did he really want to know the answers to any of those questions? After Georgie died it had become a cold house, and whatever he had come back to Derry for was not here. So he went on to the corner and turned right, not looking back. Soon he was on Kansas Street, headed back downtown. He paused for awhile at the fence which bordered the sidewalk, looking down into the Barrens. The fence was the same, rickety wood covered with fading whitewash, and the Barrens looked the same ... wilder, if anything. The only differences he could see were that the dirty smudge of smoke which had always marked the town dump was gone (the dump had been replaced with a modern wastetreatment plant), and a long overpass marched across the tangled greenery nowthe turnpike extension. Everything else was so similar that he might last have seen it the previous summer weeds and bushes sloping down to that flat marshy area on the left and to dense copses of junkyscrubby trees on the right. He could see the stands of what they had called bamboo, the silverywhite stalks twelve and fourteen feet high. He remembered that Richie had once tried to smoke some of it, claiming it was like the stuff jazz musicians smoked and could get you high. All Richie had gotten was sick. Bill could hear the trickle of water running in many small streams, could see the sun heliographing off the broader expanse of the Kenduskeag. And the smell was the same, even with the dump gone. The heavy perfume of growing things at the height of their spring strut did not quite mask the smell of waste and human offal. It was faint but unmistakable. A smell of corruption; a whiff of the underside. Thats where it ended before, and thats where its going to end this time, Bill thought with a shiver. In there ... under the city. He stood awhile longer, convinced that he must see somethingsome manifestationof the evil he had come back to Derry to fight. There was nothing. He heard water running, a springlike and vital sound that reminded him of the dam they had built down there. He could see trees and bushes ruffling in the faint breeze. There was nothing else. No sign. He walked on, dusting a faint whitewash stain from his hands as he went. He kept heading downtown, halfremembering, halfdreaming, and here came another kidthis one a little girl of about ten in highwaisted corduroy pants and a faded red blouse. She was bouncing a ball with one hand and holding a babydoll by its blonde Arnel hair in the other. Hey! Bill said. She looked up. What! Whats the best store in Derry? She thought about it. For me or for anyone? For you, Bill said. Secondhand Rose, Secondhand Clothes, she said with no hesitation whatsoever. I beg your pardon? Bill asked. You beg what? I mean, is that a store name? Sure, she said, looking at Bill as though he might well be enfeebled. Secondhand Rose, Secondhand Clothes. My mom says its a junkshop, but I like it. They have old things. Like records you never heard of. Also postcards. It smells like a attic. I have to go home now. Bye. She walked on, not looking back, bouncing her ball and holding her dolly by the hair. Hey! he shouted after her. She looked back whimsically. I beg your whatchamacallit? The store! Where is it? She looked back over her shoulder and said, Just the way youre going. Its at the bottom of UpMile Hill. Bill felt that sense of the past folding in on itself, folding in on him. He hadnt meant to ask that little girl anything; the question had popped out of his mouth like a cork flying from the neck of a champagne bottle. He descended UpMile Hill toward downtown. The warehouses and packing plants he remembered from childhoodgloomy brick buildings with dirty windows from which titanic meaty smells issuedwere mostly gone, although the Armour and the Star Beef meatpacking plants were still there. But Hemphill was gone and there was a drivein bank and a bakery where Eagle Beef and Kosher Meats had been. And there, where the Tracker Brothers Annex had stood, was a sign painted in oldfashioned letters which read, just as the girl with the doll had said, SECONDHAND ROSE, SECONDHAND CLOTHES. The red brick had been painted a yellow which had perhaps been jaunty ten or twelve years ago, but was now dingya color Audra called urineyellow. Bill walked slowly toward it, feeling that sense of djvu settle over him again. Later he told the others he knew what ghost he was going to see before he actually saw it. The showwindow of Secondhand Rose, Secondhand Clothes was more than dingy; it was filthy. No Downeast antique shop this, with nifty little spoolbeds and Hoosier cabinets and sets of Depression glassware highlighted by hidden spotlights; this was what his mother called with utter disdain a Yankee pawnshop. The items were strewn in rickrack profusion, heaped aimlessly here, there, and everywhere. Dresses slumped off coathangers. Guitars hung from their necks like executed criminals. There was a box of 45 rpm records10c APIECE, the sign read. TWELVE FOR A BUCK. ANDREWS SISTERS, PERRY COMO, JIMMY ROGERS, OTHERS. There were kids outfits and dreadfullooking shoes with a card in front of them which read SECONDS, BUT NOT BAD! 1.00 A PAIR. There were two TVs that looked blind. A third was casting bleared images of The Brady Bunch out toward the street. A box of old paperbacks, most with stripped covers (2 FOR A QUARTER, 10 FOR A DOLLAR, MORE INSIDE, SOME HOT) sat atop a large radio with a filthy white plastic case and a tuning dial as big as an alarm clock. Bunches of plastic flowers sat in dirty vases on a chipped, gouged, dusty diningroom table. All of these things Bill saw as a chaotic background to the thing his eyes had fixed upon immediately. He stood staring at it with wide unbelieving eyes. Gooseflesh ran madly up and down his body. His forehead was hot, his hands cold, and for a moment it seemed that all the doors inside would swing wide and he would remember everything. Silver was in the righthand window. His kickstand was still gone and rust had flowered on the front and back fenders, but the oogahhorn was still there on the handlebars, its rubber bulb now glazed with cracks and age. The horn itself, which Bill had always kept neatly polished, was dull and pitted. The flat package carrier where Richie had often ridden double was still on the back fender, but it was bent now, hanging by a single bolt. At some point someone had covered the seat with imitation tigerskin which was now rubbed and frayed to a point where the stripes were almost indistinguishable. Silver. Bill raised an absent hand to wipe away the tears that were running slowly down his cheeks. After he had done a better job with his handkerchief, he went inside. The atmosphere of Secondhand Rose, Secondhand Clothes was musty with age. It was, as the girl had said, a attic smellbut not a good smell, as some attic smells are. This was not the smell of linseed oil rubbed lovingly into the surface of old tables or of ancient plush and velvet. In here was a smell of rotting bookbindings, dirty vinyl cushions that had been halfcooked in the hot suns of summers past, dust, mouseturds. From the TV in the window the Brady Bunch cackled and whooped. Competing with them from somewhere in the back was the radio voice of a disc jockey identifying himself as your pal Bobby Russell promising the new album by Prince to the caller who could give the name of the actor who had played Wally on Leave It to Beaver. Bill knewit had been a kid named Tony Dowbut he didnt want the new Prince album. The radio was sitting on a high shelf amid a number of nineteenthcentury portraits. Below it and them sat the proprietor, a man of perhaps forty who was wearing designer jeans and a fishnet teeshirt. His hair was slicked back and he was thin to the point of emaciation. His feet were cocked up on his desk, which was piled high with ledgers and dominated by an old scrolled cash register. He was reading a paperback novel which Bill thought had never been nominated for the Pulitzer Prize. It was called Construction Site Studs. On the floor in front of the desk was a barber pole, its stripe revolving up and up into infinity. Its frayed cord wound across the floor to a baseboard plug like a tired snake. The sign in front of it read A DYEING BREED! 250. When the bell over the door jingled, the man behind the desk marked his place with a matchbook cover and looked up. Help you? Yes, Bill said, and opened his mouth to ask about the bike in the window. But before he could speak, his mind was suddenly filled with a single haunting sentence, words that drove away all other thought He thrusts his fists against the posts and still insists he sees the ghosts. What in the name of God? (thrusts) Looking for anything in particular? the proprietor asked. His voice was polite enough, but he was looking at Bill closely. Hes looking at me, Bill thought, amused in spite of his distress, as if hes got an idea Ive been smoking some of that stuff that gets the jazz musicians high. Yes, I was ihihinterested ihin (his fists against the posts) in that puhpuhpost The barber pole, you mean? The proprietors eyes now showed Bill something which, even in his present confused state, he remembered and hated from his childhood the anxiety of a man or woman who must listen to a stutterer, the urge to jump in quickly and finish the thought, thus shutting the poor bastard up. But I dont stutter! I beat it! I DONT FUCKING STUTTER! I (and still insists) The words were so clear in his mind that it seemed someone else must be speaking in there, that he was like a man possessed by demons in Biblical timesa man invaded by some presence from Outside. And yet he recognized the voice and knew it was his own. He felt sweat pop out warmly on his face. I could give you (he sees the ghosts) a deal on that post, the proprietor was saying. Tell you the truth, I cant move it at twofifty. Id give it to you for oneseventyfive, hows that? Its the only real antique in the place. (post) POLE, Bill almost screamed, and the proprietor recoiled a little. Not the pole Im interested in. Are you okay, mister? the proprietor asked. His solicitous tone belied the expression of hard wariness in his eyes, and Bill saw his left hand leave the desk. He knew, with a flash of something that was really more inductive reasoning than intuition, that there was an open drawer below Bills own sightline, and that the proprietor had almost surely put his hand on a pistol of some type. He was maybe worried about robbery; more likely he was just worried. He was, after all, clearly gay, and this was the town where the local juveniles had given Adrian Mellon a terminal bath. (he thrusts his fists against the posts and still insists he sees the ghosts) It drove out all thought; it was like being insane. Where had it come from? (he thrusts) Repeating and repeating. With a sudden titanic effort, Bill attacked it. He did this by forcing his mind to translate the alien sentence into French. It was the same way he had beaten the stutter as a teenager. As the words marched across his field of thought, he changed them ... and suddenly he felt the grip of the stutter loosen. He realized that the proprietor had been saying something. PPPardon me? I said if youre going to have a fit, take it out on the street. I dont need shit like that in here. Bill drew in a deep breath. Lets start oover, he said. Pretend I just came iin. Okay, the proprietor said, agreeably enough. You just came in. Now what? The bbike in the window, Bill said. How much do you want for the bike? Take twenty bucks. He sounded easier now, but his left hand still hadnt come back into view. I think it was a Schwinn at one time, but its a mongrel now. His eye measured Bill. Big bike. You could ride it yourself. Thinking of the kids green skateboard, Bill said, I think my bikeriding days are ooover. The proprietor shrugged. His left hand finally came up again. Got a boy? YYes. How old is he? EhEhEleven. Big bike for an elevenyearold. Will you take a travellers check? Long as its no more than ten bucks over the amount of the purchase. I can give you a twenty, Bill said. Mind if I make a phone call? Not if its local. It is. Be my guest. Bill called the Derry Public Library. Mike was there. Where are you, Bill? he asked, and then immediately Are you all right? Im fine. Have you seen any of the others? No. Well see them tonight. There was a brief pause. That is, I presume. What can I do you for, Big Bill? Im buying a bike, Bill said calmly. I wondered if I could wheel it up to your house. Do you have a garage or something I could store it in? There was silence. Mike? Are you Im here, Mike said. Is it Silver? Bill looked at the proprietor. He was reading his book again ... or maybe just looking at it and listening carefully. Yes, he said. Where are you? Its called Secondhand Rose, Secondhand Clothes. All right, Mike said. My place is 61 Palmer Lane. Youd want to go up Main Street I can find it. All right, Ill meet you there. Want some supper? That would be nice. Can you get off work? No problem. Carole will cover for me. Mike hesitated again. She said that a fellow was in about an hour before I got back here. Said he left looking like a ghost. I got her to describe him. It was Ben. You sure? Yeah. And the bike. Thats part of it, too, isnt it? Shouldnt wonder, Bill said, keeping an eye on the proprietor, who still appeared to be absorbed in his book. Ill see you at my place, Mike said. Number 61. Dont forget. I wont. Thank you, Mike. God bless, Big Bill. Bill hung up. The proprietor promptly closed his book again. Got you some storage space, my friend? Yeah. Bill took out his travellers checks and signed his name to a twenty. The proprietor examined the two signatures with a care that, in less distracted mental circumstances, Bill would have found rather insulting. At last the proprietor scribbled a bill of sale and popped the travellers check into his old cash register. He got up, put his hands on the small of his back and stretched, then walked to the front of the store. He picked his way around the heaps of junk and almostjunk merchandise with an absent delicacy Bill found fascinating. He lifted the bike, swung it around, and rolled it to the edge of the display space. Bill laid hold of the handlebars to help him, and as he did another shudder whipped through him. Silver. Again. It was Silver in his hands and (he thrusts his fists against the posts and still insists he sees the ghosts) he had to force the thought away because it made him feel faint and strange. That back tires a little soft, the proprietor said (it was, in fact, as flat as a pancake). The front tire was up, but so bald the cord was showing through in places. No problem, Bill said. You can handle it from here? (I used to be able to handle it just fine; now I dont know) I guess so, Bill said. Thanks. Sure. And if you want to talk about that barber pole, come back. The proprietor held the door for him. Bill walked the bike out, turned left, and started toward Main Street. People glanced with amusement and curiosity at the man with the bald head pushing the huge bike with the flat rear tire and the oogahhorn protruding over the rusty bikebasket, but Bill hardly noticed them. He was marvelling at how well his grownup hands still fitted the rubber handgrips, was remembering how he had always meant to knot some thin strips of plastic, different colors, into the holes in each grip so they would flutter in the wind. He had never gotten around to that. He stopped at the corner of Center and Main, outside of Mr. Paperback. He leaned the bike against the building long enough to strip off his sportcoat. Pushing a bike with a flat tire was hard work, and the afternoon had come off hot. He tossed the coat into the basket and went on. Chains rusty, he thought. Whoever had it didnt take very good care of (him) it. He stopped for a moment, frowning, trying to remember just what had happened to Silver. Had he sold it? Given it away? Lost it, perhaps? He couldnt remember. Instead, that idiotic sentence (his fists against the posts and still insists) resurfaced, as strange and out of place as an easy chair on a battlefield, a recordplayer in a fireplace, a row of pencils protruding from a cement sidewalk. Bill shook his head. The sentence broke up and dispersed like smoke. He pushed Silver on to Mikes place. 6 Mike Hanlon Makes a Connection But first he made supperhamburgers with sauted mushrooms and onions and a spinach salad. They had finished working on Silver by then and were more than ready to eat. The house was a neat little Cape Cod, white with green trim. Mike had just been arriving when Bill pushed Silver up Palmer Lane. He was behind the wheel of an old Ford with rusty rocker panels and a cracked rear window, and Bill remembered the fact Mike had so quietly pointed out the six members of the Losers Club who left Derry had quit being losers. Mike had stayed behind and was still behind. Bill rolled Silver into Mikes garage, which was floored with oiled dirt and was every bit as neat as the house proved to be. Tools hung from pegs, and the lights, shielded with tin cones, looked like the lights which hang over pool tables. Bill leaned the bike against the wall. The two of them looked at it without speaking for a bit, hands in pockets. Its Silver, all right, Mike said at last. I thought you might have been wrong. But its him. What are you going to do with him? Fucked if I know. Have you got a bicycle pump? Yeah. I think Ive got a tirepatching kit, too. Are those tubeless tires? They always were. Bill bent down to look at the flat tire. Yeah. Tubeless. Getting ready to ride it again? Of ccourse not, Bill said sharply. I just dont like to see it sihihitting there on a flat. Whatever you say, Big Bill. Youre the boss. Bill looked around sharply at that, but Mike had gone to the garages back wall and was taking down a tirepump. He got a tin tirepatching kit from one of the cabinets and handed it to Bill, who looked at it curiously. It was as he remembered such things from his childhood a small tin box of about the same size and shape as those kept by men who roll their own cigarettes, except the top was bright and pebbledyou used it for roughing the rubber around the hole before you put on the patch. The box looked brandnew, and there was a Woolco price sticker on it that said 7.23. It seemed to him that when he was a kid such a kit had gone for about a bucktwentyfive. You didnt just have this hanging around, Bill said. It wasnt a question. No, Mike agreed. I bought it last week. Out at the mall, as a matter of fact. Youve got a bike of your own? No, Mike said, meeting his eyes. You just happened to buy this kit. Just got the urge, Mike agreed, his eyes still on Bills. Woke up thinking it might come in handy. The thought kept coming back all day. So ... I got the kit. And here you are to use it. Here I am to use it, Bill agreed. But like they say on the soaps, what does it all mean, dear? Ask the others, Mike said. Tonight. Will they all be there, do you think? I dont know, Big Bill. He paused and added I think theres a chance that all of them wont be. One or two of them may decide to just creep out of town. Or ... He shrugged. What do we do if that happens? I dont know. Mike pointed to the tirepatching kit. I paid seven bucks for that thing. Are you going to do something with it or just look at it? Bill took his sportcoat out of the basket and hung it carefully on an unoccupied wallpeg. Then he turned Silver upside down so that he rested on his seat and began to carefully rotate the rear tire. He didnt like the rusty way the axle squeaked, and remembered the almost silent click of the ballbearings in the kids skateboard. A little 3in1 oil would fix that right up, he thought. Wouldnt hurt to oil the chain, either. Its rusty as hell.... And playing cards. It needs playing cards on the spokes. Mike would have cards, I bet. The good ones. Bikes, with the celluloid coating that made them so stiff and so slippery that the first time you tried to shuffle them they always sprayed all over the floor. Playing cards, sure, and clothespins to hold them He stopped, suddenly cold. What in the name of Jesus are you thinking of? Something wrong, Bill? Mike asked softly. Nothing. His fingers touched something small and round and hard. He got his nails under it and pulled. A small tack came out of the tire. Heres the cuhcuhculprit, he said, and it rose in his mind again, strange, unbidden, and powerful He thrusts his fists against the posts and still insists he sees the ghosts. But this time the voice, his voice, was followed by his mothers voice, saying Try again, Billy. You almost had it that time. And Andy Devine as Guy Madisons sidekick Jingles yelling, Hey, Wild Bill, wait for me! He shivered. (the posts) He shook his head. I couldnt say that without stuttering even now, he thought, and for just a moment he felt that he was on the edge of understanding it all. Then it was gone. He opened the tirepatching kit and went to work. It took a long time to get it just right. Mike leaned against the wall in a bar of lateafternoon sun, the sleeves of his shirt rolled up and his tie yanked down, whistling a tune which Bill finally identified as She Blinded Me with Science. While he waited for the tire cement to set, Bill hadjust for something to do, he told himselfoiled Silvers chain, sprocket, and axles. It didnt make the bike look any better, but when he spun the tires he found that the squeak was gone, and that was satisfying. Silver never would have won any beautycontests anyway. His one virtue was that he could go like a blue streak. By that time, fivethirty in the afternoon, he had nearly forgotten Mike was there; he had become completely absorbed in small yet utterly satisfying acts of maintenance. He screwed the nozzle of the pump onto the rear tires valve and watched the tire fatten, shooting for the right pressure by guess and by gosh. He was pleased to see that the patch was holding nicely. When he thought he had it right, he unscrewed the pumpnozzle and was about to turn Silver over when he heard the rapid snapflutter of playing cards behind him. He whirled, almost knocking Silver over. Mike was standing there with a deck of bluebacked Bicycle playing cards in one hand. Want these? Bill let out a long, shaky sigh. Youve got clothespins, too, I suppose? Mike took four from the flap pocket of his shirt and held them out. Just happened to have them around, I suhhuppose? Yeah, something like that, Mike said. Bill took the cards and tried to shuffle them. His hands shook and the cards sprayed out of his hands. They went everywhere ... but only two landed faceup. Bill looked at them, then up at Mike. Mikes gaze was frozen on the littered playing cards. His lips had pulled back from his teeth. The two up cards were both the ace of spades. Thats impossible, Mike said. I just opened that deck. Look. He pointed at the swillcan just inside the garage door and Bill saw the cellophane wrapper. How can one deck of cards have two aces of spades? Bill bent down and picked them up. How can you spray a deck of cards all over the floor and have only two of them land face up? he asked. Thats an even better que He turned the aces over, looked, and then showed them to Mike. One of them was a blueback, the other a redback. Holy Christ, Mikey, what have you got us into? What are you going to do with those? Mike asked in a numb voice. Why, put them on, Bill said, and suddenly he began to laugh. Thats what Im supposed to do, isnt it? If there are certain preconditions for the use of magic, those preconditions will inevitably arrange themselves. Right? Mike didnt reply. He watched as Bill went to Silvers rear wheel and attached the playing cards. His hands were still shaking and it took awhile, but he finally got it done, drew in one tight breath, held it, and spun the rear wheel. The playing cards machinegunned loudly against the spokes in the garages silence. Come on, Mike said softly. Come on in, Big Bill. Ill make us some chow. They had scoffed the burgers and now sat smoking, watching dark begin to unfold from dusk in Mikes back yard. Bill took out his wallet, found someones business card, and wrote upon it the sentence that had plagued him ever since he had seen Silver in the window of Secondhand Rose, Secondhand Clothes. He showed it to Mike, who read it carefully, lips pursed. Does it mean anything to you? Bill asked. He thrusts his fists against the posts and still insists he sees the ghosts. He nodded. Yes, I know what that is. Well then, tell me. Or are you going to give me some more cuhcuhcrap about figuring it out for myself? No, Mike said, in this case I think its okay to tell you. The phrase goes back to English times. Its a tonguetwister that became a speech exercise for lispers and stutterers. Your mother kept trying to get you to say it that summer. The summer of 1958. You used to go around mumbling it to yourself. I did? Bill said, and then, slowly, answering his own question I did. You must have wanted to please her very much. Bill, who suddenly felt he might cry, only nodded. He didnt trust himself to speak. You never made it, Mike told him. I remember that. You tried like hell but your tang kept getting all tungled up. But I did say it, Bill replied. At least once. When? Bill brought his fist down on the picnic table hard enough to hurt. I dont remember! he shouted. And then, dully, he said it again I just dont remember. CHAPTER 12 Three Uninvited Guests 1 On the day after Mike Hanlon made his calls, Henry Bowers began to hear voices. Voices had been talking to him all day long. For awhile, Henry thought they were coming from the moon. In the late afternoon, looking up from where he was hoeing in the garden, he could see the moon in the blue daytime sky, pale and small. A ghostmoon. That, in fact, was why he believed it was the moon that was talking to him. Only a ghostmoon would talk in ghostvoicesthe voices of his old friends, and the voices of those little kids who had played down in the Barrens so long ago. Those, and another voice ... one he did not dare name. Victor Criss spoke from the moon first. They comin back, Henry. All of em, man. They comin back to Derry. Then Belch Huggins spoke from the moon, perhaps from the dark side of the moon. Youre the only one, Henry. The only one of us left. Youll have to get em for me and Vic. Aint no little kids can rank us out like that. Why, I hit a ball one time down to Trackers, and Tony Tracker said that ball would have been out of Yankee Stadium. He hoed, looking up at the ghostmoon in the sky, and after awhile Fogarty came over and hit him in the back of the neck and knocked him flat on his face. Youre hoein up the peas right along with the weeds, you ijit. Henry got up, brushing dirt off his face and out of his hair. There stood Fogarty, a big man in a white jacket and white pants, his belly swelled out in front of him. It was illegal for the guards (who were called counsellors here at Juniper Hill) to carry billyclubs, so a number of themFogarty, Adler, and Koontz were the worstcarried rolls of quarters in their pockets. They almost always hit you with them in the same place, right in the back of the neck. There was no rule against quarters. Quarters were not considered a deadly weapon at Juniper Hill, an institution for the mentally insane which stood on the outskirts of Augusta near the Sidney town line. Im sorry, Mr. Fogarty, Henry said, and offered a big grin which showed an irregular line of yellow teeth. They looked like the pickets in a fence outside a haunted house. Henry had begun to lose his teeth when he was fourteen or so. Yeah, youre sorry, Fogarty said. Youll be a lot sorrier if I catch you doing it again, Henry. Yes sir, Mr. Fogarty. Fogarty walked away, his black shoes leaving big brown tracks in the dirt of West Garden. Because Fogartys back was turned, Henry took a moment to look around surreptitiously. They had been shooed out to hoe as soon as the clouds cleared, everyone from the Blue Wardwhich was where they put you if you had once been very dangerous but were now considered only moderately dangerous. Actually, all the patients at Juniper Hill were considered moderately dangerous; it was a facility for the criminally insane. Henry Bowers was here because he had been convicted of killing his father in the late fall of 1958it had been a famous year for murder trials, all right; when it came to murder trials, 1958 had been a pip. Only of course it wasnt just his father they thought he had killed; if it had only been his father, Henry would not have spent twenty years in the Augusta State Mental Hospital, much of that time under physical and chemical restraint. No, not just his father; the authorities thought he had killed all of them, or at least most of them. Following the verdict the News had published a frontpage editorial titled The End of Derrys Long Night. In it they had recapped the salient points the belt in Henrys bureau that belonged to the missing Patrick Hockstetter; the jumble of schoolbooks, some signed out to the missing Belch Huggins and some to the missing Victor Criss, both known chums of the Bowers boy, in Henrys closet; most damning of all, the panties found tucked into a slit in Henrys mattress, panties which had been identified by laundrymark as having belonged to Veronica Grogan, deceased. Henry Bowers, the News declared, had been the monster haunting Derry in the spring and summer of 1958. But then the News had proclaimed the end of Derrys long night on the front page of its December 6th edition, and even an ijit like Henry knew that in Derry night never ended. They had bullied him with questions, had stood around him in a circle, had pointed fingers at him. Twice the Chief of Police had slapped him across the face and once a detective named Lottman had punched him in the gut, telling him to fess up, and be quick. Theres people outside and they aint happy, Henry, this Lottman had said. There aint been a lynching in Derry for a long time, but that dont mean there couldnt be one. |
He supposed they would have kept it up as long as necessary, not because any of them really believed the good Derryfolk were going to break into the police station, carry Henry out, and hang him from a sourapple tree, but because they were desperate to close the books on that summers blood and horror; they would have, but Henry didnt make them. They wanted him to confess to everything, he understood after awhile. Henry didnt mind. After the horror in the sewers, after what had happened to Belch and Victor, he didnt seem to mind about anything. Yes, he said, he had killed his father. This was true. Yes, he had killed Victor Criss and Belch Huggins. This was also true, at least in the sense that he had led them into the tunnels where they had been murdered. Yes, he had killed Patrick. Yes, Veronica. Yes one, yes all. Not true, but it didnt matter. Blame needed to be taken. Perhaps that was why he had been spared. And if he refused ... He understood about Patricks belt. He had won it from Patrick playing scat one day in April, discovered it didnt fit, and tossed it in his bureau. He understood about the books, toohell, the three of them chummed around together and they cared no more for their summer textbooks than they had for their regular ones, which is to say, they cared for them about as much as a woodchuck cares for tapdancing. There were probably as many of his books in their closets, and the cops probably knew it, too. The panties ... no, he didnt know how Veronica Grogans panties had come to be in his mattress. But he thought he knew whoor whathad taken care of it. Best not to talk about such things. Best to just dummy up. So they sent him to Augusta and finally, in 1979, they had transferred him to Juniper Hill, and he had only run into trouble once here and that was because at first no one understood. A guy had tried to turn off Henrys nightlight. The nightlight was Donald Duck doffing his little sailor hat. Donald was protection after the sun went down. With no light, things could come in. The locks on the door and the wire mesh did not stop them. They came like mist. Things. They talked and laughed ... and sometimes they clutched. Hairy things, smooth things, things with eyes. The sort of things that had really killed Vic and Belch when the three of them had chased the kids into the tunnels under Derry in August of 1958. Looking around now, he saw the others from the Blue Ward. There was George DeVille, who had murdered his wife and four children one winter night in 1962. Georges head was studiously bent, his white hair blowing in the breeze, snot running gaily out of his nose, his huge wooden crucifix bobbing and dancing as he hoed. There was Jimmy Donlin, and all they said in the papers about Jimmy was that he had killed his mother in Portland during the summer of 1965, but what they hadnt said in the papers was that Jimmy had tried a novel experiment in bodydisposal by the time the cops came Jimmy had eaten more than half of her, including her brains. They made me twice as smart, Jimmy had confided to Henry one night after lightsout. In the row beyond Jimmy, hoeing fanatically and singing the same line over and over, as always, was the little Frenchman Benny Beaulieu. Benny had been a firebuga pyromaniac. Now as he hoed he sang this line from the Doors over and over Try to set the night on fire, try to set the night on fire, try to set the night on fire, try to It got on your nerves after awhile. Beyond Benny was Franklin DCruz, who had raped over fifty women before being caught with his pants down in Bangors Terrace Park. The ages of his victims ranged from three to eightyone. Not very particular was Frank DCruz. Beyond him but way back was Arlen Weston, who spent as much time looking dreamily at his hoe as he did using it. Fogarty, Adler, and John Koontz had all tried the rollofquartersinthefist trick on Weston to try and convince him he could move a bit faster, and one day Koontz had hit him maybe a little too hard because blood came not only from Arlen Westons nose but also from Arlens ears and that night he had a convulsion. Not a big one; just a little one. But since then Arlen had drifted further and further into his own interior blackness and now he was a hopeless case, almost totally unplugged from the world. Beyond Arlen was You want to pick it up or Ill give you some more help, Henry! Fogarty bawled over, and Henry began to hoe again. He didnt want any convulsions. He didnt want to end up like Arlen Weston. Soon the voices started in again. But this time they were the voices of the others, the voices of the kids that had gotten him into this in the first place, whispering down from the ghostmoon. You couldnt even catch a fatboy, Bowers, one of them whispered. Now Im rich and youre hoeing peas. Haha on you, asshole! BBBowers, you cccouldnt ccatch a cccold! Read aany gggood bbbooks since youve been in ththere? I ruhruhwrote lots! Im ruhruhrich and yyoure in Juhjuhhooniper Hill! Haha on you, you stupid asshole! Shut up, Henry whispered to the ghostvoices, hoeing faster, beginning to hoe up the new peaplants along with the weeds. Sweat rolled down his cheeks like tears. We couldve taken you. We couldve. We got you locked up, you asshole, another voice laughed. You chased me and couldnt catch me and I got rich, too! Way to go, bananaheels! Shut up, Henry muttered, hoeing faster. Just shut up! Did you want to get in my panties, Henry? another voice teased. Too bad! I let all of them do me, I was nothing but a slut, but now Im rich too and were all together again, and were doing it again but you couldnt do it now even if I let you because you couldnt get it up, so haha on you, Henry, haha all OVER you He hoed madly, weeds and dirt and peaplants flying; the ghostvoices from the ghostmoon were very loud now, echoing and flying in his head, and Fogarty was running toward him, bellowing, but Henry could not hear. Because of the voices. Couldnt even get hold of a nigger like me, could you? another jeering ghostvoice chimed in. We killed you guys in that rockfight! We fucking killed you!! Haha, asshole! Haha all over you! Then they were all babbling together, laughing at him, calling him bananaheels, asking him how hed liked the shocktreatments theyd given him when he came up here to the Red Ward, asking him if he liked it here at JuhJuhhooniper Hill, asking and laughing, laughing and asking, and Henry dropped his hoe and began to scream up at the ghostmoon in the blue sky and at first he was screaming in fury, and then the moon itself changed and became the face of the clown, its face a rotted pocked cheesy white, its eyes black holes, its red bloody grin turned up in a smile so obscenely ingenuous that it was insupportable, and so then Henry began to scream not in fury but in mortal terror and the voice of the clown spoke from the ghostmoon now and what it said was You have to go back, Henry. You have to go back and finish the job. You have to go back to Derry and kill them all. For Me. For Then Fogarty, who had been standing nearby and yelling at Henry for almost two minutes (while the other inmates stood in their rows, hoes grasped in their hands like comic phalluses, their expressions not exactly interested but almost, yes, almost thoughtful, as if they understood that this was all a part of the mystery that had put them here, that Henry Bowerss sudden attack of the screaming meemies in West Garden was interesting in some more than technical way), got tired of shouting and gave Henry a real blast with his quarters, and Henry went down like a ton of bricks, the voice of the clown following him down into that terrible whirlpool of darkness, chanting over and over again Kill them all, Henry, kill them all, kill them all, kill them all. 2 Henry Bowers lay awake. The moon was down and he felt a sharp sense of gratitude for that. The moon was less ghostly at night, more real, and if he should see that dreadful clownface in the sky, riding over the hills and fields and woods, he believed he would die of terror. He lay on his side, staring at his nightlight intently. Donald Duck had burned out; he had been replaced by Mickey and Minnie Mouse dancing a polka; they had been replaced with the greenglowing face of Oscar the Grouch from Sesame Street, and late last year Oscar had been replaced by the face of Fozzie Bear. Henry had measured out the years of his incarceration with burnedout nightlights instead of coffeespoons. At exactly 204 A.M. on the morning of May 30th, his nightlight went out. A little moan escaped himno more. Koontz was on the door of the Blue Ward tonightKoontz who was the worst of the lot. Worse even than Fogarty, who had hit him so hard in the afternoon that Henry could barely turn his head. Sleeping around him were the other Blue Ward inmates. Benny Beaulieu slept in elastic restraints. He had been allowed to watch an Emergency rerun on the wardroom TV when they came in from hoeing and around six oclock had begun jerking off constantly and without letup, screaming Try to set the night on fire! Try to set the night on fire! Try to set the night on fire! He had been sedated, and that was good for about four hours, and then he had started in again around eleven when the Elavil wore off, whipping his old dingus so hard it had started to bleed through his fingers, shrieking Try to set the night on fire! So they sedated him again and put him in restraints. Now he slept, his pinched little face as grave in the dim light as Aristotles. From around his bed Henry could hear low snores and loud ones, grunts, an occasional bedfart. He could hear Jimmy Donlins breathing; it was unmistakable even though Jimmy slept five beds over. Rapid and faintly whistling, for some reason it always made Henry think of a sewing machine. From beyond the door giving on the hall he could hear the faint sound of Koontzs TV. He knew that Koontz would be watching the late movies on Channel 38, drinking Texas Driver and eating his lunch. Koontz favored sandwiches made out of chunky peanutbutter and Bermuda onions. When Henry heard this he had shuddered and thought And they say all the crazy people are locked up. This time the voice didnt come from the moon. This time it came from under the bed. Henry recognized the voice at once. It was Victor Criss, whose head had been torn off somewhere beneath Derry twentyseven years ago. It had been torn off by the Frankensteinmonster. Henry had seen it happen, and afterward he had seen the monsters eyes shift and had felt its watery yellow gaze on him. Yes, the Frankensteinmonster had killed Victor and then it had killed Belch, but here was Vic again, like the almost ghostly rerun of a blackandwhite program from the Nifty Fifties, when the President was bald and the Buicks had portholes. And now that it had happened, now that the voice had come, Henry found that he was calm and unafraid. Relieved, even. Henry, Victor said. Vic! Henry cried. What you doing under there? Benny Beaulieu snorted and muttered in his sleep. Jimmys neat nasal sewingmachine inhales and exhales paused for a moment. In the hall, the volume on Koontzs small Sony was turned down and Henry Bowers could sense him, head cocked to one side, one hand on the TVs volume knob, the fingers of the other hand touching the cylinder which bulged in the righthand pocket of his whitesthe roll of quarters. You dont have to talk out loud, Henry, Vic said. I can hear you if you just think. And they cant hear me at all. What do you want, Vic? Henry asked. There was no reply for a long time. Henry thought that maybe Vic had gone away. Outside the door the volume of Koontzs TV went up again. Then there was a scratching noise from under the bed; the springs squealed slightly as a dark shadow pulled itself out from under. Vic looked up at him and grinned. Henry grinned back uneasily. Ole Vic was looking a little bit like the Frankensteinmonster himself these days. A scar like a hangrope tattoo circled his neck. Henry thought maybe that was where his head had been sewed back on. His eyes were a weird graygreen color, and the corneas seemed to float on a watery viscous substance. Vic was still twelve. I want the same thing you want, Vic said. I want to pay em back. Pay em back, Henry Bowers said dreamily. But youll have to get out of here to do it, Vic said. Youll have to go back to Derry. I need you, Henry. We all need you. They cant hurt You, Henry said, understanding he was talking to more than Vic. They cant hurt Me if they only halfbelieve, Vic said. But there have been some distressing signs, Henry. We didnt think they could beat us back then, either. But the fatboy got away from you in the Barrens. The fatboy and the smartmouth and the quiff got away from us that day after the movies. And the rockfight, when they saved the nigger Dont talk about that! Henry shouted at Vic, and for a moment all of the peremptory hardness that had made him their leader was in his voice. Then he cringed, thinking Vic would hurt himsurely Vic could do whatever he wanted, since he was a ghostbut Vic only grinned. I can take care of them if they only halfbelieve, he said, but youre alive, Henry. You can get them no matter if they believe, halfbelieve, or dont believe at all. You can get them one by one or all at once. You can pay em back. Pay em back, Henry repeated. Then he looked at Vic doubtfully again. But I cant get out of here, Vic. Theres wire on the windows and Koontz is on the door tonight. Koontz is the worst. Maybe tomorrow night ... Dont worry about Koontz, Vic said, standing up. Henry saw he was still wearing the jeans he had been wearing that day, and that they were still splattered with drying sewermuck. Ill take care of Koontz. Vic held out his hand. After a moment Henry took it. He and Vic walked toward the Blue Ward door and the sound of the TV. They were almost there when Jimmy Donlin, who had eaten his mothers brains, woke up. His eyes widened as he saw Henrys latenight visitor. It was his mother. Her slip was showing just a quarterinch or so, as it always had. The top of her head was gone. Her eyes, horribly red, rolled toward him, and when she grinned, Jimmy saw the lipstick smears on her yellow, horsy teeth as he always had. Jimmy began to shriek. No, Ma! No, Ma! No Ma! The TV went off at once, and even before the others could begin to stir, Koontz was jerking the door open and saying, Okay, asshole, get ready to catch your head on the rebound. Ive had it. No, Ma! No, Ma! Please, Ma! No, Ma Koontz came rushing in. First he saw Bowers, standing tall and paunchy and nearly ridiculous in his johnny, his loose flesh doughy in the light spilling in from the corridor. Then he looked left and screamed out two lungfuls of silent spun glass. Standing by Bowers was a thing in a clown suit. It stood perhaps eight feet tall. Its suit was silvery. Orange pompoms ran down the front. There were oversized funny shoes on its feet. But its head was not that of a man or a clown; it was the head of a Doberman pinscher, the only animal on Gods green earth of which John Koontz was frightened. Its eyes were red. Its silky muzzle wrinkled back to show huge white teeth. A cylinder of quarters fell from Koontzs nerveless fingers and rolled across the floor and into the corner. Late the following day Benny Beaulieu, who slept through the whole thing, would find them and hide them in his footlocker. The quarters bought him cigarettestailormadesfor a month. Koontz hitched in breath to scream again as the clown lurched toward him. Its time for the circus! the clown screamed in a growling voice, and its whitegloved hands fell on Koontzs shoulders. Except that the hands inside those gloves felt like paws. 3 For the third time that daythat long, long dayKay McCall went to the telephone. She got further this time than she had on the first two occasions; this time she waited until the phone had been picked up on the other end and a hearty Irish cops voice said, Sixth Street Station, Sergeant OBannon, how may I help you? before hanging up. Oh, youre doing fine. Jesus, yes. By the eighth or ninth time youll have mustered up guts enough to give him your name. She went into the kitchen and fixed herself a weak Scotchandsoda, although she knew it probably wasnt a good idea on top of the Darvon. She recalled a snatch of folksong from the college coffeehouses of her youthGot a headful of whiskey and a bellyful of gin Doctor say it kill me but he dont say whenand laughed jaggedly. There was a mirror running along the top of the bar. She saw her reflection in it and stopped laughing abruptly. Who is that woman? One eye swollen nearly shut. Who is that battered woman? Nose the color of a drunken knights after thirty or so years of tilting at ginmills, and puffed to a grotesque size. Who is that battered woman who looks like the ones who drag themselves to a womens shelter after they finally get frightened enough or brave enough or just plain mad enough to leave the man who is hurting them, who has systematically hurt them week in and week out, month in and month out, year in and year out? Laddered scratch up one cheek. Who is she, KayBird? One arm in a sling. Who? Is it you? Can it be you? Here she is ... Miss America, she sang, wanting her voice to come out tough and cynical. It started out that way but warbled on the seventh syllable and cracked on the eighth. It was not a tough voice. It was a scared voice. She knew it; she had been scared before and had always gotten over it. She thought she would be a long time getting over this. The doctor who had treated her in one of the little cubicles just off Emergency Admitting at Sisters of Mercy half a mile down the road had been young and not badlooking. Under different circumstances she might have idly (or not so idly) considered trying to get him home and take him on a sexual tour of the world. But she hadnt felt in the least bit horny. Pain wasnt conducive to horniness. Neither was fear. His name was Geffin, and she didnt care for the fixed way he was looking at her. He took a small white paper cup to the rooms sink, halffilled it with water, produced a pack of cigarettes from the drawer of his desk, and offered them to her. She took one and he lit it for her. He had to chase the tip for a second or two with the match because her hand was shaking. He tossed the match in a paper cup. Fssss. A wonderful habit, he said. Right? Oral fixation, Kay replied. He nodded and then there was silence. He kept looking at her. She got the feeling he was expecting her to cry, and it made her mad because she felt she might just do that. She hated to be emotionally preguessed, and most of all by a man. Boyfriend? he asked at last. Id rather not talk about it. Uhhuh. He smoked and looked at her. Didnt your mother ever tell you it was impolite to stare? She wanted it to come out hardedged, but it sounded like a plea Stop looking at me, I know how I look, I saw. This thought was followed by another, one she suspected her friend Beverly must have had more than once, that the worst of the beating took place inside, where you were apt to suffer something that might be called interspiritual bleeding. She knew what she looked like, yes. Worse still, she knew what she felt like. She felt yellow. It was a dismal feeling. Ill say this just once, Geffin said. His voice was low and pleasant. When I work E.R.my turn in the barrel, you might sayI see maybe two dozen battered women a week. The interns treat two dozen more. So looktheres a telephone right here on the desk. Its my dime. You call Sixth Street, give them your name and address, tell them what happened and who did it. Then you hang up and Ill take the bottle of bourbon I keep over there in the file cabinetstrictly for medicinal purposes, you understandand well have a drink on it. Because I happen to think, this is just my personal opinion, that the only lower form of life than a man who would beat up a woman is a rat with syphilis. Kay smiled wanly. I appreciate the offer, she said, but Ill pass. For the time being. Uhhuh, he said. But when you go home take a good look at yourself in the mirror, Ms. McCall. Whoever it was, he jobbed you good. She did cry then. She couldnt help it. Tom Rogan had called around noon of the day after she had seen Beverly safely off, wanting to know if Kay had been in touch with his wife. He sounded calm, reasonable, not the least upset. Kay told him she hadnt seen Beverly in almost two weeks. Tom thanked her and hung up. Around one the doorbell rang while she was writing in her study. She went to the door. Who is it? Cragins Flowers, maam, a high voice said, and how stupid she had been not to realize it had been Tom doing a bad falsetto, how stupid she had been to believe that Tom had given up so easily, how stupid she had been to take the chain off before opening the door. In he had come, and she had gotten just this far You get out of h before Toms fist came flying out of nowhere, slamming into her right eye, closing it and sending a bolt of incredible agony through her head. She had gone reeling backward down the hallway, clutching at things to try and stay upright a delicate onerose vase that had gone smashing to the tiles, a coattree that had tumbled over. She fell over her own feet as Tom closed the front door behind him and walked toward her. Get out of here! she had screamed at him. As soon as you tell me where she is, Tom said, walking down the hall toward her. She was dimly aware that Tom didnt look very goodwell, actually, terrible might have been a better wordand she felt a dim but ferocious gladness skyrocket through her. Whatever Tom had done to Bev, it looked as if Bev had given it back in spades. It had been enough to keep him off his feet for one whole day, anyhowand he still didnt look as if he belonged anywhere but in a hospital. But he also looked very mean, and very angry. Kay scrambled to her feet and backed away, keeping her eyes on him as you might keep your eyes on a wild animal that had escaped its cage. I told you I havent seen her and that was the truth, she said. Now get out of here before I call the police. Youve seen her, Tom said. His swollen lips were trying to grin. She saw that his teeth had a strange jagged look. Some of the front ones had been broken. I call up, tell you I dont know where Bev is. You say you havent seen her in two weeks. Never a single question. Never a discouraging word, even though I know damn well that you hate my guts. So where is she, you numb cunt? Tell me. Kay turned then and ran for the end of the hall, wanting to get into the parlor, rake the sliding mahogany doors closed on their recessed tracks, and turn the thumbbolt. She got there ahead of himhe was limpingbut before she could slam the doors shut he had inserted his body between. He gave one convulsive lunge and pushed through. She turned to run again; he caught her by her dress and yanked her so hard he tore the entire back of it straight down to her waist. Your wife made that dress, you shit, she thought incoherently, and then she was twisted around. Where is she? Kay brought her hand up in a walloping slap that rocked his head back and started the cut on the left side of his face bleeding again. He grabbed her hair and pulled her head forward into his fist. It felt to her for a moment as if her nose had exploded. She screamed, inhaled to scream again, and began to cough on her own blood. She was in utter terror now. She had not known there could be so much terror in all the wide world. The crazy son of a bitch was going to kill her. She screamed, she screamed, and then his fist looped into her belly, driving the air out of her and she could only gasp. She began to cough and gasp at the same time and for one terrifying moment she thought she was going to choke. Where is she? Kay shook her head. Havent ... seen her, she gasped. Police ... youll go to jail ... asshole.... He jerked her to her feet and she felt something give in her shoulder. More pain, so strong it was sickening. He whirled her around, still holding onto her arm, and now he twisted her arm up behind her and she bit down on her lower lip, promising herself that she would not scream again. Where is she? Kay shook her head. He jerked her arm up again, jerked it so hard that she heard him grunt. His warm breath puffed against her ear. She felt her closed right fist strike her own left shoulderblade and she screamed again as that thing in her shoulder gave some more. Where is she? ... know ... What? I dont KNOW! He let go of her and gave her a push. She collapsed to the floor, sobbing, snot and blood running out of her nose. There was an almost musical crash, and when she looked around, Tom was bending over her. He had broken the top off another vase, this one of Waterford crystal. He held the base. The jagged neck was only inches from her face. She stared at it, hypnotized. Let me tell you something, he said, the words coming out in little pants and blows of warm air, youre going to tell me where she went or youre going to be picking your face up off the floor. Youve got three seconds, maybe less. When Im mad it seems like time goes a lot faster. My face, she thought, and that was what finally caused her to give in ... or cave in, if you liked that better the thought of this monster using the jagged neck of the Waterford vase to cut her face apart. She went home, Kay sobbed. Her home town. Derry. Its a place called Derry, in Maine. How did she go? She took a bbbus to Milwaukee. She was going to fly from there. That shitty little cooze! Tom cried, straightening up. He walked around in a large, aimless semicircle, running his hands through his hair so that it stood up in crazy spikes and whorls. That cunt, that cooze, that nickelplated crotch! He picked up a delicate wood sculpture of a man and woman making loveshed had it since she was twentytwoand threw in into the fireplace, where it shattered to splinters. He came face to face with himself for a moment in the mirror over the fireplace and stood wideeyed, as if looking at a ghost. Then he whirled on her again. He had taken something from the pocket of the sportcoat he was wearing, and she saw with a stupid kind of wonder that it was a paperback novel. The cover was almost completely black, except for the redfoil letters which spelled out the title and a picture of several young people standing on a high bluff over a river. The Black Rapids. Whos this fuck? Huh? What? Denbrough. Denbrough. He shook the book impatiently in front of her face, then suddenly slapped her with it. Her cheek flared with pain and then dull red heat, like stovecoals. Who is he? She began to understand. They were friends. When they were children. They both grew up in Derry. He whacked her with the book again, this time from the other side. Please, she sobbed. Please, Tom. He pulled an Early American chair with spindly, graceful legs over to her, turned it around, and sat down on it. His jackolantern face looked down at her over the chairback. Listen to me, he said. You listen to your old uncle Tommy. Can you do that, you braburning bitch? She nodded. She could taste blood, hot and coppery, in her throat. Her shoulder was on fire. She prayed it was only dislocated and not broken. But that was not the worst. My face, he was going to cut up my face If you call the police and tell them I was here, Ill deny it. You cant prove a fucking thing. Its the maids day off and were all by our twosome. Of course, they might arrest me anyway, anythings possible, right? She found herself nodding again, as if her head was on a string. Sure it is. And what Id do is post bail and come right back here. Theyd find your tits on the kitchen table and your eyes in the fishbowl. Do you understand me? Are you getting your old uncle Tommy? Kay burst into tears again. That string attached to her head was still working; it bobbed up and down. Why? What? I ... I dont... Wake up, for Gods sake! Why did she go back? I dont know! Kay nearly screamed. He wiggled the broken vase at her. I dont know, she said in a lower voice. Please. She didnt tell me. Please dont hurt me. He tossed the vase in the wastebasket and stood up. He left without looking back, head down, a big shambling bear of a man. She rushed after him and locked the door. She rushed into the kitchen and locked that door. After a moments pause she had limped upstairs (as fast as her aching belly would allow) and had locked the french doors which gave on the upstairs verandahit was not beyond possibility that he might decide to shinny up one of the pillars and come in again that way. He was hurt, but he was also insane. She went for the telephone for the first time and had no more than dropped her hand on it before remembering what he had said. What Id do is post bail and come right back here ... your tits on the kitchen table and your eyes in the fishbowl. She jerked her hand off the phone. She went into the bathroom then and looked at her dripping tomato nose, her black eye. She didnt weep; the shame and horror she felt were too deep for tears. Oh Bev, I did the best I could, dear, she thought. But my face ... he said he would cut up my face.... There was Darvon and Valium in the medicine cabinet. She debated between them and finally swallowed one of each. Then she went to Sisters of Mercy for treatment and met the famous Dr. Geffin, who right now was the only man she could think of whom she would not be perfectly happy to see wiped off the face of the earth. And from there home again, home again, jiggetyjog. She went to her bedroom window and looked out. The sun was low on the horizon now. On the East Coast it would be late twilightjust going on seven oclock in Maine. You can decide what to do about the cops later. The important thing now is to warn Beverly. It would be a hell of a lot easier, Kay thought, if you had told me where you were staying, Beverly my love. I suppose you didnt know yourself. Although she had quit smoking two years before, she kept a pack of Pall Malls in the drawer of her desk for emergencies. She shot one out of the pack, lit up, grimaced. She had last smoked from this pack around December of 1982, and this baby was staler than the ERA in the Illinois state Senate. She smoked it anyway, one eye halflidded against the smoke, the other just halflidded, period. Thanks to Tom Rogan. Using her left hand laboriouslythe son of a bitch had dislocated her good armshe dialed Maine information and asked for the name and number of every hotel and motel in Derry. Maam, thats going to take awhile, the directoryassistance operator said dubiously. Its going to take even longer than that, sister, Kay said. Im going to have to write with my stupid hand. My good ones on vacation. It is not customary for Listen to me, Kay said, not unkindly. Im calling you from Chicago, and Im trying to reach a womanfriend of mine who has just left her husband and gone back to Derry, where she grew up. Her husband knows where she went. He got the information out of me by beating the living shit out of me. This man is a psycho. She needs to know hes coming. There was a long pause, and then the directoryassistance operator said in a decidedly more human voice, I think the number you really need is the Derry Police Department. Fine. Ill take that, too. But she has to be warned, Kay said. And ... She thought of Toms cut cheeks, the knot on his forehead, the one on his temple, his limp, his hideously swelled lips. And if she knows hes coming, that may be enough. There was another long pause. You there, sis? Kay asked. Arlington Motor Lodge, the operator said, 6438146. Bassey Park Inn, 6484083. The Bunyan Motor Court Slow down a little, okay? she asked, writing furiously. She looked for an ashtray, didnt see one, and mashed the Pall Mall out on the desk blotter. Okay, go on. |
The Clarendon Inn 4 She got halflucky on her fifth call. Beverly Rogan was registered at the Derry Town House. She was only halflucky because Beverly was out. She left her name and number and a message that Beverly should call her the instant she came back, no matter how late it was. The desk clerk repeated the message. Kay went upstairs and took another Valium. She lay down and waited for sleep. Sleep didnt come. Im sorry, Bev, she thought, looking into the dark, floating on the dope. What he said about my face ... I just couldnt stand that. Call soon, Bev. Please call soon. And watch out for the crazy son of a bitch you married. 5 The crazy son of a bitch Bev had married did better on connections than Beverly had the day before because he left from OHare, the hub of commercial aviation in the continental United States. During the flight he read and reread the brief note on the author at the end of The Black Rapids. It said that William Denbrough was a native of New England and the author of three other novels (which were also available, the note added helpfully, in Signet paperback editions). He and his wife, the actress Audra Phillips, lived in California. He was currently at work on a new novel. Noticing that the paperback of The Black Rapids had been issued in 1976, Tom supposed the guy had written some of the other novels since then. Audra Phillips ... he had seen her in the movies, hadnt he? He rarely noticed actressesToms idea of a good flick was a crime story, a chase story, or a monster picturebut if this babe was the one he was thinking of, he had noticed her especially because she looked a lot like Beverly long red hair, green eyes, tits that wouldnt quit. He sat up a little straighter in his seat, tapping the paperback against his leg, trying to ignore the ache in his head and in his mouth. Yes, he was sure. Audra Phillips was the redhead with the good tits. He had seen her in a Clint Eastwood movie, and then about a year later in a horror flick called Graveyard Moon. Beverly had gone with him to see that one, and coming out of the theater, he had mentioned his idea that the actress looked a lot like her. I dont think so, Bev had said. Im taller and shes prettier. Her hairs a darker red, too. That was all. He hadnt thought of it again until now. He and his wife, the actress Audra Phillips ... Tom had some dim understanding of psychology; he had used it to manipulate his wife all the years of their marriage. And now a nagging unpleasantness began to nag at him, more feeling than thought. It centered on the fact that Bev and this Denbrough had played together as kids and that Denbrough had married a woman who, in spite of what Beverly said, looked amazingly like Tom Rogans wife. What sort of games had Denbrough and Beverly played when they were kids? Postoffice? Spinthebottle? Other games? Tom sat in his seat and tapped the book against his leg and felt his temples begin to throb. When he arrived at Bangor International Airport and canvassed the rentalcar booths, the girlssome dressed in yellow, some in red, some in Irish greenlooked at his blasted dangerous face nervously and told him (more nervously still) that they had no cars to rent, so sorry. Tom went to the newsstand and got a Bangor paper. He turned to the wantads, oblivious to the looks he was getting from people passing by, and isolated three likelies. He hit paydirt on his second call. Paper says youve got a 76 LTD wagon. Fourteen hundred bucks. Right, sure. I tell you what, Tom said, touching the wallet in his jacket pocket. It was fat with cashsix thousand dollars. You bring it out to the airport and well do the deal right here. You give me the car and a bill of sale and your pinkslip. Ill give you cash money. The fellow with the LTD for sale paused and then said, Id have to take my plates off. Sure, fine. How will I know you, Mr.? Mr. Barr, Tom said. He was looking at a sign across the terminal lobby that said BAR HARBOR AIRLINES GIVES YOU NEW ENGLANDAND THE WORLD! Ill be standing by the far door. Youll know me because my face doesnt look so hot. My wife and I went rollerskating yesterday and I took one hell of a fall. Things could be worse, I guess. I didnt break anything but my face. Gee, Im sorry to hear that, Mr. Barr. Ill mend. You just get the car out here, my good buddy. He hung up, walked across to the door, and stepped out into the warm fragrant May night. The guy with the LTD showed up ten minutes later, driving out of the latespring dusk. He was only a kid. They did the deal; the kid scribbled him a bill of sale which Tom stuffed indifferently into his overcoat pocket. He stood there and watched the kid take off the LTDs Maine plates. Give you an extra three bucks for the screwdriver, Tom said when he was done. The kid looked at him thoughtfully for a moment, shrugged, handed the screwdriver over, and took the three ones Tom was holding out. None of my business, the shrug said, and Tom thought How right you are, my good little buddy. Tom saw him into a cab, then got behind the wheel of the Ford. It was a piece of shit transmission whiny, universal groany, body rattly, brakes slushy. None of it mattered. He drove around to the longterm parking lot, took a ticket, and drove in. He parked next to a Subaru that looked as if it had been there for awhile. He used the kids screwdriver to remove the Subarus plates and put them on the LTD. He hummed as he worked. By 1000 P.M. he was driving east on Route 2, a Maine roadmap open on the seat beside him. He had discovered that the LTDs radio didnt work, so he drove in silence. That was all right. He had plenty to think about. All the wonderful things he was going to do to Beverly when he caught up with her, for instance. He was sure in his heart, quite sure, that Beverly was close by. And smoking. Oh my dear girl, you fucked with the wrong man when you fucked with Tom Rogan. And the question is thiswhat, exactly, are we to do with you? The Ford bulled its way through the night, chasing its high beams, and by the time Tom got to Newport, he knew. He found a drugsandsundries shop on the main drag that was still open. He went inside and bought a carton of Camels. The proprietor wished him a good evening. Tom wished him the same. He tossed the carton on the seat and got moving again. He drove slowly on up Route 7, hunting for his turnoff. Here it wasRoute 3, with a sign which read HAVEN 21 DERRY 15. He made the turn and got the Ford rolling faster. He glanced at the carton of cigarettes and smiled a little. In the green glow of the dashlights, his cut and lumpy face looked strange, ghoulish. Got some cigarettes for you, Bevvie, Tom thought as the wagon ran between stands of pine and spruce, heading toward Derry at a little better than sixty. Oh my yes. A whole carton. Just for you. And when I see you, dear, Im going to make you eat every fucking one. And if this guy Denbrough needs some education, we can arrange that, too. No problem, Bevvie. No problem at all. For the first time since the dirty bitch had bushwhacked him and run out, Tom began to feel good. 6 Audra Denbrough flew first class to Maine on a British Airways DC10. She had left Heathrow at ten minutes of six that afternoon and had been chasing the sun ever since. The sun was winninghad won, in factbut that didnt really matter. By a stroke of providential luck she had discovered that British Airways flight 23, London to Los Angeles, made one refueling stop ... at Bangor International Airport. The day had been a crazy nightmare. Freddie Firestone, the producer of Attic Room, had of course wanted Bill first thing. There had been some kind of ballsup about the stuntwoman who was supposed to fall down a flight of stairs for Audra. It seemed that stuntpeople had a union too, and this woman had fulfilled her quota of stunts for the week, or some silly thing. The union was demanding that Freddie either sign an extensionofsalary waiver or hire another woman to do the stunt. The problem was there was no other woman close enough to Audras bodytype available. Freddie told the union boss that they would have to get a man to do the stunt, then, wouldnt they? It wasnt as if the fall had to be taken in bra and panties. They had the auburnhaired wig, and the wardrobe woman could fit the fellow up with falsies and hippadding. Even some arsepads, if that was necessary. Cant be done, mate, the union boss said. Against the union charter to have a man step in for a woman. Sexual discrimination. In the movie business Freddies temper was fabled, and at that point he had lost it. He told the union boss, a fat man whose B.O. was almost paralyzing, to bugger himself. The union boss told Freddie he better watch his gob or there would be no more stunts on the set of Attic Room at all. Then he had rubbed his thumb and forefinger together in a baksheesh gesture that had driven Freddie crazy. The union boss was big but soft; Freddie, who still played football every chance he got and who had once bowled a century at cricket, was big and hard. He threw the union boss out, went back into his office to meditate, and then came out again twenty minutes later hollering for Bill. He wanted the entire scene rewritten so that the fall could be scrubbed. Audra had to tell Freddie that Bill was no longer in England. What? Freddie said. His mouth hung open. He was looking at Audra as if he believed she had gone mad. What are you telling me? Hes been called back to the Statesthats what Im telling you. Freddie made as if to grab her and Audra shrank back, a bit afraid. Freddie looked down at his hands, then put them in his pockets and only looked at her. Im sorry, Freddie, she said in a small voice. Really. She got up and poured herself a cup of coffee from the Silex on Freddies hotplate, noticing that her hands were trembling slightly. As she sat down she heard Freddies amplified voice over the studio loudspeakers, telling everyone to go home or to the pub; the days shooting was off. Audra winced. There went a minimum of ten thousand pounds, right down the bog. Freddie turned off the studio intercom, got up, poured his own cup of coffee. He sat down again and offered her his pack of Silk Cut cigarettes. Audra shook her head. Freddie took one, lit it, and squinted at her through the smoke. This is serious, isnt it? Yes, Audra said, keeping her composure as best she could. Whats happened? And because she genuinely liked Freddie and genuinely trusted him, Audra told him everything she knew. Freddie listened intently, gravely. It didnt take long to tell; doors were still slamming and engines starting in the parking lot outside when she finished. Freddie was silent for some time, looking out his window. Then he swung back to her. Hes had a nervous breakdown of some sort. Audra shook her head. No. It wasnt like that. He wasnt like that. She swallowed and added, Maybe you had to be there. Freddie smiled crookedly. You must realize that grown men rarely feel compelled to honor promises they made as little boys. And youve read Bills work; you know how much of it is about childhood, and its very good stuff indeed. Very much on the nail. The idea that hes forgotten everything that ever happened to him back then is absurd. The scars on his hands, Audra said. They were never there. Not until this morning. Bollocks! You just didnt notice them until this morning. She shrugged helplessly. Idve noticed. She could see he didnt believe that, either. Whats to do, then? Freddie asked her, and she could only shake her head. Freddie lit another cigarette from the smoldering end of the first. I can square it with the union boss, he said. Not myself, maybe; right now hed see me in hell before giving me another stunt. Ill send Teddy Rowland round to his office. Teddys a pouf, but he could talk the birds down from the trees. But what happens after? Weve got four weeks of shooting left, and heres your husband somewhere in Massachusetts Maine He waved a hand. Wherever. And how much good are you going to be without him? I He leaned forward. I like you, Audra. I genuinely do. And I like Billeven in spite of this mess. We can make do, I guess. If the script needs cobbling up, I can cobble it. Ive done my share of that sort of shoemaking in my time, Christ knows.... If he doesnt like the way it turns out, hell have no one but himself to blame. I can do without Bill, but I cant do without you. I cant have you running off to the States after your man, and Ive got to have you putting out at full power. Can you do that? I dont know. Nor do I. But I want you to think about something. We can keep things quiet for awhile, maybe for the rest of the shoot, if youll stand up like a trouper and do your job. But if you take off, it cant be kept quiet. I can be pissy, but Im not vindictive by nature and Im not going to tell you that if you take off Ill see that you never work in the business again. But you should know that if you get a reputation for temperament, you might end up stuck with just that. Im talking to you like a Dutch uncle, I know. Do you resent it? No, she said listlessly. In truth, she didnt care much one way or the other. Bill was all she could think of. Freddie was a nice enough man, but Freddie didnt understand; in the last analysis, nice man or not, all he could think of was what this was going to do to his picture. He had not seen the look in Bills eyes ... or heard him stutter. Good. He stood up. Come on over to the Hare and Hounds with me. We can both use a drink. She shook her head. A drinks the last thing I need. Im going home and think this out. Ill call for the car, he said. No. Ill take the train. He looked at her fixedly, one hand on the telephone. I believe you mean to go after him, Freddie said, and Im telling you that its a serious mistake, dear girl. Hes got a bee in his bonnet, but at bottom hes steady enough. Hell shake it, and when he does hell come back. If hed wanted you along, he would have said so. I havent decided anything, she said, knowing that she had in fact decided everything; had decided even before the car picked her up that morning. Have a care, love, Freddie said. Dont do something youll regret later. She felt the force of his personality beating on her, demanding that she give in, make the promise, do her job, wait passively for Bill to come back ... or to disappear again into that hole of the past from which he had come. She went to him and kissed him lightly on the cheek. Ill see you, Freddie. She went home and called British Airways. She told the clerk she might be interested in reaching a small Maine city called Derry if it was at all possible. There had been silence while the woman consulted her computer terminal ... and then the news, like a sign from heaven, that BA 23 made a stop in Bangor, which was less than fifty miles away. Shall I book the flight for you, maam? Audra closed her eyes and saw Freddies craggy, mostly kind, very earnest face, heard him saying Have a care, love. Dont do something youll regret later. Freddie didnt want her to go; Bill didnt want her to go; so why was her heart screaming at her that she had to go? She closed her eyes. Jesus, I feel so fucked up Maam ? Are you still holding the wire? Book it, Audra said, then hesitated. Have a care love.... Maybe she should sleep on it; get some distance between herself and the craziness. She began to rummage in her purse for her American Express card. For tomorrow. First class if you have it, but Ill take anything. And if I change my mind I can cancel. Probably will. Ill wake up sane and everything will be clear. But nothing had been clear this morning, and her heart clamored just as loudly for her to go. Her sleep had been a crazy tapestry of nightmares. So she had called Freddie, not because she wanted to but because she felt she owed him that. She had not gotten farshe was trying, in some stumbling way, to tell him how much she felt Bill might need herwhen there was a soft click at Freddies end. He had hung up without saying a word after his initial hello. But in a way, Audra thought, that soft click said everything that needed to be said. 7 The plane landed at Bangor at 709, EDT. Audra was the only passenger to deplane, and the others looked at her with a kind of thoughtful curiosity, probably wondering why anyone would choose to get off here, in this godforsaken little place. Audra thought of telling them Im looking for my husband, thats why. He came back to a little town near here because one of his boyhood chums called him and reminded him of a promise he couldnt quite remember. The call also reminded him that he hadnt thought of his dead brother in over twenty years. Oh yes it also brought back his stutter ... and some funny white scars on the palms of his hands. And then, she thought, the customs agent standing by in the jetway would whistle up the men in the white coats. She collected her single piece of luggageit looked very lonely riding the carousel all by itselfand approached the rentalcar booths as Tom Rogan would about an hour later. Her luck was better than his would be; National Car Rental had a Datsun. The girl filled out the form and Audra signed it. I thought it was you, the girl said, and then, timidly Might I please have your autograph? Audra gave it, writing her name on the back of a rental form, and thought Enjoy it while you can, girl. If Freddie Firestone is right, it wont be worth doodleysquat five years from now. With some amusement she realized that, after only fifteen minutes back in the States, she had begun to think like an American again. She got a roadmap, and the girl, so starstruck she could barely talk, managed to trace out her best route to Derry. Ten minutes later Audra was on the road, reminding herself at every intersection that if she forgot and began driving on the left, they would be scrubbing her off the asphalt. And as she drove, she realized that she was more frightened than she had ever been in her life. 8 By one of those odd quirks of fate or coincidence which sometimes obtain (and which, in truth, obtained more frequently in Derry), Tom had taken a room at the Koala Inn on Outer Jackson Street and Audra had taken a room at the Holiday Inn; the two motels were side by side, their parking lots divided only by a raised concrete sidewalk. And as it so happened, Audras rented Datsun and Toms purchased LTD wagon were parked nosetonose, separated only by that walkway. Both slept now, Audra quietly on her side, Tom Rogan on his back, snoring so heavily that his swollen lips flapped. 9 Henry spent that day hidinghiding in the puckies beside Route 9. Sometimes he slept. Sometimes he lay watching police cruisers slide by like hunting dogs. While the Losers ate lunch, Henry listened to voices from the moon. And when dark fell, he went out to the verge of the road and stuck out his thumb. After awhile, some fool came along and picked him up. DERRY THE THIRD INTERLUDE A bird came down the Walk He did not know I saw He bit an Angleworm in halves And ate the fellow, raw Emily Dickinson, A Bird Came Down the Walk March 17th,1985 The fire at the Black Spot happened in the late fall of 1930. So far as I am able to determine, that firethe one my father barely escapedended the cycle of murder and disappearance which happened in the years 192930, just as the explosion at the Ironworks ended a cycle some twentyfive years before. It is as if a monstrous sacrifice is needed at the end of the cycle to quiet whatever terrible force it is which works here... to send It to sleep for another quartercentury or so. But if such a sacrifice is needed to end each cycle, it seems that some similar event is needed to set each cycle in motion. Which brings me to the Bradley Gang. Their execution took place at the threeway intersection of Canal, Main, and Kansasnot far, in fact, from the place shown in the picture which began to move for Bill and Richie one day in June of 1958some thirteen months before the fire at the Black Spot, in October of 1929 ... not long before the stockmarket crash. As with the fire at the Black Spot, many Derry residents affect not to remember what happened that day. Or they were out of town, visiting relatives. Or they were napping that afternoon and never found out what had happened until they heard it on the radio news that night. Or they will simply look you full in the face and lie to you. The police logs for that day indicate that Chief Sullivan was not even in town (Sure I remember, Aloysius Nell told me from a chair on the sunterrace of the Paulson Nursing Home in Bangor. That was my first year on the force, and I ought to remember. He was off in western Maine, birdhunting. Theyd been sheeted and carried off by the time he got back. Madder than a wet hen was Jim Sullivan), but a picture in a reference book on gangsters called Bloodletters and Badmen shows a grinning man standing beside the bulletriddled corpse of A1 Bradley in the morgue, and if that man is not Chief Sullivan, it is surely his twin brother. It was from Mr. Keene that I finally got what I believe to be the true version of the storyNorbert Keene, who was the proprietor of the Center Street Drug Store from 1925 until 1975. He talked to me willingly enough, but, like Betty Ripsoms father, he made me turn off my taperecorder before he would really unwind the talenot that it mattered; I can hear his papery voice yetanother a capella singer in the damned choir that is this town. No reason not to tell you, he said. No one will print it, and no one would believe it even if they did. He offered me an oldfashioned apothecary jar. Licorice whip? As I remember, you were always partial to the red ones, Mikey. I took one. Was Chief Sullivan there that day? Mr. Keene laughed and took a licorice whip for himself. You wondered about that, did you? I wondered, I agreed, chewing a piece of the red licorice. I hadnt had one since I was a kid, shoving my pennies across the counter to a much younger and sprier Mr. Keene. It tasted just as fine as it had back then. Youre too young to remember when Bobby Thomson hit his home run for the Giants in the playoff game in 1951, Mr. Keene said. You wouldnt have been but four years old. Well! They ran an article about that game in the newspaper a few years after, and it seemed like just about a million folks from New York claimed they were there in the ballpark that day. Mr. Keene gummed his licorice whip and a little dark drool ran down from the corner of his mouth. He wiped it off fastidiously with his handkerchief. We were sitting in the office behind the drugstore, because although Norbert Keene was eightyfive and retired ten years, he still did the books for his grandson. Just the opposite when it comes to the Bradley Gang! Keene exclaimed. He was smiling, but it was not a pleasant smileit was cynical, coldly reminiscent. There was maybe twenty thousand people who lived in downtown Derry back then. Main Street and Canal Street had both been paved for four years, but Kansas Street was still dirt. Raised dust in the summer and turned into a boghole every March and November. They used to oil UpMile Hill every June and every Fourth of July the Mayor would talk about how they were going to pave Kansas Street, but it never happened until 1942. It... but what was I saying? Twenty thousand people who lived right downtown, I prompted. Oh. Ayuh. Well, of those twenty thousand, theres probably half that have passed away since, maybe even morefifty years is a long time. And people have a funny way of dying young in Derry. Perhaps it is the air. But of those left, I dont think youd find more than a dozen whod say they were in town the day the Bradley Gang went to Tophet. Butch Rowden over at the meat market would fess up to it, I guesshe keeps a picture of one of the cars they had up on the wall where he cuts meat. Looking at that picture youd hardly know it was a car. Charlotte Littlefield would tell you a thing or two, if you could get on her good side; she teaches over to the high school, and although I reckon she must not have been more than ten or twelve at the time I bet she remembers plenty. Carl Snow... Aubrey Stacey... Eben Stampnell ... and that old geezer who paints those funny pictures and drinks all night at WallysPickman, I think his name istheyd remember. They were all there.... He trailed off vaguely, looking at the licorice whip in his hand. I thought of prodding him and decided not to. At last he said, Most of the others would lie about it, the way people lied and said they were there when Bobby Thomson hit his homer, thats all I mean. But people lied about being at that ballgame because they wished they had been there. People would lie to you about being in Derry that day because they wish they hadnt been. Do you understand me, sonny? I nodded. You sure you want to hear the rest of this? Mr. Keene asked me. Youre looking a bit peaked, Mr. Mikey. I dont, I said, but I think I better, all the same. Okay, Mr. Keene said mildly. It was my day for memories; as he offered me the apothecary jar with the licorice whips in it, I suddenly remembered a radio program my mother and dad used to listen to when I was just a little kid Mr. Keene, Tracer of Lost Persons. Sheriff was there that day, all right. He was sposed to go birdhunting, but he changed his mind damn quick when Lal Machen came in and told him that he was expecting Al Bradley that very afternoon. How did Machen know that? I asked. Well, thats an instructive tale in itself, Mr. Keene said, and the cynical smile creased his face again. Bradley wasnt never Public Enemy Number One on the FBIs hit parade, but they had wanted himsince 1928 or so. To show they could cut the mustard, I guess. Al Bradley and his brother George hit six or seven banks across the Midwest and then kidnapped a banker for ransom. The ransom was paidthirty thousand dollars, a big sum for those daysbut they killed the banker anyway. By then the Midwest had gotten a little toasty for the gangs that ran there, so Al and George and their litter of ratlings run northeast, up this way. They rented themselves a big farmhouse just over the town line in Newport, not far from where the Rhulin Farms are today. That was in the dogdays of 29, maybe July, maybe August, maybe even early September... I dont know for sure just when. There were eight of emAl Bradley, George Bradley, Joe Conklin and his brother Cal, an Irishman named Arthur Malloy who was called Creeping Jesus Malloy because he was nearsighted but wouldnt put on his specs unless he absolutely had to, and Patrick Caudy, a young fellow from Chicago who was said to be killcrazy but as handsome as Adonis. There were also two women with them Kitty Donahue, George Bradleys commonlaw wife, and Marie Hauser, who belonged to Caudy but sometimes got passed around, according to the stories we all heard later. They made one bad assumption when they got up here, sonnythey got the idea they were so far away from Indiana that they were safe. They laid low for awhile, and then got bored and decided they wanted to go hunting. They had plenty of firepower but they were a bit low on ammunition. So they all came into Derry on the seventh of October in two cars. Patrick Caudy took the women around shopping while the other men went into Machens Sporting Goods. Kitty Donahue bought a dress in Freeses, and she died in it two days later. Lal Machen waited on the men himself. He died in 1959. Too fat, he was. Always too fat. But there wasnt nothing wrong with his eyes, and he knew it was Al Bradley the minute he walked in, he said. He thought he recognized some of the others, but he wasnt sure of Malloy until he put on his specs to look at a display of knives in a glass case. Al Bradley walked up to him and said, Wed like to buy some ammunition. Well, Lal Machen says, you come to the right place. Bradley handed him a paper and Lal read it over. The paper has been lost, at least so far as I know, but Lal said it would have turned your blood cold. They wanted five hundred rounds of .38caliber ammunition, eight hundred rounds of .45caliber, sixty rounds of .50caliber, which they dont even make anymore, shotgun shells loaded both with buck and bird, and a thousand rounds each of .22 short and longrifle. Plusget thissixteen thousand rounds of .45 machinegun bullets. Holy shit! I said. Mr. Keene smiled that cynical smile again and offered me the apothecary jar. At first I shook my head and then I took another whip. This here is quite a shoppinglist, boys, Lal says. Come on, Al, Creeping Jesus Malloy says. I told you we wasnt going to get it in a hick town like this. Lets go on up to Bangor. They wont have nothing there either, but I can use a ride. Now hold your horses, Lal says, just as cool as a cucumber. This here is one hell of a good order and I wouldnt want to lose it to that Jew up Bangor. I can give you the .22s right now, also the bird and half the buck. I can give you a hundred rounds each of the .38 and .45caliber, too. I could have the rest for you... And here Lal sort of halfclosed his eyes and tapped his chin, as if calculating it out. ... by day after tomorrow. Howd that be? Bradley grinned like hed split his head around the back and said it sounded just as fine as paint. Cal Conklin said hed still like to go on up to Bangor, but he was outvoted. Now, if youre not sure you can make good on this order, you ought to say so right now, Al Bradley says to Lal, because Im a pretty fine fellow but when I get mad you dont want to get into a pissing contest with me. You follow? I do, Lal says, and Ill have all the ammo you could want, Mr.? Rader, Bradley says. Richard D. Rader, at your service. He stuck out his hand and Lai pumped it, grinning all the while. Real pleased, Mr. Rader. So then Bradley asked him what would be a good time for him and his friends to drop by and pick up the goods, and Lal Machen asked them right back how two in the afternoon sounded to them. They agreed that would be fine. Out they went. Lal watched them go. They met the two women and Caudy on the sidewalk outside. Lal recognized Caudy, too. So, Mr. Keene said, looking at me brighteyed, what do you think Lal done then? Called the cops? I guess he didnt, I said, based on what happened. Me, I would have broken my leg getting to the telephone. Well, maybe you would and maybe you wouldnt, Mr. Keene said with that same cynical, brighteyed smile, and I shivered because I knew what he meant... and he knew I knew. Once something heavy begins to roll, it cant be stopped; its simply going to roll until it finds a flat place long enough to wear away all of its forward motion. You can stand in front of that thing and get flattened ... but that wont stop it, either. Maybe you would have and maybe you wouldnt, Mr. Keene repeated. But I can tell you what Lal Machen did. The rest of that day and all of the next, when someone he knew came insome manwhy, he would tell them that he knew who had been out in the woods around the NewportDerry line shooting at deer and grouse and God knows what else with Kansas City typewriters. It was the Bradley Gang. He knew for a fact because he had recognized em. Hed tell em that Bradley and his men were coming back the next day around two to pick up the rest of their order. Hed tell them hed promised Bradley all the ammunition he could want, and that was a promise he intended to keep. How many? I asked. I felt hypnotized by his glittering eye. Suddenly the dry smell of this back roomthe smell of prescription drugs and powders, of Musterole and Vicks VapoRub and Robitussin cough syrupsuddenly all those smells seemed suffocating ... but I could no more have left than I could kill myself by holding my breath. How many men did Lal pass the word to? Mr. Keene asked. I nodded. Dont know for sure, Mr. Keene said. Didnt stand right there and take up sentry duty. |
All those he felt he could trust, I suppose. Those he could trust, I mused. My voice was a little hoarse. Ayuh, Mr. Keene said. Derrymen, you know. Not that many of em raised cows. He laughed at this old joke before going on. I came in around ten the day after the Bradleys first dropped in on Lal. He told me the story, then asked how he could help me. Id only come in to see if my last roll of pictures had been developedin those days Machens handled all the Kodak films and camerasbut after I got my photos I also said I could use some ammo for my Winchester. You gonna shoot some game, Norb? Lal asks me, passing over the shells. Might plug some varmints, I said, and we had us a chuckle over that. Mr. Keene laughed and slapped his skinny leg as if this was still the best joke he had ever heard. He leaned forward and tapped my knee. All I mean, son, is that the story got around all it needed to. Small towns, you know. If you tell the right people, what you need to pass along will get along ... see what I mean? Like another licorice whip? I took one with numb fingers. Make you fat, Mr. Keene said, and cackled. He looked old then... infinitely old, with his bifocals slipping down the gaunt blade of his nose and the skin stretched too tight and thin across his cheeks to wrinkle. The next day I brought my rifle into the store with me and Bob Tanner, who worked harder than any assistant I ever had after him, brought in his pops shotgun. Around eleven that day Gregory Cole came in for a bicarb of soda and damned if he didnt have a Colt .45 jammed right in his belt. Dont blow your balls off with that, Greg, I said. I come out of the woods all the way from Milford for this and I got one fuck of a hangover, Greg says. I guess Ill blow someones balls off before the sun goes down. Around onethirty, I put the little sign I had, BE BACK SOON, PLEASE BE PATIENT, in the door and took my rifle and walked out the back into Richards Alley. I asked Bob Tanner if he wanted to come along and he said hed better finish filling Mrs. Emersons prescription and hed see me later. Leave me a live one, Mr. Keene, he said, but I allowed as how I couldnt promise nothing. There was hardly any traffic on Canal Street at all, either on foot or by car. Every now and then a delivery truck would pass, but that was about all. I saw Jake Pinnette cross over and he had a rifle in each hand. He met Andy Criss, and they walked over to one of the benches that used to stand where the War Memorial wasyou know, where the Canal goes underground. Petie Vanness and Al Nell and Jimmy Gordon were all sitting on the courthouse steps, eating sandwiches and fruit out of their dinnerbuckets, trading with each other for stuff that looked better to them, the way kids do on the schoolyard. They was all armed. Jimmy Gordon had himself a World War I Springfield that looked bigger than he did. I see a kid go walking toward UpMile HillI think maybe it was Zack Denbrough, the father of your old buddy, the one who turned out to be a writerand Kenny Borton says from the window of the Christian Science Reading Room, You want to get out of here, kid; theres going to be shooting. Zack took one look at his face and ran like hell. There were men everywhere, men with guns, standing in doorways and sitting on steps and looking out of windows. Greg Cole was sitting in a doorway down the street with his 45 in his lap and about two dozen shells lined up beside him like toy sojers. Bruce Jagermeyer and that Swede, Olaf Theramenius, were standing underneath the marquee of the Bijou in the shade. Mr. Keene looked at me, through me. His eyes were not sharp now; they were hazy with memory, soft as the eyes of a man only become when he is remembering one of the best times of his lifethe first home run he ever hit, maybe, or the first trout he ever landed that was big enough to keep, or the first time he ever lay with a willing woman. I remember I heard the wind, sonny, he said dreamily. I remember hearing the wind and hearing the courthouse clock toll two. Bob Tanner came up behind me and I was so tightwired I almost blew his head off. He only nodded at me and crossed over to Vannocks Dry Goods, trailing his shadow out behind him. You would have thought that when it got to be twoten and nothing happened, then twofifteen, then twotwenty, folks would have just up and left, wouldnt you? But it didnt happen that way at all. People just kept their place. Because Because you knew they were going to come, didnt you? I asked. There was never any question at all. He beamed at me like a teacher pleased with a students recital. Thats right! he said. We knew. No one had to talk about it, no one had to say, Wellnow, lets wait until twenty past and if they dont show Ive got to get back to work. Things just stayed quiet, and around twotwentyfive that afternoon these two cars, one red and one dark blue, started down UpMile Hill and came into the intersection. One of them was a Chevrolet and the other was a La Salle. The Conklin brothers, Patrick Caudy, and Marie Hauser were in the Chevrolet. The Bradleys, Malloy, and Kitty Donahue were in the La Salle. They started through the intersection okay, and then Al Bradley slammed on the brakes of that La Salle so sudden that Caudy damn near ran into him. The street was too quiet and Bradley knew it. He wasnt nothing but an animal, but it doesnt take much to put up an animals wind when its been chased like a weasel in the corn for four years. He opened the door of the La Salle and stood up on the running board for a moment. He looked around, then he made a goback gesture to Caudy with his hand. Caudy said, What, boss? I heard that plain as day, the only thing I heard any of them say that day. There was a wink of sun, too, I remember that. It came off a compact mirror. The Hauser woman was powdering her nose. That was when Lal Machen and his helper, Biff Marlow, came running out of Machens store. Put em up, Bradley, youre surrounded! Lal shouts, and before Bradley could do more than turn his head, Lal started blasting. He was wild at first, but then he put one into Bradleys shoulder. The claret started to pour out of that hole right away. Bradley caught hold of the La Salles doorpost and swung himself back into the car. He threw it into gear, and thats when everyone started to shoot. It was all over in four, maybe five minutes, but it seemed a whole hell of a lot longer while it was happening. Petie and Al and Jimmy Gordon just sat there on the courthouse steps and poured bullets into the back end of the Chevrolet. I saw Bob Tanner down on one knee, firing and working the bolt on that old rifle of his like a madman. Jagermeyer and Theramenius were shooting into the right side of the La Salle from under the theater marquee and Greg Cole stood in the gutter, holding that .45 automatic out in both hands, pulling the trigger just as fast as he could work it. There must have been fifty, sixty men firing all at once. After it was all over Lal Machen dug thirtysix slugs out of the brick sides of his store. And that was three days later, after just about everydamnbody in town who wanted one for a souvenir had come down and dug one out with his penknife. When it was at its worst, it sounded like the Battle of the Marne. Windows were blown in by riflefire all around Machens. Bradley got the La Salle around in a halfcircle and he wasnt slow but by the time hed done he was running on four flats. Both the headlights were blowed out, and the windscreen was gone. Creeping Jesus Malloy and George Bradley were each at a backseat window, firing pistols. I seen one bullet take Malloy high up in the neck and tear it wide open. He shot twice more and then collapsed out the window with his arms hanging down. Caudy tried to turn the Chevrolet and only ran into the back end of Bradleys La Salle. That was really the end of em right there, son. The Chevrolets front bumper locked with the La Salles back one and there went any chance they might have had to make a run for it. Joe Conklin got out of the back seat and just stood there in the middle of the intersection, a pistol in each hand, and started to pour it on. He was shooting at Jake Pinnette and Andy Criss. The two of them fell off the bench theyd been sitting on and landed in the grass, Andy Criss shouting Im killed! Im killed! over and over again, although he was never so much as touched; neither of them were. Joe Conklin, he had time to fire both his guns empty before anything so much as touched him. His coat flew back and his pants twitched like some woman you couldnt see was stitching on them. He was wearing a straw hat, and it flew off his head so you could see how hed centerparted his hair. He had one of his guns under his arm and was trying to reload the other when someone cut the legs out from under him and he went down. Kenny Borton claimed him later, but there was really no way to tell. Could have been anybody. Conklins brother Cal came out after him soons Joe fell and down he went like a ton of bricks with a hole in his head. Marie Hauser came out. Maybe she was trying to surrender, I dunno. She still had the compact shed been using to powder her nose in her right hand. She was screaming, I believe, but by then it was hard to hear. Bullets was flying all around them. That compact mirror was blown right out of her hand. She started back to the car then but she took one in the hip. She made it somehow and managed to crawl inside again. Al Bradley revved the La Salle up just as high as it would go, and managed to get it moving again. He dragged the Chevrolet maybe ten feet before the bumper tore right offn it. The boys poured lead into it. All the windows was busted. One of the mudguards was laying in the street. Malloy was dead hanging out the window, but both of the Bradley brothers were still alive. George was firing from the back seat. His woman was dead beside him with one of her eyes shot out. Al Bradley got to the big intersection, then his auto mounted the curb and stopped there. He got out from behind the wheel and started running up Canal Street. He was riddled. Patrick Caudy got out of the Chevrolet, looked as if he was going to surrender for a minute, then he grabbed a .38 from a cheaterholster under his armpit. He triggered it off maybe three times, just firing wild, and then his shirt blew back from his chest in flames. He slid down the side of the Chevy until he was sitting on the running board. He shot one more time, and so far as I know that was the only bullet that hit anyone; it ricocheted off something and then grazed across the back of Greg Coles hand. Left a scar he used to show off when he was drunk until someoneAl Nell, maybetook him aside and told him it might be a good idea to shut up about what happened to the Bradley Gang. The Hauser woman came out and that time wasnt any doubt she was trying to surrendershe had her hands up. Maybe no one really meant to kill her, but by then there was a crossfire and she walked right into it. George Bradley run as far as that bench by the War Memorial, then someone pulped the back of his head with a shotgun blast. He fell down dead with his pants full of piss.... Hardly aware I was doing it, I took a licorice whip from the jar. They went on pouring rounds into those cars for another minute or so before it began to taper off, Mr. Keene said. When men get their blood up, it doesnt go down easy. That was when I looked around and saw Sheriff Sullivan behind Nell and the others on the courthouse steps, putting rounds through that dead Chevy with a Remington pump. Dont let anyone tell you he wasnt there; Norbert Keene is sitting in front of you and telling you he was. By the time the firing stopped, those cars didnt look like cars at all anymore, just hunks of junk with glass around them. Men started to walk over to them. No one talked. All you could hear was the wind and feet gritting over broken glass. Thats when the picturetaking started. And you ought to know this, sonny when the picturetaking starts, the story is over. Mr. Keene rocked in his chair, his slippers bumping placidly on the floor, looking at me. Theres nothing like that in the Derry News, was all I could think of to say. The headline for that day had read STATE POLICE, FBI GUN DOWN BRADLEY GANG IN PITCHED BATTLE. With the subhead Local Police Lend Support. Course not, Mr. Keene said, laughing delightedly. I seen the publisher, Mack Laughlin, put two rounds into Joe Conklin himself. Christ, I muttered. Get enough licorice, sonny? I got enough, I said. I licked my lips. Mr. Keene, how could a thing of that... that magnitude... be covered up? Wasnt no coverup, he said, looking honestly surprised. It was just that no one talked about it much. And really, who cared? It wasnt President and Mrs. Hoover that went down that day. It was no worse than shooting mad dogs that would kill you with a bite if you give them half a chance. But the women? Couple of whores, he said indifferently. Besides, it happened in Derry, not in New York or Chicago. The place makes it news as much as what happened in the place, sonny. Thats why there are bigger headlines when an earthquake kills twelve people in Los Angeles than there are when one kills three thousand in some heathen country in the Mideast. Besides, it happened in Derry. Ive heard it before, and I suppose if I continue to pursue this Ill hear it again... and again ... and again. They say it as if speaking patiently to a mental defective. They say it the way they would say Because of gravity if you asked them how come you stick to the ground when you walk. They say it as if it were a natural law any natural man should understand. And, of course, the worst of that is I do understand. I had one more question for Norbert Keene. Did you see anyone at all that day that you didnt recognize once the shooting started? Mr. Keenes answer was quick enough to drop my blood temperature ten degreesor so it felt. The clown, you mean? How did you find out about him, sonny? Oh, I heard it somewhere, I said. I only caught a glimpse of him. Once things got hot, I tended pretty much to my own knittin. I glanced around just once and saw him upstreet beyond them Swedes under the Bijous marquee, Mr. Keene said. He wasnt wearing a clown suit or nothing like that. He was dressed in a pair of farmers biballs and a cotton shirt underneath. But his face was covered with that white greasepaint they use, and he had a big red clown smile painted on. Also had these tufts of fake hair, you know. Orange. Sorta comical. Lal Machen never saw that fellow, but Biff did. Only Biff must have been confused, because he thought he saw him in one of the windows of an apartment over somewhere to the left, and once when I asked Jimmy Gordonhe was killed in Pearl Harbor, you know, went down with his ship, the California, I think it washe said he saw the guy behind the War Memorial. Mr. Keene shook his head, smiling a little. Its funny how people get during a thing like that, and even funnier what they remember after its all over. You can listen to sixteen different tales and no two of them will jibe together. Take the gun that clown fellow had, for instance Gun? I asked. He was shooting, too? Ayuh, Mr. Keene said. The one glimpse I caught of him, it looked like he had a Winchester boltaction, and it wasnt until later that I figured out I must have thought that because thats what I had. Biff Marlow thought he had a Remington, because that was what he had. And when I asked Jimmy about it, he said that guy was shooting an old Springfield, just like his. Funny, huh? Funny, I managed. Mr. Keene... didnt any of you wonder what in hell a clown, especially one in farmers biballs, was doing there just then? Sure, Mr. Keene said. It wasnt no big deal, you understand, but sure we wondered. Most of us figured it was somebody who wanted to attend the party but didnt want to be recognized. A Town Council member, maybe. Horst Mueller, maybe, or even Trace Naugler, who was mayor back then. Or it could just have been a professional man who didnt want to be recognized. A doctor or a lawyer. I wouldntve recognized my own father in a getup like that. He laughed a little and I asked him what was funny. Theres also a possibility that it was a real clown, he said. Back in the twenties and thirties the county fair in Esty came a lot earlier than it does now, and it was set up and going full blast the week that the Bradley Gang met their end. There were clowns at the county fair. Maybe one of them heard we were going to have our own little carnival and rode down because he wanted to be in on it. He smiled at me, dryly. Im about talked out, he said, but Ill tell you one more thing, since you pear to be so interested and you listen so close. It was something Biff Marlow said about sixteen years later, when we were having a few beers up to Pilots in Bangor. Right out of a clear blue sky he said it. Said that clown was leanin out of the window so far that Biff couldnt believe he wasnt fallin out. It wasnt just his head and shoulders and arms that was out; Biff said he was right out to the knees, hanging there in midair, shooting down at the cars the Bradleys had come in, with that big red grin on his face. He was tricked out like a jackolantern that had got a bad scare, was how Biff put it. Like he was floating, I said. Ayuh, Mr. Keene agreed. And Biff said there was something else, something that bothered him for weeks afterward. One of those things you get right on the tip of your tongue but wont quite come off, or something that lights on your skin like a mosquito or a noseeum. He said he finally figured out what it was one night when he had to get up and tap a kidney. He stood there whizzing into the bowl, thinking of nothing in particular, when it come to him all at once that it was twotwentyfive in the afternoon when the shooting started and the sun was out but that clown didnt cast any shadow. No shadow at all. PART 4 JULY OF 1958 You lethargic, waiting upon me, waiting for the fire and I attendant upon you, shaken by your beauty Shaken by your beauty Shaken. William Carlos Williams, Paterson Well I was born in my birthday suit The doctor slapped my behind He said You gonna be special You sweet little toot toot. Sidney Simien, My Toot Toot CHAPTER 13 The Apocalyptic Rockfight 1 Bills there first. He sits in one of the wingback chairs just inside the Reading Room door, watching as Mike deals with the librarys last few customers of the nightan old lady with a clutch of paperback gothics, a man with a huge historical tome on the Civil War, and a skinny kid waiting to check out a novel with a sevendayrental sticker in an upper corner of its plastic cover. Bill sees with no sense of surprise or serendipity at all that it is his own latest novel. He feels that surprise is beyond him, serendipity a believedin reality that has turned out to be only a dream after all. A pretty girl, her tartan skirt held together with a big gold safety pin (Christ, I havent seen one of those in years, Bill thinks, are they coming back?), is feeding quarters into the Xerox machine and copying an offprint with one eye on the big pendulum clock behind the checkout desk. The sounds are librarysoft and librarycomforting the hushsqueak of soles and heels on the redandblack linoleum of the floor; the steady tock and tick of the clock dropping off dry seconds; the catlike purr of the copying machine. The boy takes his William Denbrough novel and goes to the girl at the copier just as she finishes and begins to square up her pages. You can just leave that offprint on the desk, Mary, Mike says. Ill put it away. She flashes a grateful smile. Thanks, Mr. Hanlon. Goodnight. Goodnight, Billy. The two of you go right home. The boogeyman will get you if you dont ... watch ... out! Billy, the skinny kid, chants and slips a proprietary arm around the girls slim waist. Well, I dont think hed want a pair as ugly as you two, Mike says, but be careful, all the same. We will, Mr. Hanlon, Mary replies, seriously enough, and punches the boy lightly on the shoulder. Come on, ugly, she says, and giggles. When she does this she is transformed from a pretty mildly desirable highschool junior into the coltish notquitegawky elevenyearold that Beverly Marsh had been... and as they pass him Bill is shaken by her beauty... and he feels fear; he wants to go to the boy and tell him earnestly that he must go home by welllighted streets and not look around if someone speaks. You cant be careful on a skateboard, mister, a phantom voice says inside his head, and Bill smiles a rueful grownups smile. He watches the boy open the door for his girl. They go into the vestibule, moving closer together, and Bill would have bet the royalties of the book the boy named Billy is holding under his arm that he has stolen a kiss before opening the outer door for the girl. More fool you if you didnt, Billy my man, he thinks. Now see her home safe. For Christs sake see her home safe! Mike calls, Be right with you, Big Bill. Just let me file this. Bill nods and crosses his legs. The paper bag on his lap crackles a little. Theres a pint of bourbon inside and he reckons he has never wanted a drink so badly in his life as he does right now. Mike will be able to supply water, if not iceandthe way he feels right now, a very little water will be enough. He thinks of Silver, leaning against the wall of Mikes garage on Palmer Lane. And from that his thoughts progress naturally to the day they had met in the Barrensall except Mikeand each had told his tale again lepers under porches; mummies who walked on the ice; blood from drains and dead boys in the Standpipe and pictures that moved and werewolves that chased small boys down deserted streets. They had gone deeper into the Barrens that day before the Fourth of July, he remembers now. It had been hot in town but cool in the tangled shade on the eastern bank of the Kenduskeag. He remembers one of those concrete cylinders not far away, humming to itself, the way the Xerox machine had hummed for the pretty highschool girl just now. Bill remembers that, and how, when all the stories were done, the others had looked at him. They had wanted him to tell them what they should do next, how they should proceed, and he simply didnt know. The not knowing had filled him with a kind of desperation. Looking at Mikes shadow now, looming large on the darkly paneled wall in the reference room, a sudden sureness comes to him he hadnt known then because they hadnt been complete when they met that July 3rd afternoon. The completion had come later, at the abandoned gravelpit beyond the dump, where you could climb out of the Barrens easily on either sideKansasStreet or Merit Street. Right around, in fact, where the Interstate overpass was now. The gravelpit had no name; it was old, its crumbly sides crabby with weeds and bushes. There had still been plenty of ammunition theremore than enough for an apocalyptic rockfight. But before that, on the bank of the Kenduskeag, he hadnt been sure what to saywhatdid they want him to say? What did he want to say? He remembers looking from one face to the nextBens; Bevs; Eddies; Stans; Richies. And he remembers music. Little Richard. Whompbompalompbomp ... Music. Low. And darts of light in his eyes. He remembers the darts of light because 2 Richie had hung his transistor radio over the lowermost branch of the tree he was leaning against. Although they were in the shade, the sun bounced off the surface of the Kenduskeag, onto the radios chrome facing, and from there into Bills eyes. TTake that thhing dddown, RuhRuhRichie, Bill said. Its gonna buhblind mmme. Sure, Big Bill, Richie said at once, with no smartmouth at all, and removed the radio from the branch. He also turned it off, and Bill wished he hadnt done that; it made the silence, broken only by the rippling water and the vague hum of the sewagepumping machinery, seem very loud. Their eyes watched him and he wanted to tell them to look somewhere else, what did they think he was, a freak? But of course he couldnt do that, because all they were doing was waiting for him to tell them what to do now. They had come by dreadful knowledge, and they needed him to tell them what to do with it. Why me? he wanted to shout at them, but of course he knew that, too. It was because, like it or not, he had been tapped for the position. Because he was the ideaman, because he had lost a brother to whatever it was, but most of all because he had become, in some obscure way he would never completely understand, Big Bill. He glanced at Beverly and looked away quickly from the calm trust in her eyes. Looking at Beverly made him feel funny in the pit of his stomach. Fluttery. We cuhcant go to the pppolice, he said at last. His voice sounded harsh to his own ears, too loud. We ccahan t ggo to our puhhuhharents, either. Unless ... He looked hopefully at Richie. What aaabout your mmom and ddad, foureyes? They suhheem ppretty rehrehregular. My good man, Richie said in his Toodles the Butler Voice, you obviously have no understahnding whatsoevah of my mater and pater. They Talk American, Richie, Eddie said from his spot by Ben. He was sitting by Ben for the simple reason that Ben provided enough shade for Eddie to sit in. His face looked small and pinched and worriedan old mans face. His aspirator was in his right hand. Theyd think I was ready for Juniper Hill, Richie said. He was wearing an old pair of glasses today. The day before a friend of Henry Bowerss named Gard Jagermeyer had come up behind Richie as Richie left the Derry Ice Cream Bar with a pistachio cone. Tag, youre it! this Jagermeyer, who outweighed Richie by forty pounds or so, screamed, and slammed Richie full in the back with both hands laced together. Richie flew into the gutter, losing his glasses and his icecream cone. The left lens of his glasses had shattered, and his mother was furious with him about it, lending very little credence to Richies explanations. All I know is that it was a lot of fooling around, she had said. Honestly, Richie, do you think theres a glassestree somewhere and we can just pull off a new pair of spectacles for you whenever you break the old pair? But Mom, this kid pushed me, he came up behind me, this big kid, and pushed me Richie was by then near tears. This failure to make his mother understand hurt much worse than being slammed into the gutter by Gard Jagermeyer, who was so stupid they hadnt even bothered to send him to summerschool. I dont want to hear any more about it, Maggie Tozier said flatly. But the next time you see your father come in looking whipped after working late three nights in a row, you think a little bit, Richie. You think about it. But Mom No more, I said. Her voice was curt and finalworse, it was near tears. She left the room then and the TV went on much too loud. Richie had been left alone sitting miserably at the kitchen table. It was this memory that caused Richie to shake his head again. My folks are okay, but theyd never believe something like this. WWhat aaabout other kihkids? And they looked around, Bill would remember years later, as if for someone who wasnt there. Who? Stan asked doubtfully. I cant think of anyone else I trust. Just the suhsuhsame ... Bill said in a troubled voice, and a little silence fell among them while Bill thought about what to say next. 3 If asked, Ben Hanscom would have told you that Henry Bowers hated him more than any of the others in the Losers Club, because of what had happened that day when he and Henry had shot the chutes down into the Barrens from Kansas Street, because of what had happened the day he and Richie and Beverly escaped from the Aladdin, but most of all because, by not allowing Henry to copy during examinations, he had caused Henry to be sent to summerschool and incur the wrath of his father, the reputedly insane Butch Bowers. If asked, Richie Tozier would have told you Henry hated him more than any of the others, because of the day he had fooled Henry and his two other musketeers in Freeses. Stan Uris would have told you that Henry hated him most of all because he was a Jew (when Stan had been in the third grade and Henry the fifth, Henry had once washed Stans face with snow until it bled and he was screaming hysterically with pain and fear). Bill Denbrough believed that Henry hated him the most because he was skinny, because he stuttered, and because he liked to dress well (LLLook at the ffffucking puhpuhPANSY! Henry had cried when the Derry School had had Careers Day in April and Bill had come wearing a tie; before the day was over, the tie had been ripped off and flung into a tree halfway down Charter Street). He did hate all four of them, but the boy in Derry who was number one on Henrys personal Hate Parade was not in the Losers Club at all on that July 3rd; he was a black boy named Michael Hanlon, who lived a quarter of a mile down the road from the shirttail Bowers farm. Henrys father, who was every bit as crazy as he was reputed to be, was Oscar Butch Bowers. Butch Bowers associated his financial, physical, and mental decline with the Hanlon family in general and with Mikes father in particular. Will Hanlon, he was fond of telling his few friends and his son, had had him thrown in the county jail when all of his, Hanlons, chickens died. Sos he could get the insurance money, dont you know, Butch would say, eying his audience with all the baleful interruptifyoudare pugnacity of Captain Billy Bones in the Admiral Benbow. He got some of his friends to lie him up, and thats why I had to sell my Mercry. Who lied him up, Daddy? Henry had asked when he was eight, burning at the injustice that had been done to his father. He thought to himself that when he was a grownup he would find liaruppers and coat them with honey and stake them out over anthills, like in some of those Western movies they showed at the Bijou Theater on Saturday afternoons. And because his son was a tireless listener (although, if asked, Butch would have maintained that was only as it should be), Bowers Senior filled his sons ears with a litany of hate and hard luck. He explained to his son that while all niggers were stupid, some were cunning as welland down deep they all hated white men and wanted to plow a white womans furrow. Maybe it wasnt just the insurance money after all, Butch said; maybe Hanlon had decided to lay the blame for the dead chickens at his door because Butch had the next produce stand down the road. He done it, anyway, and that was just as sure as shit sticks to a blanket. He done it and then got a bunch of white nigger bleeding hearts from town to lie him up and threaten Butch with state prison if he didnt pay that nigger off. And why not? Butch would ask his roundeyed dirtynecked silent son. Why not? I was just a man who fought the Japs for his country. There was lots of guys like us, but he was the only nigger in the county. The chicken business had been followed by one unlucky incident after anotherhis Deere tractor had blown a rod; his good harrow got busted in the north field; he got a boil on his neck which became infected, had to be lanced, then became infected again and had to be removed surgically; the nigger started using his foully gotten money to undercut Butchs prices so they lost custom. In Henrys ears, it was a constant litany the nigger, the nigger, the nigger. Everything was the niggers fault. The nigger had a nice white house with an upstairs and an oil furnace while Butch and his wife and his son lived in what was not much better than a tarpaper shack. When Butch couldnt make enough money farming and had to go to work in the woods for awhile, it was the niggers fault. When their well went dry in 1956, it was the niggers fault. Later that same year Henry, who was then ten years old, started to feed Mikes dog Mr. |
Chips old stewbones and bags of potatochips. It got so Mr. Chips would wag his tail and come running when Henry called. When the dog was well used to Henry and Henrys treats, Henry one day fed him a pound of hamburger laced with insect poison. The bugkiller he found in the back shed; he had saved three weeks to buy the meat at Costellos. Mr. Chips ate half the poisoned meat and then stopped. Go on, finish your treat, Niggerdog, Henry had said. Mr. Chips wagged his tail. Since Henry had called him this from the beginning, he believed it was his other name. When the pains started, Henry produced a piece of clothesline and tied Mr. Chips to a birch so he couldnt get away and run home. He then sat on a flat sunwarmed rock, put his chin in his palms, and watched the dog die. It took a good long time, but Henry considered it time well spent. At the end Mr. Chips began to convulse and a thin green foam ran from between his jaws. How do you like that, Niggerdog? Henry asked it, and it rolled its dying eyes up at the sound of Henrys voice and tried to wag its tail. Did you like your lunch, you shitty mutt? When the dog was dead, Henry removed the clothesline, went home, and told his father what he had done. Oscar Bowers was extremely crazy by that time; a year later his wife would leave him after he beat her nearly to death. Henry was likewise frightened of his father and felt a terrible hate for him sometimes, but he also loved him. And that afternoon, after he had told, he felt he had finally found the key to his fathers affections, because his father had clapped him on the back (so hard that Henry almost fell over), taken him in the living room, and given him a beer. It was the first beer Henry had ever had, and for all the rest of his years he would associate that taste with positive emotions victory and love. Heres to a good job well done, Henrys crazy father had said. They clicked their brown bottles together and drank them down. So far as Henry knew, the niggers had never found out who killed their dog, but he supposed they had their suspicions. He hoped they did. The others in the Losers Club knew Mike by sightin a town where he was the only Negro child, it would have been strange if they had notbut that was all, because Mike didnt go to Derry Elementary School. His mother was a devout Baptist and Mike was therefore sent to the Neibolt Street Church School. In between geography, reading, and arithmetic there were Bible drills, lessons on such subjects as The Meaning of the Ten Commandments in a Godless World, and discussiongroups on how to handle everyday moral problems (if you saw a buddy shoplifting, for instance, or heard a teacher taking the name of God in vain). Mike thought the Church School was okay. There were times when he suspected, in a vague way, that he was missing some thingsa wider communication with kids his own age perhapsbut he was willing to wait until high school for these things to happen. The prospect made him a little nervous because his skin was brown, but both his mother and father had been well treated in town as far as Mike could see, and Mike believed he would be treated well if he treated others the same way. The exception to this rule, of course, was Henry Bowers. Although he tried to show it as little as possible, Mike went in constant terror of Henry. In 1958 Mike was slim and well built, taller than Stan Uris but not quite as tall as Bill Denbrough. He was fast and agile, and that had saved him from several beatings at Henrys hands. And, of course, he went to a different school. Because of that and the age difference, their paths rarely coincided. Mike took pains to keep things that way. So the irony was this although Henry hated Mike Hanlon more than any other kid in Derry, Mike had been the least hurt of any of them. Oh, he had taken his lumps. The spring after he had killed Mikes dog, Henry sprang out of the bushes one day while Mike was walking toward town to go to the library. It was late March, warm enough for bikeriding, but in those days Witcham Road turned to dirt just beyond the Bowers place, which meant that it was a quagmire of mudno good for bikes. Hello, nigger, Henry had said, emerging from the bushes, grinning. Mike backed off, eyes flicking warily right and left, watching for a chance to get away. He knew that if he could buttonhook around Henry, he could outdistance him. Henry was big and Henry was strong, but Henry was also slow. Gonna make me a tarbaby, Henry said, advancing on the smaller boy. Youre not black enough, but Ill fix that. Mike cut his eyes to the left and twitched his body in that direction. Henry took the bait and broke that waytoo fast and too far to pull himself back. Reversing with a sweet and natural speed, Mike took off to the right (in high school he would make the varsity football team as a tailback his sophomore year, and was only kept from breaking the schools alltime scoring record by a broken leg halfway through his senior season). He would have made it easily past Henry but for the mud. It was greasy, and Mike slipped to his knees. Before he could get up, Henry was upon him. Niggerniggernigger! Henry cried in a kind of religious ecstasy as he rolled Mike over. Mud went up the back of Mikes shirt and down the back of his pants. He could feel it squoozing into his shoes. But he did not begin to cry until Henry slathered mud across his face, plugging up both of his nostrils. Now youre black! Henry had screamed gleefully, rubbing mud in Mikes hair. Now youre REEEELY black! He ripped up Mikes poplin jacket and the teeshirt beneath and slammed a poultice of mud down over the boys bellybutton. Now youre as black as midnight in a MINESHAFT! Henry screamed triumphantly, and slammed mudplugs into both of Mikes ears. Then he stood back, muddy hands hooked into his belt, and yelled I killed your dog, black boy! But Mike did not hear this because of the mud in his ears and his own terrified sobs. Henry kicked a final sticky clot of mud onto Mike and then turned and walked home, not looking back. A few moments later, Mike got up and did the same, still weeping. His mother was of course furious; she wanted Will Hanlon to call Chief Borton and have him out to the Bowers house before the sun went down. Hes been after Mikey before, Mike heard her say. He was sitting in the bathtub and his parents were in the kitchen. This was his second tub of water; the first had turned black almost the moment he had stepped into it and sat down. In her fury, his mother had lapsed into a thick Texas patois Mike could barely understand. You put the law on him, Will Hanlon! Both the dog and the pup! You law em, hear me? Will heard, but did not do as his wife asked. Eventually, when she cooled down (by then it was that night and Mike two hours asleep), he refreshed her on the facts of life. Chief Borton was not Sheriff Sullivan. If Borton had been sheriff when the incident of the poisoned chickens occurred, Will would never have gotten his two hundred dollars and would have had to be content with that state of affairs. Some men would stand behind you and some men wouldnt; Borton was of the latter type. He was, in fact, a jellyfish. Mike has had trouble with that kid before, yes, he told Jessica. But he hasnt had much because hes careful around Henry Bowers. This will serve to make him more careful. You mean youre just going to let it go? Bowers has told his son stories about his dealings with me, I guess, Will said, and his son hates the three of us because of them, and because his father has also told him that hating niggers is what men are supposed to do. It all comes back to that. I cant change the fact that our son is a Negro any more than I can sit here and tell you that Henry Bowers is going to be the last one to take after him because his skins brown. Hes going to have to deal with it all the rest of his life, as I have dealt with it, and you have dealt with it. Why, right there in that Christian school you were bound he was going to go to the teacher told them blacks werent as good as whites because Noahs son Ham looked at his father while he was drunk and naked and Noahs other two boys cast their eyes aside. Thats why the sons of Ham were condemned to always be hewers of wood and drawers of water, she said. And Mikey said she was lookin right at him while she told that story to them. Jessica looked at her husband, mute and miserable. Two tears fell, one from each eye, and tracked slowly down her face. Isnt there ever any getting away from it? His reply was kind but implacable; it was a time when wives believed their husbands, and Jessica had no reason to doubt her Will. No. There is no getting away from the word nigger, not now, not in the world weve been given to live in, you and me. Country niggers from Maine are still niggers. I have thought, times, that the reason I came back to Derry was that there is no better place to remember that. But Ill have a talk with the boy. The next day he called Mike out of the barn. Will sat on the yoke of his harrow and patted a place next to him for Mike. You want to stay out of that Henry Bowerss way, he said. Mike nodded. His father is crazy. Mike nodded again. He had heard as much around town. His few glimpses of Mr. Bowers had reinforced the notion. I dont mean just a little crazy, Will said, lighting a homerolled Bugler cigarette and looking at his son. Hes about three steps away from the boobyhatch. He came back from the war that way. I think Henrys crazy too, Mike said. His voice was low but firm, and that strengthened Wills heart ... although he was, even after a checkered life whose incidents had included almost being burned alive in a juryrigged speakeasy called the Black Spot, unable to believe a kid like Henry could be crazy. Well, hes listened to his father too much, but that is only natural, Will said. Yet on this his son was closer to the truth. Henry Bowers, either because of his constant association with his father or because of something elsesome interior thingwas indeed slowly but surely going crazy. I dont want you to make a career out of running away, his father said, but because youre a Negro, youre apt to be put upon a good deal. Do you know what I mean? Yes, Daddy, Mike said, thinking of Bob Gautier at school, who had tried to explain to Mike that nigger could not be a bad word, because his father used it all the time. In fact, Bob told Mike earnestly, it was a good word. When a fighter on the Friday Night Fights took a bad beating and managed to stay on his feet, his daddy said, His head is as hard as a niggers, and when someone was really putting out at his work (which, for Mr. Gautier, was Star Beef in town), his daddy said, That man works like a nigger. And my daddy is just as much a Christian as your daddy, Bob had finished. Mike remembered that, looking at Bob Gautiers white earnest pinched face, surrounded by the mangy fur of his handmedown snowsuithood, he had felt not anger but a terrible sadness that made him feel like crying. He had seen honesty and good intent in Bobs face, but what he had felt was loneliness, distance, a great whistling emptiness between himself and the other boy. I see that you do know what I mean, Will said, and ruffled his sons hair. And what it all comes down to is that you have to be careful where you take your stand. You have to ask yourself if Henry Bowers is worth the trouble. Is he? No, Mike said. No, I dont think so. It would be yet awhile before he changed his mind; July 3rd, 1958, in fact. 4 While Henry Bowers, Victor Criss, Belch Huggins, Peter Gordon, and a halfretarded highschool boy named Steve Sadler (known as Moose, after the character in the Archie comics) were chasing a winded Mike Hanlon through the trainyard and toward the Barrens about half a mile away, Bill and the rest of the Losers Club were still sitting on the bank of the Kenduskeag, pondering their nightmare problem. I nuhknow wwhere ihihit is, I think, Bill said, finally breaking the silence. The sewers, Stan said, and they all jumped at a sudden, harsh rattling noise. Eddie smiled guiltily as he lowered his aspirator back into his lap. Bill nodded. I wuhwuhwas aasking my fuhfather about the suhsewers a ffew nuhhihights aaago. All of this area was originally marsh, Zack told his son, and the town fathers managed to put whats downtown these days in the very worst part of it. The section of the Canal that runs under Center and Main and comes out in Bassey Park is really nothing but a drain that happens to hold the Kenduskeag. Most of the year those drains are almost empty, but theyre important when the spring runoff comes or when there are floods... He paused here, perhaps thinking that it had been during the flood of the previous autumn that he had lost his younger son. ... because of the pumps, he finished. Puhpuhpumps? Bill asked, turning his head a little without even thinking about it. When he stuttered over the plosive sounds, spittle flew from his lips. The drainage pumps, his father said. Theyre in the Barrens. Concrete sleeves that stick about three feet out of the ground BuhBuhBen HHHHanscom calls them MuhMorlock hholes, Bill said, grinning. Zack grinned back... but it was a shadow of his old grin. They were in Zacks workshop, where he was turning chairdowels without much interest. Sumppumps is all they really are, kiddo, he said. They sit in cylinders about ten feet deep, and they pump the sewage and the runoff along when the slope of the land levels out or angles up a little. Its old machinery, and the city should have some new pumps, but the Council always pleads poverty when the item comes up on the agenda at budget meetings. If I had a quarter for every time Ive been down there, up to my knees in crap, rewiring one of those motors... but you dont want to hear all this, Bill. Why dont you go watch TV? I think Sugarfoots on tonight. I dddo wuhwant to hhear it, Bill said, and not only because he had come to the conclusion that there was something terrible under Derry someplace. Why do you want to hear about a bunch of sewerpumps? Zack asked. Skuhskuhhool ruhreport, Bill said wildly. Schools out. NNNext year. Well, its a pretty dull subject, Zack said. Teacherll probably give you an F for putting him to sleep. Look, heres the Kenduskeaghe drew a straight line in the light fall of sawdust on the table in which his bandsaw was embeddedand heres the Barrens. Now, because downtowns lower than the residential areasKansas Street, say, or the Old Cape, or West Broadwaymost of the downtown waste has to be pumped into the river. The waste from the houses flows down to the Barrens pretty much on its own. You see? YYYes, Bill said, drawing a little closer to his father to look at the lines, close enough so that his shoulder was against his fathers arm. Someday theyll put a stop to pumping raw sewage into the river and thatll be an end to the whole business. But for now, weve got those pumps in the... what did your buddy call em? Morlock holes, Bill said, with not a trace of a stutter; neither he nor his father noticed. Yeah. Thats what the pumps in the Morlock holes are for, anyway, and they work pretty well except when theres too much rain and the streams overflow. Because, although the gravity drains and the sewers with the pumps were meant to be separate systems, they actually crisscross all over the place. See? He drew a series of Xs radiating out from the line which represented the Kenduskeag, and Bill nodded. Well, the only thing you need to know about water draining is that it will go wherever it can. When it gets high, it starts to fill up the drains as well as the sewers. When the water in the drains gets high enough to reach those pumps, it shorts them out. Makes trouble for me, because I have to fix them. Dad, hhow big are the suhsewers and drains? You mean, whats the bore on them? Bill nodded. The main sewers are maybe six feet in diameter. The secondaries, from the residential areas, are three or four, I guess. Some of them might be a little bigger. And believe me when I tell you this, Billy, and you can tell your friends you never want to go into one of those pipes, not in a game, not on a dare, not for any reason. Why? A dozen different town governments have built on them since 1885 or so. During the Depression the WPA put in a whole secondary drain system and a tertiary sewer system; there was lots of money for public works back then. But the fellow who bossed those projects got killed in World War II, and about five years later the Water Department found out that the system blueprints were mostly gone. Thats about nine pounds of blues that just disappeared sometime between 1937 and 1950. My point is that nobody knows where all the damned sewers and drains go, or why. When they work, nobody cares. When they dont, theres three or four sad sacks from Derry Water who have to try and find out which pump went flooey or where the plugup is. And when they go down there, they damn well pack a lunch. Its dark and its smelly and there are rats. Those are all good reasons to stay out, but the best reason is that you could get lost. Its happened before. Lost under Derry. Lost in the sewers. Lost in the dark. There was something so dismal and chilling about the idea that Bill was momentarily silenced. Then he said, But havent they ever suhsuhhent people down to map I ought to finish these dowels, Zack said abruptly, turning his back and pulling away. Go on in and see whats on TV. BBBut DahDahDad Go on, Bill, Zack said, and Bill could feel the coldness again. That coldness made suppers a kind of torture as his father leafed through electrical journals (he hoped for a promotion the following year), as his mother read one of her endless British mysteries Marsh, Sayers, Innes, Allingham. Eating in that coldness robbed food of its taste; it was like eating frozen dinners that had never seen the inside of an oven. Sometimes, after, he would go up to his room and lie on his bed, holding his griping stomach, and think He thrusts his fists against the posts and still insists he sees the ghosts. He thought of that more and more since Georgie had died, although his mother had taught him the phrase two years before. It had taken on a talismanic cast in his mind the day he could walk up to his mother and simply speak that phrase without tripping or stuttering, looking her right in the eye as he spoke it, the coldness would break apart; her eyes would light up and she would hug him and say, Wonderful, Billy! What a good boy! What a good boy! He had, of course, told this to no one. Wild horses would not have dragged it from him; neither the rack nor the boot would have induced him to give up this secret fantasy, which lay at the very center of his heart. If he could say this phrase which she had taught him casually one Saturday morning as he and Georgie sat watching Guy Madison and Andy Devine in The Adventures of Wild Bill Hickok, it would be like the kiss that awakened Sleeping Beauty from her cold dreams to the warmer world of the fairytale princes love. He thrusts his fists against the posts and still insists he sees the ghosts. Nor did he tell it to his friends on that July 3rdbut he told them what his father had told him about the Derry sewer and drain systems. He was a boy to whom invention came easily and naturally (sometimes more easily than telling the truth), and the scene he painted was quite different from the scene in which the conversation had actually taken place he and his old man had been watching the tube together, he said, having cups of coffee. Your dad lets you have coffee? Eddie asked. Shshsure, Bill said. Wow, Eddie said. My mother would never let me have a coffee. She says the caffeine in it is dangerous. He paused. She drinks quite a bit of it herself, though. My dad lets me have coffee if I want it, Beverly said, but hed kill me if he knew I smoked. What makes you so sure its in the sewers? Richie asked, looking from Bill to Stan Uris and then back to Bill again. EEEverything ggoes back tto thththat, Bill said. The vvoices Behheheverly heard ccame from the dddrain. And the bluhblood. When the ccclown chchased us, those oorange buhbuhbuttons were by a suhsewer. And JuhjuhGeorge It wasnt a clown, Big Bill, Richie said. I told you that. I know its crazy, but it was a werewolf. He looked at the others defensively. Honest to God. I saw it. Bill said It was a werewolf for yyyou. Huh? Bill said, DDont you sssee? It was a wuhwuhwerewolf for yyou because yyou saw that duhhumb movie at the AAAAladdin. I dont get it. I think I do, Ben said quietly. I went to the lllibrary and llooked it uhuhup, Bill said. I think Its a gluhgluhhe paused, throat straining, and spat it outa glamour. Glammer? Eddie asked doubtfully. GGGlamour, Bill said, and spelled it. He told them about an encyclopedia entry on the subject and a chapter he had read in a book called Nights Truth. Glamour, he said, was the Gaelic name for the creature which was haunting Derry; other races and other cultures at other times had different words for it, but they all meant the same thing. The Plains Indians called it a manitou, which sometimes took the shape of a mountainlion or an elk or an eagle. These same Indians believed that the spirit of a manitou could sometimes enter them, and at these times it was possible for them to shape the clouds themselves into representations of those animals for which their houses had been named. The Himalayans called it a tallus or taelus, which meant an evil magic being that could read your mind and then assume the shape of the thing you were most afraid of. In Central Europe it had been called eylak, brother of the vurderlak, or vampire. In France it was le loupgarou, or skinchanger, a concept that had been crudely translated as the werewolf, but, Bill told them, le loupgarou (which he pronounced le loopgaroo) could be anything, anything at all a wolf, a hawk, a sheep, even a bug. Did any of those articles tell you how to beat a glamour? Beverly asked. Bill nodded, but he didnt look hopeful. The HHHimalayans had a rihhihitual to gget rihrid of iiit, but ihits pretty gruhgruhgruesome. They looked at him, not wanting to hear but needing to. IIIt was cuhcalled the RRRitual of ChhChd, Bill said, and went on to explain what that was. If you were a Himalayan holyman, you tracked the taelus. The taelus stuck its tongue out. You stuck yours out. You and it overlapped tongues and then you both bit in all the way so you were sort of stapled together, eye to eye. Oh, I think Im gonna puke, Beverly said, rolling over on the dirt. Ben patted her back tentatively, then looked around to see if he had been observed. He hadnt been; the others were looking at Bill, mesmerized. What then? Eddie asked. WWWell, Bill said, this sounds cuhcuhcrazy, bbut the book ssaid that ththen yyou started telling juhjokes and rihriddles. What? Stan asked. Bill nodded, his face that of a correspondent who wants you to knowwithout coming right out and saying itthat he doesnt make the news but only reports it. RRight. FFirst the ttaelas monster would tell ooone, then yyyou got to tttell oone, and yyou wwwent oon like thuhthat, ttaytakin ttums Beverly sat up again, knees against her chest, hands linked around her shins. I dont see how people could talk with their tongues, you know, nailed together. Richie immediately ran out his tongue, gripped it with his fingers, and intoned My father works in a shityard! That broke them all up for awhile even though it was a baby joke. MMaybe it was suhsuhsuhpposed to be tuhtelepathy, Bill said. AAnyway, iif the hhhuman laughed fffirst in spihite of the pppp Pain? Stan asked. Bill nodded. then the taelus ggot to kkkill hhim and eeeeat him. His soul, I think. BBut iif the muhman ccould make the ttaelus llaugh fffirst, it had to go away for a huhhuhhundred yyears. Did the book say where a thing like that would come from? Ben asked. Bill shook his head. Do you believe any of it? Stan asked, sounding as if he wanted to scoff but could not quite find the moral or mental force to do so. Bill shrugged and said, I aaalmost ddo. He seemed about to say more, then shook his head and remained silent. It explains a lot, Eddie said slowly. The clown, the leper, the werewolf ... He looked over at Stan. The dead boys, too, I guess. This sounds like a job for Richard Tozier, Richie said, in the MovieTone Newsreel Announcers Voice. Man of a thousand jokes and six thousand riddles. If we sent you to do it, wed all get killed, Ben said. Slowly. In great pain. At this they all laughed again. So what do we do about it? Stan demanded, and once again Bill could only shake his head... and feel he almost knew. Stan stood up. Lets go somewhere else, he said. Im getting fanny fatigue. I like it here, Beverly said. Its shady and nice. She glanced at Stan. I suppose you want to do something babyish like going down to the dump and breaking bottles with rocks. I like breaking bottles with rocks, Richie said, standing up beside Stan. Its the j.d. in me, baby. He flipped up his collar and began to stalk around like James Dean in Rebel Without aCause. They hurt me, he said, looking moody and scratching his chest. You know, like wow. My parents. School. SoSYety. Everyone. Its pressure, baby. Its Its shit, Beverly said, and sighed. Ive got some firecrackers, Stan said, and they forgot all about glamours, manitous, and Richies bad James Dean imitation as Stan produced a package of Black Cats from his hip pocket. Even Bill was impressed. JJesus Christ, StuhStuhhan, wwhere did you ggget thuhhose? From this fat kid that I go to synagogue with sometimes, Stan said. I traded a bunch of Superman and Little Lulu funnybooks for em. Lets shoot em off! Richie cried, nearly apoplectic in his joy. Lets go shoot em off, Stanny, I wont tell any more guys you and your dad killed Christ, I promise, what do you say? Ill tell em your nose is small, Stanny! Ill tell em youre not circumcised! At this Beverly began to shriek with laughter and actually appeared to be approaching apoplexy before covering her face with her hands. Bill began to laugh, Eddie began to laugh, and after a moment even Stan joined in. The sound of it drifted across the broad shallow expanse of the Kenduskeag on that day before July 4th, a summersound, as bright as the sunrays darting off the water, and none of them saw the orange eyes staring at them from a tangle of brambles and sterile blackberry bushes to their left. This brambly patch scrubbed the entire bank for thirty feet, and in the center of it was one of Bens Morlock holes. It was from this raised concrete pipe that the eyes, each more than two feet across, stared. 5 The reason Mike ran afoul of Henry Bowers and his notsomerry band on that same day was because the next day was the Glorious Fourth. The Church School had a band in which Mike played the trombone. On the Fourth, the band would march in the annual holiday parade, playing The Battle Hymn of the Republic, Onward Christian Soldiers, and America the Beautiful. This was an occasion that Mike had been looking forward to for over a month. He walked to the final rehearsal because his bike had a busted chain. The rehearsal was not scheduled until twothirty, but he left at one because he wanted to polish his trombone, which was stored in the schools music room, until it glowed. Although his tromboneplaying was really not much better than Richies Voices, he was fond of the instrument, and whenever he felt blue a half an hour of foghorning Sousa marches, hymns, or patriotic airs cheered him right up again. There was a can of Saddlers brass polish in one of the flap pockets of his khaki shirt and two or three clean rags were dangling from the hip pocket of his jeans. The thought of Henry Bowers was the furthest thing from his mind. A glance behind as he approached Neibolt Street and the Church School would have changed his mind in a hurry, because Henry, Victor, Belch, Peter Gordon, and Moose Sadler were spread across the road behind him. If they had left the Bowers house five minutes later, Mike would have been out of sight over the crest of the next hill; the apocalyptic rockfight and everything that followed it might have happened differently, or not at all. But it was Mike himself, years later, who advanced the idea that perhaps none of them were entirely their own masters in the events of that summer; that if luck and free will had played parts, then their roles had been narrow ones. He would point out a number of these suspicious coincidences to the others at their reunion lunch, but there was at least one of which he was unaware. The meeting in the Barrens that day broke up when Stan Uris produced the Black Cats and the Losers Club headed toward the dump to shoot them off. And Victor, Belch, and the others had come out to the Bowers farm because Henry had firecrackers, cherrybombs, and M80s (the possession of these last would a few years hence become a felony). The big boys were planning to go down beyond the trainyard coalpit and explode Henrys treasures. None of them, not even Belch, went out to the Bowers farm under ordinary circumstancesprimarily because of Henrys crazy father but also because they always ended up helping Henry do his chores the weeding, the endless rockpicking, the lugging of wood, the toting of water, the pitching of hay, the picking of whatever happened to be ripe at the time of the seasonpeas, cukes, tomatoes, potatoes. These boys were not exactly allergic to work, but they had plenty to do at their own places without sweating for Henrys kooky father, who didnt much care who he hit (he had once taken a length of stovewood to Victor Criss when the boy dropped a basket of tomatoes he was lugging out to the roadside stand). Getting whopped with a chunk of birch was bad enough; what made it worse was that Butch Bowers had chanted Im gonna kill all the Nips! Im gonna kill all the fuckin Nips! when he did it. Dumb as he was, Belch Huggins had expressed it best I dont fuck with crazy people, he told Victor one day two years before. Victor had laughed and agreed. But the sirensong of all those firecrackers had been too great to be withstood. Tell you what, Henry, Victor said when Henry called him up that morning at nine and invited him out. Ill meet you at the coalpit around one oclock, what do you say? You show up at the coalpit around one and Im not gonna be there, Henry replied. I got too many chores. If you show up at the coalpit around three, I will be there. And the first M80 is going to go right up your old tan track, Vic. Vic hesitated, then agreed to come over and help with the chores. The others came as well, and with the five of them, all big boys, working like fiends around the Bowers place, they got all the chores finished by early afternoon. When Henry asked his father if he could go, Bowers the elder simply waved a languid hand at his son. Butch was settled in for the afternoon on the back porch, a quart milkbottle filled with exquisitely hard cider by his rocker, his Philco portable radio on the porch rail (later that afternoon the Red Sox would be playing the Washington Senators, a prospect that would have given a man who was not crazy a bad case of cold chills). An unsheathed Japanese sword lay across Butchs lap, a war souvenir which, Butch said, he had taken off the body of a dying Nip on the island of Tarawa (he had actually traded six bottles of Budweiser and three joysticks for the sword in Honolulu). Lately Butch almost always got out his sword when he drank. And since all of the boys, including Henry himself, were secretly convinced that sooner or later he would use it on someone, it was best to be far away when it made its appearance on Butchs lap. The boys had no more than stepped out into the road when Henry spied Mike Hanlon up ahead. |
Its the nigger! he said, his eyes lighting up like the eyes of a small child contemplating Santa Clauss imminent arrival on Christmas Eve. The nigger? Belch Huggins looked puzzledhe had seen the Hanlons only rarelyand then his dim eyes lit up. Oh yeah! The nigger! Lets get him, Henry! Belch broke into a thunderous trot. The others were following suit when Henry grabbed Belch and hauled him back. Henry had more experience than the others chasing Mike Hanlon, and he knew that catching him was easier said than done. That black boy could move. He dont see us. Lets just walk fast till he does. Cut the distance. They did so. An observer might have been amused the five of them looked as if they were trying out for that peculiar Olympic walking competition. Moose Sadlers considerable belly joggled up and down inside his Derry High School teeshirt. Sweat rolled down Belchs face, which soon grew red. But the distance between them and Mike closedtwo hundred yards, a hundred and fifty yards, a hundredand so far Little Black Sambo hadnt looked back. They could hear him whistling. What you gonna do to him, Henry? Victor Criss asked in a low voice. He sounded merely interested, but in truth he was worried. Just lately Henry had begun to worry him more and more. He wouldnt care if Henry wanted them to beat the Hanlon kid up, maybe even rip his shirt off or throw his pants and underwear up in a tree, but he was not sure that was all Henry had in mind. This year there had been several unpleasant encounters with the children from Derry Elementary Henry referred to as the little shits. Henry was used to dominating and terrorizing the little shits, but since March he had been balked by them time and time again. Henry and his friends had chased one of them, the foureyes Tozier kid, into Freeses, and had lost him somehow just when it seemed his ass was surely theirs. Then, on the last day of school, the Hanscom kid But Victor didnt like to think of that. What worried him, simply was this Henry might go TOO FAR. Just what TOO FAR might be was something Victor didnt like to think of... but his uneasy heart had prompted the question just the same. Were gonna catch him and take him down to that coalpit, Henry said. I thought wed put a couple of firecrackers in his shoes and see if he dances. But not the M80s, Henry, right? If Henry intended something like that Victor was going to take a powder. An M80 in each shoe would blow that niggers feet off, and that was much TOO FAR. Ive got only four of those, Henry said, not taking his eyes off Mike Hanlons back. They had closed the distance to seventyfive yards now and he also spoke in a low voice. You think Id waste two of em on a fuckin nightfighter? No, Henry. Course not. Well just put a couple of Black Cats in his loafers, Henry said, then strip him bareass and throw his clothes down into the Barrens. Maybe hell catch poison ivy going after them. We gotta roll im in the coal, too, Belch said, his formerly dim eyes now glowing brightly. Okay, Henry? Is that cool? Cool as a moose, Henry said in a casual way Victor didnt quite like. Well roll im in the coal, just like I rolled im in the mud that other time. And... Henry grinned, showing teeth that were already beginning to rot at the age of twelve. And I got something to tell him. I dont think he heard when I told im before. Whats that, Henry? Peter asked. Peter Gordon was merely interested and excited. He came from one of Derrys good families; he lived on West Broadway and in two years he would be sent to prep school in Grotonor so he believed on that July 3rd. He was brighter than Vic Criss, but had not hung around long enough to understand how Henry was eroding. Youll find out, Henry said. Now shut up. Were gettin close. They were twentyfive yards behind Mike and Henry was just opening his mouth to give the order to charge when Moose Sadler set off the first firecracker of the day. Moose had eaten three plates of baked beans the night before, and the fart was almost as loud as a shotgun blast. Mike looked around. Henry saw his eyes widen. Get him! Henry howled. Mike froze for a moment; then he took off, running for his life. 6 The Losers wound their way through the bamboo in the Barrens in this order Bill; Richie; Beverly behind Richie, walking slim and pretty in bluejeans and a white sleeveless blouse, zoris on her feet; then Ben, trying not to puff too loudly (although it was eightyone that day, he was wearing one of his baggy sweatshirts); Stan; Eddie bringing up the rear, the snout of his aspirator poking out of his right front pants pocket. Bill had fallen into a junglesafari fantasy, as he often did when walking through this part of the Barrens. The bamboo was high and white, limiting visibility to the path they had made through here. The earth was black and squelchy, with sodden patches that had to be avoided or jumped over if you didnt want to get mud in your shoes. The puddles of standing water had oddly flat rainbow colors. The air had a reeky smell that was half the dump and half rotting vegetation. Bill halted one turn away from the Kenduskeag and turned back to Richie. TTTiger up ahead, TTTozier. Richie nodded and turned back to Beverly. Tiger, he breathed. Tiger, she told Ben. Maneater? Ben asked, holding his breath to keep from panting. Theres blood all over him, Beverly said. Maneating tiger, Ben muttered to Stan, and he passed the news back to Eddie, whose thin face was hectic with excitement. They faded into the bamboo, leaving the path of black earth that looped through it magically bare. The tiger passed in front of them and all of them nearly saw it heavy, perhaps four hundred pounds, its muscles moving with grace and power beneath the silk of its striped pelt. They nearly saw its green eyes, and the flecks of blood around its snout from the last batch of pygmy warriors it had eaten alive. The bamboo rattled faintly, a noise both musical and eerie, and then was still again. It might have been a breath of summer breeze ... or it might have been the passage of an African tiger on its way toward the Old Cape side of the Barrens. Gone, Bill said. He let out a pentup breath and stepped out onto the path again. The others followed suit. Richie was the only one who had come armed he produced a cappistol with a frictiontaped handgrip. I could have had a clear shot at him if youd moved, Big Bill, he said grimly. He pushed the bridge of his old glasses up on his nose with the muzzle of the gun. Theres WuhWuhWatusis around hhhere, Bill said. CCCant rihrisk a shot. YYou wwant them down on tttop of us? Oh, Richie said, convinced. Bill made a comeon gesture with his arm and they were back on the path again, which narrowed into a neck at the end of the bamboo patch. They stepped out onto the bank of the Kenduskeag, where a series of steppingstones led across the river. Ben had shown them how to place them. You got a big rock and plopped it in the water, then you got a second and plopped it in the water while you were stepping on the first, then you got a third and plopped it in the water while you were stepping on the second, and so on until you were all the way across the river (which here, and at this time of year, was less than a foot deep and shaled with tawny sandbars) with your feet still dry. The trick was so simple it was damn near babyish, but none of them had seen it until Ben pointed it out. He was good at stuff like that, but when he showed you he never made you feel like a dummy. They went down the bank in single file and started across the dry backs of the rocks they had planted. Bill! Beverly called urgently. He froze at once, not looking back, arms held out. The water chuckled and rilled around him. What? Theres piranha fish in here! I saw them eat a whole cow two days ago. A minute after it fell in, there was nothing but bones. Dont fall off! Right, Bill said. Be careful, men. They teetered their way across the rocks. A freighttrain charged by on the railway embankment as Eddie Kaspbrak neared the halfway point, and the sudden blast of its airhorn caused him to jiggle on the edge of balance. He looked into the bright water and for one moment, between the sunflashes that darted arrows of light into his eyes, he actually saw the cruising piranhas. They were not part of the makebelieve that went with Bills jungle safari fantasy; he was quite sure of that. The fish he saw looked like oversized goldfish with the great ugly jaws of catfish or groupers. Sawteeth protruded between their thick lips and, like goldfish, they were orange. As orange as the fluffy pompoms you sometimes saw on the suits the clowns wore at the circus. They circled in the shallow water, gnashing. Eddie pinwheeled his arms. Im going in, he thought. Im going in and theyll eat me alive Then Stanley Uris gripped his wrist firmly and brought him back to dead center. Close call, Stan said. If you fell in, your motherd give you heck. Thoughts of his mother were, for once, the furthest things from Eddies mind. The others had gained the far bank now and were counting cars on the freight. Eddie stared wildly into Stans eyes, then looked into the water again. He saw a potatochip bag go dancing by, but that was all. He looked up at Stan again. Stan, I saw What? Eddie shook his head. Nothing, I guess, he said. Im just a little (but they were there yes they were and they would have eaten me alive) jumpy. The tiger, I guess. Keep going. This western bank of the Kenduskeagthe Old Cape bankwas a quagmire of mud during rainy weather and the spring runoff, but there had been no heavy rain in Derry for two weeks or more and the bank had dried to an alien crackglaze from which several of those cement cylinders poked, casting grim little shadows. About twenty yards farther down, a cement pipe jutted out over the Kenduskeag and spilled a steady thin stream of foullooking brown water into the river. Ben said quietly, Its creepy here, and the others nodded. Bill led them up the dry bank and back into the heavy shrubbery, where bugs whirred and chiggers chigged. Every now and then there would be a heavy ruffle of wings as a bird took off. Once a squirrel ran across their path, and about five minutes later, as they approached the low wrinkle of ridge that guarded the town dumps blind side, a large rat with a bit of cellophane caught in its whiskers trundled in front of Bill, passing along its own secret run through its own microcosmic wilderness. The smell of the dump was now clear and pungent; a black column of smoke rose in the sky. The ground, while still heavily overgrown except for their own narrow path, began to be strewn with litter. Bill had dubbed this dumpdandruff, and Richie had been delighted; he had laughed almost until he cried. You ought to write that down, Big Bill, he said. Thats really good. Papers caught on branches wavered and flapped like cutrate pennants; here was a silver gleam of summer sun reflected from a clutch of tin cans lying at the bottom of a green and tangled hollow; there the hotter reflection of sunrays bouncing off a broken beer bottle. Beverly spied a babydoll, its plastic skin so brightly pink it looked almost boiled. She picked it up, then dropped it with a little cry as she saw the whitishgray beetles squirming from beneath its moldy skirt and down its rotting legs. She rubbed her fingers on her jeans. They climbed to the top of the ridge and looked down into the dump. Oh shit, Bill said, and jammed his hands into his pockets as the others gathered around him. They were burning the northern end today, but here, at their end, the dumpkeeper (he was, in fact, Armando Fazio, Mandy to his friends, and the bachelor brother of the Derry Elementary School janitor) was tinkering on the World War II D9 dozer he used to push the crap into piles for burning. His shirt was off, and the big portable radio sitting under the canvas parasol on the dozers seat was putting out the Red SoxSenators pregame festivities. Cant go down there, Ben agreed. Mandy Fazio was not a bad guy, but when he saw kids in the dump he ran them off at oncebecause of the rats, because of the poison he regularly sowed to keep the rat population down, because of the potential for cuts, falls, and burns... but mostly because he believed a dump was no place for children to be. Aint you nice? he would yell at the kids he spied who had been drawn to the dump with their .22s to plink away at bottles (or rats, or seagulls) or by the exotic fascination of dumppicking you might find a toy that still worked, a chair that could be mended for a clubhouse, or a junked TV with the picturetube still intactif you threw a rock through one of these there was a very satisfying explosion. Aint you kids nice? Mandy would bellow (he bellowed not because he was angry but because he was deaf and wore no hearingaid). Dintchore folks teach you to be nice? Nice boys and girls dont play in the dump! Go to the park! Go to the liberry! Go down to Community House and play boxhockey! Be nice! Nope, Richie said. Guess the dumps out. They all sat down for a few moments to watch Mandy work on his dozer, hoping he would give up and go away but not really believing he would the presence of the radio suggested Mandy intended to stay all afternoon. It was enough to piss off the Pope, Bill thought. There was really no better place to come with firecrackers than the dump. You could put them under tin cans and then watch the cans fly into the air when the firecrackers went off, or you could light the fuses and drop them into bottles and then run like hell. The bottles didnt always break, but usually they did. Wish we had some M80s, Richie sighed, unaware of how soon one would be chucked at his head. My mother says people ought to be happy with what they have, Eddie said so solemnly that they all laughed. When the laughter died away, they all looked toward Bill again. Bill thought about it and then said, I nuhknow a pplace. Theres an old gruhgruhgravelpit at the end of the BuhBarrens by the tttrainyards Yeah! Stan said, getting to his feet. I know that place! Youre a genius, Bill! Theyll really echo there, Beverly agreed. Well, lets go, Richie said. The six of them, one shy of the magic number, walked along the brow of the hill which circled the dump. Mandy Fazio glanced up once and saw them silhouetted against the blue sky like Indians out on a raiding party. He thought about hollering at themthe Barrens was no place for kidsand then he turned back to his work instead. At least they werent in his dump. 7 Mike Hanlon ran past the Church School without pausing and pelted straight up Neibolt Street toward the Derry trainyards. There was a janitor at NCS, but Mr. Gendron was very old and even deafer than Mandy Fazio. Also, he liked to spend most of his summer days asleep in the basement by the summersilent boiler, stretched out in a battered old reclining chair with the Derry News in his lap. Mike would still be pounding on the door and shouting for the old man to let him in when Henry Bowers came up behind him and tore his freaking head off. So Mike just ran. But not blindly; he was trying to pace himself, trying to control his breathing, not yet going all out. Henry, Belch, and Moose Sadler presented no problems; even relatively fresh they ran like wounded buffalo. Victor Criss and Peter Gordon, however, were much faster. As Mike passed the house where Bill and Richie had seen the clownor the werewolfhe snapped a glance back and was alarmed to see that Peter Gordon had almost closed the distance. Peter was grinning cheerfullya steeplechase grin, a fullout polo grin, a pippipjollygoodshow grin, and Mike thought Iwonder if hed grin that way if he knew whats going to happen if they catch me.... Does he think theyre just going to say Tag, youre it, and run away? As the trainyard gate with its signPRIVATE PROPERTY KEEP OUT VIOLATORS WILL BE PROSECUTEDloomed up, Mike was forced to let himself out to the limit. There was no painhis breathing was rapid yet still controlledbut he knew everything was going to start hurting if he had to keep this pace up for long. The gate was standing halfway open. He snapped a second look back and saw that hed pulled away from Peter again. Victor was perhaps ten paces behind Peter, the others now forty or fifty yards back. Even in that quick glance Mike could see the black anger on Henrys face. He skittered through the opening, whirled, and slammed the gate closed. He heard the click as it latched. A moment later Peter Gordon slammed into the chainlink, and a moment after that, Victor Criss ran up beside him. Peters smile was gone; a sulky, balked look had replaced it. He grabbed for the latch, but of course there was none the latch was on the inside. Incredibly, he said Come on, kid, open the gate. Thats not fair. Whats your idea of fair? Mike asked, panting. Five against one? Fairup, Peter repeated, as if he had not heard Mike at all. Mike looked at Victor, saw the troubled look in Victors eyes. He started to speak, but that was when the others pulled up to the gate. Open up, nigger! Henry bawled. He began to shake the chainlink with such ferocity that Peter looked at him, startled. Open up! Open up right now! I wont, Mike said quietly. Open up! Belch shouted. Open up, ya fuckin jigaboo! Mike backed away from the gate, his heart beating heavily in his chest. He couldnt remember ever being quite this scared, quite this upset. They lined their side of the gate, shouting at him, calling him names for nigger he had never dreamed existednightfighter, Ubangi, spade, blackberry, junglebunny, others. He was barely aware that Henry was taking something from his pocket, that he had popped a wooden match alight with his thumbnailand then a round red something came over the fence and he flinched instinctively away as the cherrybomb exploded to his left, kicking up dust. The bang silenced them all for a momentMike stared unbelievingly at them through the fence, and they stared back. Peter Gordon looked utterly shocked, and even Belch looked stunned. Theyre ascared of him now, Mike thought suddenly, and a new voice spoke inside of him, perhaps for the first time, a voice that was disturbingly adult. Theyre ascared, but that wont stop them. You got to get away, Mikey, or somethings going to happen. Not all of them will want it to happen, maybenotVictor and maybe not Peter Gordonbutit will happen anyway because Henry will make it happen. So get away. Get away fast. He backed up another two or three steps and then Henry Bowers said I was the one killed your dog, nigger. Mike froze, feeling as if he had been hit in the belly with a bowling ball. He stared into Henry Bowerss eyes and understood that Henry was telling the simple truth he had killed Mr. Chips. That moment of understanding seemed nearly eternal to Mikelooking into Henrys crazed sweatringed eyes and his rageblackened face, it seemed to him that he understood a great many things for the first time, and the fact that Henry was far crazier than Mike had ever dreamed was only the least of them. He realized above all that the world was not kind, and it was more this than the news itself that forced the cry from him You honky chickenshit bastard! Henry uttered a shriek of rage and attacked the fence, monkeying his way toward the top with a brute strength that was terrifying. Mike paused a moment longer, wanting to see if that adult voice that had spoken inside had been a true voice, and yes, it had been true after the slightest hesitation, the others spread out and also began to climb. Mike turned and ran again, sprinting across the trainyards, his shadow trailing squat at his feet. The freight which the Losers had seen crossing the Barrens was long gone now, and there was no sound but Mikes own breathing in his ears and the musical jingle of chainlink as Henry and the others climbed the fence. Mike ran across one triple set of tracks, his sneakers kicking back cinders as he ran across the space between. He stumbled crossing the second set of tracks, and felt pain flare briefly in his ankle. He got up and ran on again. He heard a thud as Henry jumped down from the top of the fence behind him. Here I come for your ass, nigger! Henry bawled. Mikes reasoning self had decided that the Barrens were his only chance now. If he could get down there he could hide in the tangles of underbrush, in the bamboo... or, if things became really desperate, he could climb into one of the drainpipes and wait it out. He could do those things, maybe... but there was a hot spark of fury in his chest that had nothing to do with his reasoning self. He could understand Henry chasing after him when he got the chance, but Mr. Chips? ... killing Mr. Chips? My DOG wasnt a nigger, you cheapshit bastard, Mike thought as he ran, and the bewildered anger grew. Now he heard another voice, this one his fathers. I dont want you to make a career out of running away... and what it all comes down to is that you have to be careful where you take your stand. You have to ask yourself if Henry Bowers is worth the trouble.... Mike had been running a straight line across the trainyards toward the storage quonsets. Beyond them another chainlink fence divided the trainyards from the Barrens. He had been planning to scale that fence and jump over to the other side. Instead he veered hard right, toward the gravelpit. This gravelpit had been used as a coalpit until 1935 or soit had been a stokingpoint for the trains which ran through the Derry yards. Then the diesels came, and the electrics. For a number of years after the coal was gone (much of the remainder stolen by people with coalfired furnaces) a local contractor had dug gravel there, but he went bust in 1955 and since then the pit had been deserted. A spur railroad line still ran in a loop up to the pit and then back toward the switchingyards, but the tracks were dull with rust, and ragweed grew up between the rotting ties. These same weeds grew in the pit itself, vying for space with goldenrod and nodding sunflowers. Amid the vegetation there was still plenty of slag coalthe stuff people had once called clinkers. As Mike ran toward this place, he took his shirt off. He reached the rim of the pit and looked back. Henry was coming across the tracks, his buddies spread out around him. That was okay, maybe. Moving as quickly as he could, using his shirt for a bindle, Mike picked up half a dozen handfuls of hard clinkers. Then he ran back toward the fence, swinging his shirt by the arms. Instead of climbing the fence when he reached it, he turned so his back was against it. He dumped the coal out of his shirt, stooped, and picked up a couple of chunks. Henry didnt see the coal; he only saw that he had the nigger trapped against the fence. He sprinted toward him, yelling. This is for my dog, you bastard! Mike cried, unaware that he had begun to cry. He threw one of the chunks of coal overhand. It flew in a hard direct line. It struck Henrys forehead with a loud bonk! and then rebounded into the air. Henry stumbled to his knees. His hands went to his head. Blood seeped through his fingers at once, like a magicians surprise. The others skidded to a stop, their faces stamped with identical expressions of disbelief. Henry uttered a high scream of pain and got to his feet again, still holding his head. Mike threw another chunk of coal. Henry ducked. He began to walk toward Mike, and when Mike threw a third chunk of coal, Henry removed one hand from his gashed forehead and batted the chunk of coal almost casually aside. He was grinning. Oh, youre gonna get such a surprise, he said. Such aOHMY GAWD! Henry tried to say more, but only inarticulate gargling noises emerged from his mouth. Mike had pegged another chunk of coal and this one had struck Henry square in the throat. Henry buckled to his knees again. Peter Gordon gaped. Moose Sadlers brow was furrowed, as if he were trying to figure out a difficult math problem. What are you guys waiting for? Henry managed. Blood seeped between his fingers. His voice sounded rusty and foreign. Get him! Get the little cocksucker! Mike didnt wait to see if they would obey or not. He dropped his shirt and leaped at the fence. He began to pull himself up toward the top and then he felt rough hands grab his foot. He looked down and saw Henry Bowerss contorted face, smeared by blood and coal. Mike yanked his foot up. His sneaker came off in Henrys hand. He pistoned his bare foot down into Henrys face and heard something crunch. Henry screamed again and staggered backward, now holding his spouting nose. Another handBelch Hugginsssnagged briefly in the cuff of Mikes jeans, but he was able to pull free. He threw one leg over the top of the fence, and then something struck him with blinding force on the side of his face. Warmth trickled down his cheek. Something else struck his hip, his forearm, his upper thigh. They were throwing his own ammunition at him. He hung briefly by his hands and then dropped, rolling over twice. The scrubby ground sloped downward here, and perhaps that saved Mike Hanlons eyesight or even his life; Henry had approached the fence again and now looped one of his four M80s over the top of the fence. It went off with a terrific CRRRACK! that echoed and blew a wide bare patch in the grass. Mike, his ears ringing, went headoverheels and staggered to his feet. He was now in high grass, on the edge of the Barrens. He wiped a hand down his right cheek and it came away bloody. The blood did not particularly worry him; he had not expected to come out of this unscathed. Henry tossed a cherrybomb, but Mike saw this one coming and moved away easily. Lets get him! Henry roared, and began to climb the fence. Jeez, Henry, I dont know This had gone too far for Peter Gordon, who had never encountered a situation that had turned so suddenly savage. Things were not supposed to get bloodyat least not for your teamwhen the odds were comfortably slugged in your favor. You better know, Henry said, looking back at Peter from halfway up the fence. He hung there like a bloated poisonous spider in human shape. His baleful eyes stared at Peter; blood rimmed them on either side. Mikes downward kick had broken his nose, although Henry would not be aware of the fact for some time yet. You better know, or Ill come after you, you fucking jerk. The others began to climb the fence, Peter and Victor with some reluctance, Belch and Moose as vacantly eager as before. Mike waited to see no more. He turned and ran into the scrub. Henry bellowed after him Ill find you, nigger! Ill find you! 8 The Losers had reached the far side of the gravelpit, which was little more than a huge weedy pockmark in the earth now, three years after the last load of gravel had been taken out of it. They were all gathered around Stan, looking appreciatively at his package of Black Cats, when the first explosion came. Eddie jumpedhe was still goofed up over the piranha fish he thought he had seen (he wasnt sure what real piranha fish looked like, but he was pretty sure they didnt look like oversized goldfish with teeth). Merrow down easy, Eddiesan, Richie said, doing his Chinese Coolie Voice. Iss just other kids shooting off fireclackers. That sssucks the rrroot, RihRihRichie, Bill remarked. The others laughed. I keep trying, Big Bill, Richie said. I feel like, if I get good enough, someday Ill earn your love. He made dainty kissing gestures at the air. Bill shot him the finger. Ben and Eddie stood side by side, grinning. Oh Im so young and youre so old, Stan Uris piped up suddenly, doing an eerily accurate Paul Anka imitation, this my darling Ive been told He can sayng! Richie screeched in his Pickaninny Voice. Lawksamussy, thisyere boy can sayng! And then, in the MovieTone Announcers Voice Want you to sign right here, boy, on this dotted line. Richie slung an arm around Stans shoulders and favored him with a gigantic gleaming smile. Were going to grow your hair out, boy. Going to give you a gittar. Going to Bill popped Richie twice on the arm, quickly and lightly. They were all excited at the prospect of shooting off firecrackers. Open them up, Stan, Beverly said. Ive got some matches. They gathered around again as Stan carefully opened the package of firecrackers. There were exotic Chinese letters on the black label and a sober caution in English that got Richie giggling again. Do not hold in hand after fuse is lit, this warning read. Good thing they told me, Richie said. I always used to hold them after I lit them. I thought thats how you got rid of your frockin hangnails. Working slowly, almost reverently, Stan removed the red cellophane and laid the block of cardboard tubes, blue and red and green, on the palm of his hand. Their fuses had been braided together in a Chinese pigtail. Ill unwind the Stan began, and then there was a much louder explosion. The echo rolled slowly across the Barrens. A cloud of gulls rose from the eastern side of the dump, squalling and crying. They all jumped this time. Stan dropped the firecrackers and had to pick them up. Was that dynamite? Beverly asked nervously. She was looking at Bill, whose head was up, his eyes wide. She thought he had never looked so handsomebut there was something too alert, too strungup, in the attitude of his head. He was like a deer scenting fire in the air. That was an M80, I think, Ben said quietly. Last Fourth of July I was in the park and there were these highschool kids that had a couple. They put one of them in a steel trashcan. It made a noise like that. Did it blow a hole in the can, Haystack? Richie asked. No, but it bulged out the side. Looked like there was some little guy inside who just stroked it one. They ran away. The big one was closer, Eddie said. He also glanced at Bill. Do you guys want to shoot these off or not? Stan asked. He had unbraided about a dozen of the firecrackers and had put the rest neatly back in the waxed paper for later. Sure, Richie said. PPPut them aaaway. They looked at Bill questioningly, a little scaredit was his abrupt tone more than what he had said. PPPuhhut them aaaaway, Bill repeated, his face contorting with the effort he was making to get the words out. Spit flew from his lips. SSSuhhomethings gggonna hhhappen. Eddie licked his lips, Richie shoved his glasses up the sweaty slope of his nose with his thumb, and Ben moved closer to Beverly without even thinking about it. Stan opened his mouth to say something and then there was another, smaller explosionanother cherrybomb. RuhRocks, Bill said. What, Bill? Stan asked. RuhRuhRocks. AAAmmo. Bill began to pick up stones, stuffing them into his pockets until they bulged. The others stared at him as though he had gone crazy... and then Eddie felt sweat break on his forehead. All of a sudden he knew what a malaria attack felt like. He had sensed something like this on the day he and Bill had met Ben (except Eddie, like the others, was already coming to think of Ben as Haystack), the day Henry Bowers had casually bloodied his nosebut this felt worse. This felt like maybe it was going to be Hiroshima time in the Barrens. Ben started to get rocks, then Richie, moving quickly, not talking now. His glasses slipped all the way off and clicked to the gravelly surface of the ground. He folded them up absently and put them inside his shirt. Why did you do that, Richie? Beverly asked. Her voice sounded thin, too taut. Dont know, keed, Richie said, and went on picking up rocks. Beverly, maybe you better, uh, go back toward the dump for awhile, Ben said. His hands were full of rocks. Shit on that, she said. Shit all over that, Ben Hanscom. She bent and began to gather rocks herself. Stan looked at them thoughtfully as they grubbed for rocks like lunatic farmers. Then he began to gather them himself, his lips pressed into a thin and prissy line. |
Eddie felt the familiar tightening sensation as his throat began to close up to a pinhole. Not this time, dammit, he thought suddenly. Not if my friends need me. Like Bev said, shit all over that. He also began to gather rocks. 9 Henry Bowers had gotten too big too fast to be either quick or agile under ordinary circumstances, but these circumstances were not ordinary. He was in a frenzy of pain and rage, and these lent him an ephemeral unthinking physical genius. Conscious thought was gone; his mind felt the way a latesummer grassfire looks as dusk comes on, all rosered and smokegray. He took after Mike Hanlon like a bull after a red flag. Mike was following a rudimentary path along the side of the big pit, a path which would eventually lead to the dump, but Henry was too far gone to bother with such niceties as paths; he slammed through the bushes and the brambles on a straight line, feeling neither the tiny cuts inflicted by the thorns nor the slaps of limber bushes striking his face, neck, and arms. The only thing that mattered was the niggers kinky head, drawing closer. Henry had one of the M80s in his right hand and a wooden match in his left. When he caught the nigger he was going to strike the match, light the fuse, and stuff that ashcan right down the front of his pants. Mike knew that Henry was gaining and the others were close on his heels. He tried to push himself faster. He was badly scared now, keeping panic at bay only by a grim effort of will. He had turned his ankle more seriously crossing the tracks than he had thought at first, and now he was limpskipping along. The crackle and crash of Henrys goforbroke progress behind him called up unpleasant images of being chased by a killer dog or a rogue bear. The path opened out just ahead, and Mike more fell than ran into the gravelpit. He rolled to the bottom, got to his feet, and was halfway across before he realized that there were kids there, six of them. They were spread out in a straight line and there was a funny look on their faces. It wasnt until later, when hed had a chance to sort out his thoughts, that he realized what was so odd about that look it was as if they had been expecting him. Help, Mike managed as he limped toward them. He spoke instinctively to the tall boy with the red hair. Kids ... big kids That was when Henry burst into the gravelpit. He saw the six of them and came to a skidding halt. For a moment his face was marked with uncertainty and he looked back over his shoulder. He saw his troops, and when Henry looked back at the Losers (Mike was now standing beside and slightly behind Bill Denbrough, panting rapidly), he was grinning. I know you, kid, he said, speaking to Bill. He glanced at Richie. I know you, too. Wheres your glasses, foureyes? And before Richie could reply, Henry saw Ben. Well, son of a bitch! The Jew and the fatboy are here too! That your girlfriend, fatboy? Ben jumped a little, as if goosed. Just then Peter Gordon pulled up beside Henry. Victor arrived and stood on Henrys other side; Belch and Moose Sadler arrived last. They flanked Peter and Victor, and now the two opposing groups stood facing each other in neat, almost formal lines. Panting heavily as he spoke and still sounding more than a little like a human bull, Henry said, I got bones to pick with a lot of you, but I can let that go for today. I want that nigger. So you little shits buzz off. Right! Belch said smartly. He killed my dog! Mike cried out, his voice shrill and breaking. He said so! You come on over here right now, Henry said, and maybe I wont kill you. Mike trembled but did not move. Speaking softly and clearly, Bill said The BBarrens are ours. You kkkids get out of hhere. Henrys eyes widened. It was as if hed been slapped unexpectedly. Whos gonna make me? he asked. You, horsefoot? UhUhUs, Bill said. Were through tttaking your shit, BBBowers. Get owowout. You stuttering freak, Henry said. He lowered his head and charged. Bill had a handful of rocks; all of them had a handful except Mike and Beverly, who was only holding one. Bill began to throw at Henry, not hurrying his throws, but chucking hard and with fair accuracy. The first rock missed; the second struck Henry on the shoulder. If the third had missed, Henry might have closed with Bill and wrestled him to the ground, but it didnt miss; it struck Henrys lowered head. Henry cried out in surprised pain, looked up ... and was hit four more times a little billetdoux from Richie Tozier on the chest, one from Eddie that ricocheted off his shoulderblade, one from Stan Uris that struck his shin, and Beverlys one rock, which hit him in the belly. He looked at them unbelievingly, and suddenly the air was full of whizzing missiles. Henry fell back, that same bewildered, pained expression on his face. Come on, you guys! he shouted. Help me! Chchcharge them, Bill said in a low voice, and not waiting to see if they would or not, he ran forward. They came with him, firing rocks not only at Henry now but at all the others. The big boys were grubbing on the ground for ammunition of their own, but before they could gather much, they had been peppered. Peter Gordon screamed as a rock thrown by Ben glanced off his cheekbone and drew blood. He backed up a few steps, paused, threw a hesitant rock or two back... and then fled. He had had enough; things were not done this way on West Broadway. Henry grabbed up a handful of rocks in a savage sweeping gesture. Most of them, fortunately for the Losers, were pebbles. He threw one of the larger ones at Beverly and it cut her arm. She cried out. Bellowing, Ben ran for Henry Bowers, who looked around in time to see him coming but not in time to sidestep. Henry was offbalance; Ben was one hundred and fifty trying for onesixty; the result was no contest. Henry did not go sprawling but flying. He landed on his back and skidded. Ben ran toward him again and was only vaguely aware of a warm, blooming pain in his ear as Belch Huggins nailed him with a rock roughly the size of a golf ball. Henry was getting groggily to his knees as Ben reached him and kicked him hard, his sneakered foot connecting solidly with Henrys left hip. Henry rolled over heavily on his back. His eyes blazed up at Ben. You aint supposed to throw rocks at girls! Ben shouted. He could not remember ever in his life feeling so outraged. You aint Then he saw a flame in Henrys hand as Henry popped the wooden match alight. He touched it to the thick fuse of the M80, which he then threw at Bens face. Acting with no thought at all, Ben struck the ashcan with the palm of his hand, swinging at it as one would swing a racket at a badminton birdie. The M80 went back down. Henry saw it coming. His eyes widened and then he rolled away, screaming. The ashcan exploded a splitsecond later, blackening the back of Henrys shirt and tearing some of it away. A moment later Ben was hit by Moose Sadler and driven to his knees. His teeth clicked together over his tongue, drawing blood. He blinked around, dazed. Moose was coming toward him, but before he could reach the place where Ben was kneeling, Bill came up behind him and began pelting the big kid with rocks. Moose wheeled around, bellowing. You hit me from behind, yellowbelly! Moose screamed. You fuckin dirtyfighter! He gathered himself to charge, but Richie joined Bill and also began to fire rocks at Moose. Richie was unimpressed with Mooses rhetoric on the subject of what might or might not constitute yellowbelly behavior; he had seen the five of them chasing one scared kid, and he didnt think that exactly put them up there with King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table. One of Richies missiles split the skin above Mooses left eyebrow. Moose howled. Eddie and Stan Uris moved up to join Bill and Richie. Beverly moved in with them, her arm bleeding but her eyes wildly alight. Rocks flew. Belch Huggins screamed as one of them clipped his crazybone. He began to dance lumbersomely, rubbing his elbow. Henry got to his feet, the back of his shirt hanging in rags, the skin beneath almost miraculously unmarked. Before he could turn around, Ben Hanscom bounced a rock off the back of his head and drove him to his knees again. It was Victor Criss who did the most damage to the Losers that day, partly because he was a pretty fair fastball pitcher, but mostlyparadoxicallybecause he was the least emotionally involved. More and more he didnt want to be here. People could get seriously hurt in rockfights; a kid could get his skull split, a mouthful of broken teeth, could even lose an eye. But since he was in it, he was in it. He intended to dish out some trouble. That coolness had allowed him to take an extra thirty seconds and pick up a handful of goodsized rocks. He threw one at Eddie as the Losers reformed their rough skirmish line, and it struck Eddie on the chin. He fell down, crying, the blood already starting to flow. Ben turned toward him but Eddie was already getting up again, the blood gruesomely bright against his pallid skin, his eyes slitted. Victor threw at Richie and the rock thudded off Richies chest. Richie threw back but Vic ducked it easily and threw one sidearm at Bill Denbrough. Bill snapped his head back, but not quite quickly enough; the rock cut his cheek wide open. Bill turned toward Victor. Their eyes locked, and Victor saw something in the stuttering kids gaze that scared the hell out of him. Absurdly, the words I take it back! trembled behind his lips ... except that was nothing you said to a little kid. Not if you didnt want your buddies to start ranking you to the dogs and back. Bill started to walk toward Victor now, and Victor began to walk toward Bill. At the same moment, as if by some telepathic signal, they began to throw rocks at each other, still closing the distance. The fighting flagged around them as the others turned to watch; even Henry turned his head. Victor ducked and bobbed, but Bill made no such effort. Victors rocks slammed him in the chest, the shoulder, the stomach. One clipped by his ear. Apparently unshaken by any of this, Bill threw one rock after another, pegging them with murderous force. The third one struck Victors knee with a brittle chipping sound and Victor uttered a stifled groan. He was out of ammunition. Bill had one rock left. It was smooth and white, shot with quartz, roughly the size and shape of a ducks egg. To Victor Criss it looked very hard. Bill was less than five feet away from him. YYYou gget owout of hhhere now, he said, or Im ggoing to spuhpuhlit your hhead ooopen. I mmean ihihit. Looking into his eyes, Victor saw that he really did. Without another word, he turned and headed back the way Peter Gordon had gone. Belch and Moose Sadler were looking around uncertainly. Blood trickled from the corner of the Sadler boys mouth, and blood from a scalpwound was sheeting down the side of Belchs face. Henrys mouth worked but no sound came out. Bill turned toward Henry. GGGet out, he said. What if I wont? Henry was trying to sound tough, but Bill could now see a different thing in Henrys eyes. He was scared, and he would go. It should have made Bill feel goodtriumphant, evenbut he only felt tired. IIf you wwont, Bill said, wwwere ggoing to muhmove iin on yyou. I think the sssix of uus can pput you in the huhhuhhospital. Seven, Mike Hanlon said, and joined them. He had a softballsized rock in each hand. Just try me, Bowers. Id love to. You fucking NIGGER! Henrys voice broke and wavered on the edge of tears. That voice took the last of the fight out of Belch and Moose; they backed away, their remaining rocks dropping from relaxing hands. Belch looked around as if wondering exactly where he might be. Get out of our place, Beverly said. Shut up, you cunt, Henry said. You Four rocks flew at once, hitting Henry in four different places. He screamed and scrambled backward over the weedraddled ground, the tatters of his shirt flapping around him. He looked from the grim, oldyoung faces of the little kids to the frantic ones of Belch and Moose. There was no help there; no help at all. Moose turned away, embarrassed. Henry got to his feet, sobbing and snuffling through his broken nose. Ill kill you all, he said, and suddenly ran for the path. A moment later he was gone. GGGo on, Bill said, speaking to Belch. Get owout. And ddont cccome down hhere anymore. The BBBarrens are owowours. Youre gonna wish you didnt cross Henry, kid, Belch said. Come on, Moose. They started away, heads down, not looking back. The seven of them stood in a loose semicircle, all of them bleeding somewhere. The apocalyptic rockfight had lasted less than four minutes, but Bill felt as if he had fought his way through all of World War II, both theaters, without so much as a single timeout. The silence was broken by Eddie Kaspbraks whooping, whining struggle for air. Ben went toward him, felt the three Twinkies and four DingDongs he had eaten on his way down to the Barrens begin to struggle and churn in his stomach, and ran past Eddie and into the bushes, where he was sick as privately and quietly as he could be. It was Richie and Bev who went to Eddie. Beverly put an arm around the thin boys waist while Richie dug his aspirator out of his pocket. Bite on this, Eddie, he said, and Eddie took a hitching, gasping breath as Richie pulled the trigger. Thanks, Eddie managed at last. Ben came back out of the bushes, blushing, wiping a hand over his mouth. Beverly went over to him and took both of his hands in hers. Thanks for sticking up for me, she said. Ben nodded, looking at his dirty sneakers. Any time, keed, he said. One by one they turned to look at Mike, Mike with his dark skin. They looked at him carefully, cautiously, thoughtfully. Mike had felt such curiosity beforethere had not been a time in his life when he had not felt itand he looked back candidly enough. Bill looked from Mike to Richie. Richie met his eyes. And Bill seemed almost to hear the clicksome final part fitting neatly into a machine of unknown intent. He felt icechips scatter up his back. Were all together now, he thought, and the idea was so strong, so right, that for a moment he thought he might have spoken it aloud. But of course there was no need to speak it aloud; he could see it in Richies eyes, in Bens, in Eddies, in Beverlys, in Stans. Were all together now, he thought again. Oh God help us. Now it really starts. Please God, help us. Whats your name, kid? Beverly asked. Mike Hanlon. You want to shoot off some firecrackers? Stan asked, and Mikes grin was answer enough. CHAPTER 14 The Album 1 As it turns out, Bill isnt the only one; they all bring booze. Bill has bourbon, Beverly has vodka and a carton of orange juice, Richie a sixpack, Ben Hanscom a bottle of Wild Turkey. Mike has a sixpack in the little refrigerator in the staff lounge. Eddie Kaspbrak comes in last, holding a small brown bag. What you got there, Eddie? Richie asks. ZaRex or KoolAid? Smiling nervously, Eddie removes first a bottle of gin and then a bottle of prune juice. In the thunderstruck silence which follows, Richie says quietly Somebody call for the men in the white coats. Eddie Kaspbraks finally gone over the top. Ginandprunejuice happens to be very healthy, Eddie replies defensively ... and then theyre all laughing wildly, the sound of their mirth echoing and reechoing in the silent library, rolling up and down the glassedin hall between the adult library and the Childrens Library. You go headon, Ben says, wiping his streaming eyes. You go headon, Eddie. I bet it really moves the mail, too. Smiling, Eddie fills a paper cup threequarters full of prune juice and then soberly adds two capfuls of gin. Oh Eddie, I do love you, Beverly says, and Eddie looks up, startled but smiling. She gazes up and down the table. I love all of you. Bill says, WWe love you too, BBev. Yes, Ben says. We love you. His eyes widen a little, and he laughs. I think we still all love each other.... Do you know how rare that must be? Theres a moment of silence, and Mike is really not surprised to see that Richie is wearing his glasses. My contacts started to burn and I had to take them out, Richie says briefly when Mike asks. Maybe we should get down to business? They all look at Bill then, as they had in the gravelpit, and Mike thinks They look at Bill when they need a leader, at Eddie when they need a navigator. Get down to business, what a hell of a phrase that is. Do I tell them that the bodies of the children that were found back then and now werent sexually molested, not even precisely mutilated, but partially eaten? Do I tell them Ive got seven miners helmets, the kind with strong electric lights set into the front, stored back at my house, one of them for a guy named Stan Uris who couldnt make the scene, as we used to say? Or is it maybe enough just to tell them to go home and get a good nights sleep, because it ends tomorrow or tomorrow night for goodeither for It or us? None of those things have to be said, perhaps, and the reason why they dont has already been stated they still love one another. Things have changed over the last twentyseven years, but that, miraculously, hasnt. It is, Mike thinks, our only real hope. The only thing that really remains is to finish going through it, to complete the job of catching up, of stapling past to present so that the strip of experience forms some halfassed kind of wheel. Yes, Mike thinks, thats it. Tonight the job is to make the wheel; tomorrow we can see if it still turns ... the way it did when we drove the big kids out of the gravelpit and out of the Barrens. Have you remembered the rest? Mike asks Richie. Richie swallows some beer and shakes his head. I remember you telling us about the bird ... and about the smokehole. A grin breaks over Richies face. I remembered about that walking over here tonight with Bevvie and Ben. What a fucking horrorshow that was Beepbeep, Richie, Beverly says, smiling. Well, you know, he says, still smiling himself and punching his glasses up on his nose in a gesture that is eerily reminiscent of the old Richie. He winks at Mike. You and me, right, Mikey? Mike snorts laughter and nods. Miss Scawlett! Miss Scawlett! Richie shrieks in his Pickaninny Voice. Its gettin a little waam in de smokehouse, Miss Scawlett! Laughing, Bill says, Another engineering and architectural triumph by Ben Hanscom. Beverly nods. We were digging out the clubhouse when you brought your fathers photograph album to the Barrens, Mike. Oh, Christ! Bill says, sitting suddenly boltupright. And the pictures Richie nods grimly. The same trick as in Georgies room. Only that time we all saw it. Ben says, I remembered what happened to the extra silver dollar. They all turn to look at him. I gave the other three to a friend of mine before I came out here, Ben says quietly. For his kids. I remembered there had been a fourth, but I couldnt remember what happened to it. Now I do. He looks at Bill. We made a silver slug out of it, didnt we? You, me, and Richie. At first we were going to make a silver bullet You were pretty sure you could do it, Richie agrees. But in the end We got ccold fuhfeet. Bill nods slowly. The memory has fallen naturally into its place, and he hears that same low but distinct click! when it happens. Were getting closer, he thinks. We went back to Neibolt Street, Richie says. All of us. You saved my life, Big Bill, Ben says suddenly and Bill shakes his head. You did, though, Ben persists, and this time Bill doesnt shake his head. He suspects that maybe he had done just that, although he does not yet remember how ... and was it him? He thinks maybe Beverly ... but that is not there. Not yet, anyway. Excuse me for a second, Mike says. Ive got a sixpack in the back fridge. Have one of mine, Richie says. Hanlon no drinkum white mans beer, Mike replies. Especially not yours, Trashmouth. Beepbeep, Mikey, Richie says solemnly, and Mike goes to get his beer on a warm wave of their laughter. He snaps on the light in the lounge, a tacky little room with seedy chairs, a Silex badly in need of scrubbing, and a bulletin board covered with old notices, wage and hour information, and a few New Yorker cartoons now turning yellow and curling up at the edges. He opens the little refrigerator and feels the shock sink into him, bonedeep and icewhite, the way February cold sank into you when February was here and it seemed that April never would be. Blue and orange balloons drift out in a flood, dozens of them, a New Years Eve bouquet of partyballoons, and he thinks incoherently in the midst of his fear, All we need is Guy Lombardo tootling away on Auld Lang Syne. They waft past his face and rise toward the lounge ceiling. Hes trying to scream, unable to scream, seeing what had been behind the balloons, what It had popped into the refrigerator beside his beer, as if for a latenight snack after his worthless friends have all told their worthless stories and gone back to their rented beds in this home town that is no longer home. Mike takes a step backward, his hands going to his face, shutting the vision out. He stumbles over one of the chairs, almost falls, and takes his hands away. It is still there; Stan Uriss severed head beside Mikes sixpack of Bud Light, the head not of a man but of an elevenyearold boy. The mouth is open in a soundless scream but Mike can see neither teeth nor tongue because the mouth has been stuffed full of feathers. The feathers are a light brown and unspeakably huge. He knows well enough what bird those feathers came from. Oh yes. Oh yes indeed. He had seen the bird in May of 1958 and they had all seen it in early August of 1958 and then, years later, while visiting his dying father, he had found out that Will Hanlon had seen it once, too, after his escape from the fire at the Black Spot. The blood from Stans tattered neck has dripped down and formed a coagulated pool on the fridges bottom shelf. It glitters dark rubyred in the uncompromising glow shed by the fridge bulb. Uh ... uh ... uh ... Mike manages, but no more sound than that can he make. Then the head opens its eyes, and they are the silverbright eyes of Pennywise the Clown. Those eyes roll in his direction and the heads lips begin to squirm around the mouthful of feathers. It is trying to speak, perhaps trying to deliver prophecy like the oracle in a Greek play. Just thought Id join you, Mike, because you cant win without me. You cant win without me and you know it, dont you? You might have had a chance if all of me had shown up, but I just couldnt stand the strain on my allAmerican brain, if you see what I mean, jellybean. All the six of you can do on your own is hash over some old times and then get yourselves killed. So I thought Id head you off at the pass. Head you off, get it, Mikey? Get it, old pal? Get it, you fucking scumbag nigger? Youre not real! he screams, but no sound comes out; he is like a TV with the volume control turned all the way down. Incredibly, grotesquely, the head winks at him. Im real, all right. Real as raindrops. And you know what Im talking about, Mikey. What the six of you are planning to try is like taking off in a jet plane with no landing gear. Theres no sense in going up if you cant get back down, is there? No sense in going down if you cant get back up, either. Youll never think of the right riddles and jokes. Youll never make me laugh, Mikey. Youve all forgotten how to turn your screams upsidedown. Beepbeep, Mikey, what do you say? Remember the bird? Nothing but a sparrow, but sayhey! it was a lulu, wasnt it? Big as a barn, big as one of those silly Japanese movie monsters that used to scare you when you were a little kid. The days when you knew how to turn that bird from your door are gone forever. Believe it, Mikey. If you know how to use your head, youll get out of here, out of Derry, right now. If you dont know how to use it, itll end up just like this one here. Todays guidepost along the great road of life is use it before you lose it, my good man. The head rolls over on its face (the feathers in its mouth make a horrid crumpling sound) and falls out of the refrigerator. It thuks to the floor and rolls toward him like a hideous bowling ball, its bloodmatted hair changing places with its grinning face; it rolls toward him leaving a gluey trail of blood and dismembered bits of feather behind, its mouth working around its clot of feathers. Beepbeep, Mikey! it screams as Mike backs madly away from it, hands held out in a wardingoff gesture. Beepbeep, beepbeep, beepfuckingbeep! Then there is a sudden loud popthe sound of a plastic cork thumbed out of a bottle of cheap champagne. The head disappears (Real, Mike thinks sickly; there was nothing supernatural about that pop, anyway; that was the sound of air rushing back into a suddenly vacated space ... real, oh God, real). A thin net of blood droplets floats up and then patters back down. No need to clean the lounge, though; Carole will see nothing when she comes in tomorrow, not even if she has to plow her way through the balloons to get to the hotplate and make her first cup of coffee. How handy. He giggles shrilly. He looks up and yes, the balloons are still there. The blue ones say DERRY NIGGERS GET THE BIRD. The orange ones say THE LOSERS ARE STILL LOSING, BUT STANLEY URIS IS FINALLY AHEAD. No sense going up if you cant get back down, the speaking head had assured him, no sense going down if you cant get back up. This latter makes him think again of the stored miners helmets. And was it true? Suddenly hes thinking about the first day he went down to the Barrens after the rockfight. July 6th, that had been, two days after he had marched in the Fourth of July parade ... two days after he had seen Pennywise the Clown in person for the first time. It had been after that day in the Barrens, after listening to their stories and then, hesitantly, telling his own, that he had gone home and asked his father if he could look at his photograph album. Why exactly had he gone down to the Barrens that July 6th? Had he known he would find them there? It seemed that he hadand not just that they would be there, but where they would be. They had been talking about a clubhouse of some sort, he remembers, but it had seemed to him that they had been talking about that because there was something else that they didnt know how to talk about. Mike looks up at the balloons, not really seeing them now, trying to remember exactly how it had been that day, that hot hot day. Suddenly it seems very important to remember just what had happened, what every nuance had been, what his state of mind had been. Because that was when everything began to happen. Before that the others had talked about killing It, but there had been no forward motion, no plan. When Mike had come the circle closed, the wheel began to roll. It had been later that same day that Bill and Richie and Ben went down to the library and began to do serious research on an idea that Bill had had a day or a week or a month before. It had all begun to Mike? Richie calls from the Reference Room where the others are gathered. Did you die in there? Almost, Mike thinks, looking at the balloons, the blood, the feathers inside the fridge. He calls back I think you guys better come in here. He hears the scrape of their chairs, the mutter of their voices; he hears Richie saying Oh Jesus, whats up now? and another ear, this one in his memory, hears Richie saying something else, and suddenly he remembers what it is he has been searching for; even more, he understands why it has seemed so elusive. The reaction of the others when he stepped into the clearing in the darkest, deepest, and most overgrown part of the Barrens that day had been ... nothing. No surprise, no questions about how he had found them, no big deal. Ben had been eating a Twinkie, he remembers, Beverly and Richie had been smoking cigarettes, Bill had been lying on his back with his hands behind his head, looking at the sky, Eddie and Stan were looking doubtfully at a series of strings which had been pegged into the ground to form a square of about five feet on a side. No surprise, no questions, no big deal. He had simply shown up and been accepted. It was as if, without even knowing it, they had been waiting for him. And in that third ear, memorys ear, he hears Richies Pickaninny Voice raised as it was earlier tonight Lawdy, Miss Clawdy, here come 2 that black chile agin! Lawksamussy, I doan know what thisyere Barrens is comin to! Look at that there nappy haid, Big Bill! Bill didnt even look around; he just went on staring dreamily at the fat summer clouds marching across the sky. He was giving an important question his most careful consideration. Richie was not offended by the lack of attention, however. He pushed onward. Jest lookin at that nappy haid makes me bleeve I needs me another mint joolip! Ise gwinter have it out on the verandah, where its be a little bit coolah Beepbeep, Richie, Ben said from around a mouthful of Twinkie, and Beverly laughed. Hi, Mike said uncertainly. His heart was beating a little too hard, but he was determined to go on with this. He owed his thanks, and his father had told him that you always paid what you owedand as quick as you could, before the interest mounted up. Stan looked around. Hi, he said, and then looked back at the square of strings pegged into the center of the clearing. Ben, are you sure this is going to work? Itll work, Ben said. Hi, Mike. Want a cigarette? Beverly asked. I got two left. No thank you. Mike took a deep breath and said, I wanted to thank you all again for helping me the other day. Those guys meant to hurt me bad. Im sorry some of you guys got banged up. Bill waved his hand, dismissing it. DDDont wuhwuhhorry aabout it. Ththeyve hhad it iiin ffor us all yyyear. He sat up and looked at Mike with sudden starry interest. CCan I aask you sssomething? I guess so, Mike said. He sat down gingerly. He had heard such prefaces before. The Denbrough kid was going to ask him what it was like to be a Negro. But instead Bill said When LLLarsen pitched the nnohhitter in the World SSeries two years ago, ddo you think that was just luhluck? Richie dragged deep on his cigarette and started to cough. Beverly pounded him goodnaturedly on the back. Youre just a beginner, Richie, youll learn. I think its gonna fall in, Ben, Eddie said worriedly, looking at the pegged square. I dont know how cool I am on the idea of getting buried alive. Youre not gonna get buried alive, Ben said. And if you are, just suck your damn old aspirator until someone pulls you out. This struck Stanley Uris as deliciously funny. He leaned back on his elbow, his head turned up to the sky, and laughed until Eddie kicked his shin and told him to shut up. Luck, Mike said finally. I think any nohitters more luck than skill. MMMe ttoo, Bill said. Mike waited to see if there was more, but Bill seemed satisfied. He lay down again, laced his hands behind his head again, and went back to studying the clouds as they floated by. What are you guys up to? Mike asked, looking at the square of strings pegged just above the ground. Oh, this is Haystacks big idea of the week, Richie said. Last time he flooded out the Barrens and that was pretty good, but this ones a real dinnerwinner. This is Dig Your Own Clubhouse Month. Next month YYou dont nuhnuhneed to put BBBBen dduhhown, Bill said, still looking at the sky. Its going to be guhguhgood. Gods sake, Bill, I was just kidding. SuhSometimes you kkkid too much, RihRichie. Richie accepted the rebuke silently. I still dont get it, Mike said. Well, its pretty simple, Ben said. They wanted a treehouse, and we could do that, but people have a bad habit of breaking their bones when they fall out of treehouses Kookie ... Kookie ... lend me your bones, Stan said, and laughed again while the others looked at him, puzzled. |
Stan did not have much sense of humor, and the bit he did have was sort of peculiar. You ees goin loco, senhorr, Richie said. Eees the heat an the cucarachas, I theenk. Anyway, Ben said, what well do is dig down about five feet in the square I pegged out there. We cant go much deeper than that or well hit groundwater, I guess. Its pretty close to the surface down here. Then well shore up the sides just to make sure they dont cave in. He looked significantly at Eddie here, but Eddie was worried. Then what? Mike asked, interested. Well cap off the top. Huh? Put boards over the top of the hole. We can put in a trapdoor or something so we can get in and out, even windows if we want Well need some hihhihhinges, Bill said, still looking at the clouds. We can get those at Reynolds Hardware, Ben said. YYou guhguhguys have your aaallowances, Bill said. Ive got five dollars, Beverly said. I saved it up from babysitting. Richie immediately began to crawl toward her on his hands and knees. I love you, Bevvie, he said, making dogs eyes at her. Will you marry me? Well live in a pinestudded bungalow A what? Beverly asked, while Ben watched them with an odd mixture of anxiety, amusement, and concentration. A bungstudded pinealow, Richie said. Five bucks is enough, sweetie, you and me and baby makes three Beverly laughed and blushed and moved away from him. We shshare the eexpenses, Bill said. Thats why we got a club. So after we cap the hole with boards, Ben went on, we put down this heavyduty glueTangleTrack, they call itand put the sods back on. Maybe sprinkle it with pine needles. We could be down there and peoplepeople like Henry Bowerscould walk right over us and not even know we were there. You thought of that? Mike said. Jeez, thats great! Ben smiled. It was his turn to blush. Bill sat up suddenly and looked at Mike. You wwwant to hehhelp? Well ... sure, Mike said. Thatd be fun. A look passed among the othersMike felt it as well as saw it. There are seven of us here, Mike thought, and for no reason at all he shivered. When are you going to break ground? PPhretty ssoon, Bill said, and Mike knewknew that it wasnt just Bens underground clubhouse Bill was talking about. Ben knew it, too. So did Richie, Beverly, and Eddie. Stan Uris had stopped smiling. WWere ggonna start this pruhhuhhoject pretty suhsuhsoon. There was a pause then, and Mike was suddenly aware of two things they wanted to say something, tell him something ... and he was not entirely sure he wanted to hear it. Ben had picked up a stick and was doodling aimlessly in the dirt, his hair hiding his face. Richie was gnawing at his already ragged fingernails. Only Bill was looking directly at Mike. Is something wrong? Mike asked uneasily. Speaking very slowly, Bill said WWWere a cluhclub. YYou can be in the club if you wwwant, but yyyou have to keekeep our seeseesecrets. You mean, like the clubhouse? Mike asked, now more uneasy than ever. Well, sure Weve got another secret, kid, Richie said, still not looking at Mike. And Big Bill says weve got something more important to do this summer than digging underground clubhouses. Hes right, too, Ben added. There was a sudden, whistling gasp. Mike jumped. It was only Eddie, blasting off. Eddie looked at Mike apologetically, shrugged, and then nodded. Well, Mike said finally, dont keep me in suspense. Tell me. Bill was looking at the others. IIs there aaanyone who ddoesnt want him in the cluhclub? No one spoke or raised a hand. WWho wants to ttell? Bill asked. There was another long pause, and this time Bill didnt break it. At last Beverly sighed and looked up at Mike. The kids who have been killed, she said. We know whos been doing it, and its not human. 3 They told him, one by one the clown on the ice, the leper under the porch, the blood and voices from the drain, the dead boys in the Standpipe. Richie told about what had happened when he and Bill went back to Neibolt Street, and Bill spoke last, telling about the school photo that had moved, and the picture he had stuck his hand into. He finished by explaining that it had killed his brother Georgie, and that the Losers Club was dedicated to killing the monster ... whatever the monster really was. Mike thought later, going home that night, that he should have listened with disbelief mounting into horror and finally run away as fast as he could, not looking back, convinced either that he was being put on by a bunch of white kids who didnt like black folks or that he was in the presence of six authentic lunatics who had in some way caught their lunacy from each other, the way everyone in the same class could catch a particularly virulent cold. But he didnt run, because in spite of the horror, he felt a strange sense of comfort. Comfort and something else, something more elemental a feeling of coming home. There are seven of us here, he thought again as Bill finally finished speaking. He opened his mouth, not sure of what he was going to say. Ive seen the clown, he said. What? Richie and Stan asked together, and Beverly turned her head so quickly that her ponytail flipped from her left shoulder to her right. I saw him on the Fourth, Mike said slowly, speaking to Bill mostly. Bills eyes, sharp and utterly concentrated, were on his, demanding that he go on. Yes, on the Fourth of July ... He trailed off momentarily, thinking But I knew him. I knew him because that wasnt the first time I saw him. And it wasnt the first time I saw something ... something wrong. He thought of the bird then, the first time hed really allowed himself to think of itexcept in nightmaressince May. He had thought he was going crazy. It was a relief to find out he wasnt crazy ... but it was still a scary relief. He wet his lips. Go on, Bev said impatiently. Hurry up. Well, the thing is, I was in the parade. I I saw you, Eddie said. You were playing the saxophone. Well, its actually a trombone, Mike said. I play with the Neibolt Church School Band. Anyway, I saw the clown. He was handing out balloons to kids on the threeway corner downtown. He was just like Ben and Bill said. Silver suit, orange buttons, white makeup on his face, big red smile. I dont know if it was lipstick or makeup, but it looked like blood. The others were nodding, excited now, but Bill only went on looking at Mike closely. OOOrange tufts of hhhair? he asked Mike, making them unconsciously over his own head with his fingers. Mike nodded. Seeing him like that ... it scared me. And while I was looking at him, he turned around and waved at me, like hed read my mind, or my feelings, or whatever you call it. And that ... like, scared me worse. I didnt know why then, but he scared me so bad for a couple of seconds I couldnt play my bone anymore. All the spit in my mouth dried up and I felt ... He glanced briefly at Beverly. He remembered it all so clearly now, how the sun had suddenly seemed intolerably dazzling on the brass of his horn and the chrome of the cars, the music too loud, the sky too blue. The clown had raised one whitegloved hand (the other was full of balloon strings) and had waved slowly back and forth, his bloody grin too red and too wide, a scream turned upsidedown. He remembered how the flesh of his testicles had begun to crawl, how his bowels had suddenly felt all loose and hot, as if he might suddenly drop a casual load of shit into his pants. But he couldnt say any of that in front of Beverly. You didnt say stuff like that in front of girls, even if they were the sort of girls you could say things like bitch and bastard in front of. ... I felt scared, he finished, feeling that was too weak, but not knowing how to say the rest. But they were nodding as if they understood, and he felt an indescribable relief wash through him. Somehow that clown looking at him, smiling his red smile, his whitegloved hand penduluming slowly back and forth ... that had been worse than having Henry Bowers and the rest after him. Ever so much worse. Then we were past, Mike went on. We marched up Main Street Hill. And I saw him again, handing out balloons to kids. Except a lot of them didnt want to take them. Some of the little ones were crying. I couldnt figure out how he could have gotten up there so fast. I thought to myself that there must be two of them, you know, both of them dressed the same way. A team. But then he turned around and waved to me again and I knew it was him. It was the same man. Hes not a man, Richie said, and Beverly shuddered. Bill put his arm around her for a moment and she looked at him gratefully. He waved to me ... and then he winked. Like we had a secret. Or like ... like maybe he knew Id recognized him. Bill dropped his arm from Beverlys shoulders. You rehrehrehrecognized him? I think so, Mike said. I have to check something before I say its for sure. My fathers got some pictures.... He collects them.... Listen, you guys play down here a lot, dont you? Sure, Ben said. Thats why were building a clubhouse. Mike nodded. Ill check and see if Im right. If I am, I can bring the pictures. OOOld picpictures? Bill asked. Yes. WWWhat else? Bill asked. Mike opened his mouth and then closed it again. He looked around at them uncertainly and then said, Youd think I was crazy. Crazy or lying. DDo yyyou ththink were cruhcruhcrazy? Mike shook his head. You bet were not, Eddie said. I got a lot wrong with me, but Im not bughouse. I dont think. No, Mike said. I dont think youre crazy. Well, wewe wont ththink youre cruhcruh ... nuts, eeeither, Bill said. Mike looked them all over, cleared his throat, and said I saw a bird. Couple, three months ago. I saw a bird. Stan Uris looked at Mike. What kind of a bird? Speaking more reluctantly than ever Mike said It looked like a sparrow, sort of, but it also looked like a robin. It had an orange chest. Well, whats so special about a bird? Ben asked. There are lots of birds in Derry. But he felt uneasy, and looking at Stan, he felt sure that Stan was remembering what had happened in the Standpipe, and how he had somehow stopped it from happening by shouting out the names of birds. But he forgot all about that and everything else when Mike spoke again. This bird was bigger than a housetrailer, he said. He looked at their shocked, amazed faces. He waited for their laughter, but none came. Stan looked as if someone had clipped him with a brick. His face had gone so pale it was the color of muted November sunlight. I swear its true, Mike said. It was a giant bird, like one of those birds in the monstermovies that are supposed to be prehistoric. Yeah, like in The Giant Claw, Richie said. He thought the bird in that had been sort of fakelooking, but by the time it got to New York he had still been excited enough to spill his popcorn over the balcony railing at the Aladdin. Foxy Foxworth would have kicked him out, but the movie was over by then anyway. Sometimes you got the shit kicked out of you, but as Big Bill said, sometimes you won one, too. But it didnt look prehistoric, Mike said. And it didnt look like one of those whatdoyoucallums the Greeks and Romans made up stories about RuhRuhRocs? Bill suggested. Right, I guess so. It wasnt like those, either. It was just like a combination robin and sparrow. The two most common birds you see. He laughed a little wildly. WWWhere Bill began. Tell us, Beverly said simply, and after a moment to collect his thoughts, Mike did. And telling it, watching their faces grow concerned and scared but not disbelieving or derisive, he felt an incredible weight lift from his chest. Like Ben with his mummy or Eddie with his leper and Stan with the drowned boys, he had seen a thing that would have driven an adult insane, not just with terror but with the walloping force of an unreality too great to be explained away or, lacking any rational explanation, simply ignored. Elijahs face had been burned black by the light of Gods love, or so Mike had read; but Elijah had been an old man when it happened, and maybe that made a difference. Hadnt one of those other Bible fellows, this one little more than a kid, actually wrestled an angel to a draw? He had seen it and he had gone on with his life; he had integrated the memory into his view of the world. He was still young enough so that view was tremendously wide. But what had happened that day had nonetheless haunted his minds darker corners, and sometimes in his dreams he ran from that grotesque bird as it printed its shadow on him from above. Some of these dreams he remembered and some he did not, but they were there, shadows which moved by themselves. How little of it he had forgotten and how greatly it had troubled him (as he went about his daily round helping his father, going to school, riding his bike, doing errands for his mother, waiting for the black groups to come on American Bandstand after school) was perhaps measurable in only one waythe relief he felt in sharing it with the others. As he did, he realized it was the first time he had even allowed himself to think of it fully since that early morning by the Canal, when he had seen those odd grooves ... and the blood. 4 Mike told the story of the bird at the old Ironworks and how he had run into the pipe to escape it. Later on that afternoon, three of the LosersBen, Richie, Billwalked toward the Derry Public Library. Ben and Richie were keeping a close watch for Bowers and Company, but Bill only looked at the sidewalk, frowning, lost in thought. About an hour after telling them his story Mike had left them, saying his father wanted him home by four to pick peas. Beverly had to do some marketing and fix dinner for her father, she said. Both Eddie and Stan had their own things to do. But before they broke up for the day they began digging what was to becomeif Ben was righttheir underground clubhouse. To Bill (and to all of them, he suspected), the groundbreaking had seemed an almost symbolic act. They had begun. Whatever it was they were supposed to do as a group, as a unit, they had begun. Ben asked Bill if he believed Mike Hanlons story. They were passing Derry Community House and the library was just ahead, a stone oblong comfortably shaded by elms a century old and as yet untouched by the Dutch Elm disease that would later plague and thin them. Yeah, Bill said. I ththink it was the truhhooth. CCCrazy, but true. What about you, RuhRuhRichie? Richie nodded. Yeah. I hate to believe it, if you know what I mean, but I guess I do. You remember what he said about the birds tongue? Bill and Ben nodded. Orange fluffs on it. Thats the kicker, Richie said. Its like some comicbook villain. Lex Luthor or the Joker or someone like that. It always leaves a trademark. Bill nodded thoughtfully. It was like some comicbook villain. Because they saw it that way? Thought of it that way? Yes, perhaps so. It was kids stuff, but it seemed that was what this thing thrived onkids stuff. They crossed the street to the library side. I aaasked StuhStuhStan iif he eever hhheard of a buhbird Ilike that, Bill said. Nuhnuhnot nnecessarily a bbbig wuhwuhone, but jjust aaa A real one? Richie suggested. Bill nodded. HHe suhsaid there mmmight be a buhbird like that in Suhhouth America or AAAAfrica, but nuhnuhnot aaround hhhere. He didnt believe it, then? Ben asked. HHHe buhbelieved iiit, Bill said. And then he told them something else Stan had suggested when Bill walked with him back to where Stan had left his bike. Stans idea was that nobody else could have seen that bird before Mike told them that story. Something else, maybe, but not that bird, because the bird was Mike Hanlons personal monster. But now ... why, now that bird was the property of the whole Losers Club, wasnt it? Any of them might see it. It might not look exactly the same; Bill might see it as a crow, Richie as a hawk, Beverly as a golden eagle, for all Stan knewbut It could be a bird to all of them now. Bill told Stan that if that was true, then any of them might see the leper, the mummy, or possibly the dead boys. Which means we ought to do something pretty soon if were going to do anything at all, Stan had replied. It knows ... WuhWhat? Bill had asked sharply. EhEverything we nuhknow? Man, if It knows that, were sunk, Stan had answered. But you can bet It knows we know about It. I think Itll try to get us. Are you still thinking about what we talked about yesterday? Yes. I wish I could go with you. BuhBuhBen and RihRichie wwwill. Bens really sssmart, and RihRihRichie is, too, when he ihisnt fucking ooff. Now, standing outside the library, Richie asked Bill exactly what it was he had in mind. Bill told them, speaking slowly so he wouldnt stutter too badly. The idea had been circling in his mind for the last two weeks, but it had taken Mikes story of the bird to crystallize it. What did you do if you wanted to get rid of a bird? Well, shooting it was pretty goddam final. What did you do if you wanted to get rid of a monster? Well, the movies suggested that shooting it with a silver bullet was pretty goddam final. Ben and Richie listened to this respectfully enough. Then Richie asked, How do you get a silver bullet, Big Bill? Send away for it? Very fuhfuhfunny. Well have to mmmake it. How? I guess thats what were at the library to find out, Ben said. Richie nodded and pushed his glasses up on his nose. Behind them, his eyes were sharp and thoughtful ... but doubtful, Bill thought. He felt doubtful himself. At least there was no foolishness in Richies eyes, and that was a step in the right direction. You thinking about your dads Walther? Richie asked. The one we took to Neibolt Street? Yes, Bill said. Even if we could really make silver bullets, Richie said, where would we get the silver? Let me worry about that, Ben said quietly. Well ... okay, Richie said. Well let Haystack worry about that. Then what? Neibolt Street again? Bill nodded. NeeNeeNeibolt Street aaagain. And then we buhblow its fucking hhhead ooff. The three of them stood there a moment longer, looking at each other solemnly, and then they went into the library. 5 Sure an begorrah, its that black feller again! Richie cried in his Irish Cop Voice. A week had passed; it was nearly midJuly and the underground clubhouse was almost finished. Top o the mornin to ye, Mr. OHanlon, sor! And a foine, foine day it promises to be, foine as pertaters agrowin, as me old mither used to So far as I know, noon is the top of the morning, Richie, Ben said, popping up in the hole, and noon was two hours ago. He and Richie had been putting in shoring around the sides of the hole. Ben had taken off his sweatshirt because the day was hot and the work was hard. His teeshirt was gray with sweat and stuck to his chest and pouch of a stomach. He seemed remarkably unselfconscious of the way he looked, but Mike guessed that if Ben heard Beverly coming, he would be inside that baggy sweatshirt again before you could say puppy love. Dont be so pickyyou sound like Stan the Man, Richie said. He had gotten out of the hole five minutes before because, he told Ben, it was time for a cigarette break. I thought you said you didnt have any cigarettes, Ben had said. I dont, Richie had replied, but the principle remains the same. Mike had his fathers photograph album under his arm. Where is everybody? he asked. He knew Bill had to be somewhere around, because he had left his own bike parked under the bridge near Silver. Bill and Eddie went down to the dump about half an hour ago to liberate some more boards, Richie said. Stanny and Bev went down to Reynolds Hardware to get hinges. I dont know what the frock Haystacks up to down thereup to down there, haha, you get it?but its probably no good. Boy needs someone to keep an eye on him, you know. By the way, you owe us twentythree cents if you still want to be in this club. Your share of the hinges. Mike switched the album from his right arm to his left and dug into his pocket. He counted out twentythree cents (leaving a grand total of one dime in his own personal treasury) and handed it over to Richie. Then he walked over to the hole and looked in. Except it really wasnt a hole anymore. The sides had been neatly squared off. Each side had been shored up. The boards were all mongrels, but Ben, Bill, and Stan had done a good job of sizing them with tools from Zack Denbroughs shop (and Bill had been at great pains to make sure every tool was returned every night, and in the same condition as when it was taken). Ben and Beverly had nailed crosspieces between the supports. The hole still made Eddie a little nervous, but that was Eddies nature. Piled carefully to one side were squares of sod which would later be glued to the top. I think you guys know what youre doing, Mike said. Sure, Ben said, and pointed to the album. What you got? My fathers Derry album, Mike said. He collects old pictures and clippings about the town. Its his hobby. I was looking through it a couple of days agoI told you I thought Id seen that clown before. And I did. In here. So I brought it down. He was too ashamed to add that he had not dared to ask his fathers permission to do this. Afraid of the questions to which such a request might lead, he had taken it from the house like a thief while his father planted potatoes in the west field and his mother hung clothes in the back yard. I thought you guys ought to take a look, too. Well, lets see, Richie said. Id like to wait until everybodys here. It might be better. Okay. Richie was, in truth, not that anxious to look at more pictures of Derry, in this or any other album. Not after what had happened in Georgies room. You want to help me and Ben with the rest of the shoring? You bet. Mike put his fathers album down carefully, far enough from the hole so it wouldnt be pelted with flying dirt, and took Bens shovel. Dig right here, Ben said, showing Mike the spot. Go down about a foot. Then Ill set a board in and hold it flush against the side while you shovel the dirt back in. Good plan, man, Richie said sagely from where he sat on the edge of the excavation with his sneakers dangling down. Whats wrong with you? Mike asked. Got a bone in my leg, Richie said comfortably. Hows your project with Bill going? Mike stopped long enough to strip off his shirt and then began to dig. It was hot down here, even in the Barrens. Crickets hummed sleepily like summer clocks in the brush. Well ... not too bad, Richie said, and Mike thought he flashed Ben a mildly warning look. I guess. Why dont you play your radio, Richie? Ben asked. He slipped a board into the hole Mike had dug and held it there. Richies transistor was hung by the strap in its accustomed place, on the thick branch of a nearby shrub. Batteries are worn out, Richie said. You had to have my last twentyfive cents for hinges, remember? Cruel, Haystack, very cruel. After all the things Ive done for you. Besides, all I can get down here is WABI and they only play pansy rock. Huh? Mike asked. Haystack thinks Tommy Sands and Pat Boone sing rock and roll, Richie said, but thats because hes ill. Elvis sings rock and roll. Ernie K. Doe sings rock and roll. Carl Perkins sings rock and roll. Bobby Darin. Buddy Holly. Ahow Peggy ... my Peggy Suhuhoo ... Please, Richie, Ben said. Also, Mike said, leaning on his shovel, theres Fats Domino, Chuck Berry, Little Richard, Shep and the Limelights, LaVerne Baker, Frankie Lymon and the Teenagers, Hank Ballard and the Midnighters, the Coasters, the Isley Brothers, the Crests, the Chords, Stick McGhee They were looking at him with such amazement that Mike laughed. You lost me after Little Richard, Richie said. He liked Little Richard, but if he had a secret rockandroll hero that summer it was Jerry Lee Lewis. His mom had happened to come into the living room while Jerry Lee was performing on American Bandstand. This was at the point in his act where Jerry Lee actually climbed onto his piano and played it upside down with his hair hanging in his face. He had been singing High School Confidential. For a moment Richie believed his mom was going to faint. She didnt, but she was so traumatized by what she had seen that she talked at dinner that night about sending Richie to one of those militarytype camps for the rest of the summer. Now Richie shook his hair down over his eyes and began to sing Come on over baby all the cats are at the high school rockin Ben began to stagger around the hole, grasping his large belly and pretending to puke. Mike held his nose, but he was laughing so hard tears squirted out of his eyes. Whats wrong? Richie demanded. I mean, what ails you guys? That was good! I mean, that was really good! Oh man, Mike said, and now he was laughing so hard he could barely talk. That was priceless. I mean, that was really priceless. Negroes have no taste, Richie said. I think it even says so in the Bible. Yo mamma, Mike said, laughing harder than ever. When Richie asked, with honest bewilderment, what that meant, Mike sat down with a thump and rocked back and forth, howling and holding his stomach. You probably think Im jealous, Richie said. You probably think I want to be a Negro. Now Ben also fell down, laughing wildly. His whole body rippled and quaked alarmingly. His eyes bulged. No more, Richie, he managed. Im gonna shit my pants. Im gonna dddie if you dont stubstop I dont want to be a Negro, Richie said. Who wants to wear pink pants and live in Boston and buy pizza by the slice? I want to be Jewish like Stan. I want to own a pawnshop and sell people switchblades and plastic dogpuke and used guitars. Ben and Mike were now actually screaming with laughter. Their laughter echoed through the green and jungly ravine that was the misnamed Barrens, causing birds to take wing and squirrels to freeze momentarily on limbs. It was a young sound, penetrating, lively, vital, unsophisticated, free. Almost every living thing within range of that sound reacted to it in some way, but the thing which had tumbled out of a wide concrete drain and into the upper Kenduskeag was not living. The previous afternoon there had been a sudden driving thunderstorm (the clubhousetobe had not been much affectedsince digging operations had begun, Ben had covered the hole carefully each evening with a ragged piece of tarpaulin Eddie had scrounged from behind Wallys Spa; it smelled painty but it did the job), and the stormdrains under Derry had run with violent water for two or three hours. It was that spate of water that had pushed this unpleasant baggage into the sun for the flies to find. It was the body of a nineyearold named Jimmy Cullum. Except for the nose, his face was gone. There was a churned and featureless mess where it had been. This raw meat was dotted with deep black marks that perhaps only Stan Uris would have recognized for what they were pecks. Pecks made by a very large beak. Water rilled over Jimmy Cullums muddy chino pants. His white hands floated like dead fish. They had also been pecked, although not as badly. His paisley shirt ballooned out and collapsed back, ballooned out and collapsed back, like a bladder. Bill and Eddie, loaded down with boards scrounged from the dump, crossed the Kenduskeag by steppingstones less than forty yards from the body. They heard Richie, Ben, and Mike laughing, smiled a little themselves, and hurried past the unseen ruin of Jimmy Cullum to see what was so funny. 6 They were still laughing as Bill and Eddie came into the clearing, sweating under their load of lumber. Even Eddie, usually as pale as cheese, had some color in his face. They dropped the new boards on the almost depleted supplypile. Ben climbed out of the hole to inspect them. Good deal! he said. Wow! Great! Bill collapsed to the ground. Can I hhave my heart aaattack now or do I hhave to wuhwait until luhhater? Have it later, Ben said absently. He had brought a few tools of his own down to the Barrens and was now going over the new boards carefully, pounding out nails and removing screws. He tossed one aside because it was splintered. Rapping on another returned a dull punky sound in at least three places, and he also tossed that one aside. Eddie sat on a pile of dirt, watching him. He took a honk on his aspirator as Ben pulled a rusty nail from a board with the claw end of his hammer. The nail squealed like some small unpleasant animal that had been stepped on and didnt like it. You can get tetanus if you cut yourself on a rusty nail, Eddie informed Ben. Yeah? Richie said. Whats titnuss? Sounds like a womans disease. Youre a bird, Eddie said. Its tetanus, not titnuss, and it means lockjaw. Theres these special microbes that grow in rust, see, and if you cut yourself they can get inside your body and, um, fuck up your nerves. Eddie went an even darker red and took another fast honk on his aspirator. Lockjaw, Jesus, Richie said, impressed. That sounds mean. You bet. First your jaw locks up so tight you cant open your mouth, not even to eat. They have to cut a hole in your cheek and feed you liquids through a tube. Oh man, Mike said, standing up in the hole. His eyes were wide, the corneas very white in his brown face. For sure? My mom told me, Eddie said. Then your throat locks up and you cant eat anymore and you starve to death. They contemplated this horror in silence. Theres no cure, Eddie amplified. More silence. So, Eddie said briskly, I always watch out for rusty nails and shit like that. I had to have a tetanus shot once and it really hurt. So whyd you go to the dump with Bill and bring all this crap back? Richie asked. Eddie glanced briefly at Bill, who was looking into the clubhouse, and there was all the love and heroworship in that gaze needed to answer such a question but Eddie said softly, Some stuff has to be done even if there is a risk. Thats the first important thing I ever found out I didnt find out from my mother. A further silence, not quite uncomfortable, followed. Then Ben went back to pounding out rusty nails, and after awhile Mike Hanlon joined him. Richies transistor, robbed of its voice (at least until Richies allowance came in or he found a lawn to mow), swung from its low branch in a mild breeze. Bill had time to reflect upon how odd all this was, how odd and how perfect, that they should all be here this summer. There were kids he knew visiting relatives. Kids he knew who were off on vacations at Disneyland in California or on Cape Cod or, in the case of one chum, an unimaginably distantsounding place with the queer but somehow evocative name of Gstaad. There were kids at church camp, kids at Scout camp, kids at richkid camps where you could learn to swim and play golf, camps where you learned to say Hey, good one! instead of Fuck you! when your opponent got a killer serve past you at tennis; kids whose parents had simply taken them AWAY. Bill could understand that. He knew some kids who wanted to go AWAY, frightened by the boogeyman stalking Derry this summer, but suspected there were more parents frightened by that boogeyman. People who had planned to take their vacations at home suddenly decided to go AWAY (Gstaad? was that in Sweden? Argentina? Spain?) instead. It was a little like the polio scare of 1956, when four kids who went swimming in the OBrian Memorial Pool had gotten the disease. Grownupsa word absolutely synonymous in Bills mind with mothers and fathershad decided then, as now, that AWAY was better. Safer. Anyone able to clear out had cleared. Bill understood AWAY, and he could muse over a word of such fabulous wonder as Gstaad, but wonder was cold comfort compared with desire; Gstaad was AWAY; Derry was desire. And none of us have gone AWAY, he thought, watching as Ben and Mike pounded used nails out of used boards, as Eddie strolled off into the bushes to take a whiz (you had to go as soon as you could, in order to avoid seriously straining your bladder, he told Bill once, but you also had to watch out for poison ivy, because who needed a case of that on your pecker). Were all here in Derry. |
No camp, no relatives, no vacations, no AWAY. All right here. Present and accounted for. Theres a door down there, Eddie said, zipping his fly as he came back. Hope you shook off, Eds, Richie said. If you dont shake off each time, you can get cancer. My mom told me so. Eddie looked startled, thinly worried, and then saw Richies grin. He withered him (or tried to) with a babiesmustplay look and then said, It was too big for us to carry. But Bill said if all of us went down we could get it up here. Of course, you can never shake off completely, Richie went on. You want to know what a wise man once told me, Eds? No, Eddie said, and I dont want you to call me Eds anymore, Richie. I mean, Im sincere. I dont call you Dick, as in You got any gum on ya, Dick?, so I dont see why This wise man, Richie said, told me this No matter how much you squirm and dance, the last two drops go in your pants. And thats why theres so much cancer in the world, Eddie my love. The reason theres so much cancer in the world is because nerds like you and Beverly Marsh smoke cigarettes, Eddie said. Beverly is not a nerd, Ben said in a forbidding voice. You just watch what you say, Trashmouth. Beepbeep, you gguys, Bill said absently. And speaking of BBBeverly, shes pretty struhstruhstrong. She could hhhelp get that duhdoor. Ben asked what kind of door it was. MuhMuhhogany, I thhink. Somebody threw out a mahogany door? Ben asked, surprised but not unbelieving. People throw out everything, Mike said. That dump? It kills me to go down there. I mean it kills me. Yeah, Ben agreed. A lot of that stuff could be fixed up easy. And there are people in China and South America with nothing. Thats what my mother says. Theres people with nothing right here in Maine, Sunny Jim, Richie said grimly. WWWhats ththis? Bill asked, noticing the album Mike had brought. Mike told him, saying he would show them the picture of the clown when Stan and Beverly got back with the hinges. Bill and Richie exchanged a look. Whats wrong? Mike asked. Is it what happened in your brothers room, Bill? YYeah, Bill said, and would say no more. They took turns working on the hole until Stan and Beverly came back, each with a brown paper bag containing hinges. As Mike talked, Ben sat crosslegged, tailorfashion, and made glassless windows that would swing open and shut in two of the long boards. Perhaps only Bill noticed how quickly and easily his fingers moved; how adept and knowing they were, like surgeons fingers. Bill admired that. Some of these pictures go back a hundred years, my dad said, Mike told them, holding the album on his lap. He gets them at those sales people have in their yards, and at secondhand shops. Sometimes he buys them or trades other collectors for them. Some of them are stereoscopestheres two of them just the same on a long card, and when you look at them through this thing like binoculars, it looks like one picture, only in 3D. Like House of Wax or The Creature from the Black Lagoon. Why does he like all that stuff? Beverly asked. She was wearing ordinary Levis but she had done something amusing to the cuffs, blousing them out with a bright paisley material for the final four inches so that they looked like pants out of some sailors whimsy. Yeah, Eddie said. Most of the time, Derrys pretty boring. Well, I dont know for sure, but I think its because he wasnt born here, Mike said diffidently. Its likeI dont knowlike its all new to him, or like, you know, if you came in during the middle of a movie Shshsure, youd want to see the sstart, Bill said. Yeah, Mike said. Theres a lot of history lying around in Derry. I kind of like it. And I think some of it has to do with this thingthis It, if you want to call it that. He looked at Bill and Bill nodded, his eyes thoughtful. So I was looking through it after the Fourth of July parade because I knew Id seen that clown before. I knew it. And look. He opened the book, thumbed through it, then handed it to Ben, who was sitting on his right. DDDont tttouch the puhpuhpages! Bill said, and there was such urgency in his voice that they all jumped. He had fisted the hand he had cut reaching into Georgies album, Richie saw. Fisted it into a tight, protective knot. Bills right, Richie said, and that subdued, totally unRichielike voice was a powerful convincer. Be careful. Its like Stan said. If we saw it happen, you guys could see it happen, too. Feel it, Bill added grimly. The album went from hand to hand, each of them holding the book gingerly, by the edges, as if it were old dynamite sweating big beads of nitro. It came back to Mike. He opened it to one of the first pages. Daddy says theres no way to date that one, but its probably from the early or midseventeenhundreds, Mike said. He repaired a guys bandsaw for a box of old books and pictures. That was one of them. He says it might be worth forty bucks or even more. The picture was a woodcut, the size of a large postcard. When Bills turn came to look at it, he was relieved to see that Mikes father had the kind of album where the pictures were under a protective plastic sheet. He looked, fascinated, and he thought There. Im seeing himorIt. Really seeing. Thats the face of the enemy. The picture showed a funny fellow juggling oversized bowling pins in the middle of a muddy street. There were a few houses on either side of the street, and a few huts that Bill guessed were stores, or trading posts, or whatever they called them back then. It didnt look like Derry at all, except for the Canal. It was there, neatly cobbled on both sides. In the upper background, Bill could see a team of mules on a towpath, dragging a barge. There was a group of maybe half a dozen kids gathered around the funny fellow. One of them was wearing a pastoral straw hat. Another had a hoop and a stick to roll it with. Not the sort of stick that would come with a hoop that you bought today in a Woolworths; it was a branch from a tree. Bill could see the bare knobs on it where smaller branches had been lopped off with a knife or a hatchet. That baby wasnt made in Taiwan or Korea, he thought, fascinated by this boy who could have been him if hed been born four or five generations before. The funny fellow had a huge grin on his face. He wore no makeup (except to Bill his whole face looked like makeup), but he was bald except for two tufts of hair that stuck up like horns over his ears, and Bill had no trouble recognizing their clown. Two hundred years ago or more, he thought, and felt a crazy surge of terror, anger, and excitement rush through him. Twentyseven years later, sitting in the Derry Public Library and remembering his first look into Mikes fathers album, he realized he had felt the way a hunter might feel, coming upon the first fresh spoor of an old killer tiger. Two hundred years ago ... that long, and only God knows how much longer. This led him to wonder just how long the spirit of Pennywise had been here in Derrybut he found that was a thought he did not really want to pursue. Gimme, Bill! Richie was saying, but Bill held the album a moment longer, staring fixedly at the woodcut, sure it would begin to move the bowling pins (if thats what they were) which the funny fellow was juggling would rise and fall, rise and fall, the kids would laugh and applaud (except maybe they wouldnt all laugh and applaud; some of them might scream and run instead), the muleteam pulling the barge would move beyond the borders of the picture. It didnt happen, and he passed the book on to Richie. When the album came back to Mike he turned some more pages, hunting. Here, he said. This one is from 1856, four years before Lincoln was elected President. The book went around again. This was a color picturea sort of cartoonwhich showed a bunch of drunks standing in front of a saloon while a fat politician with muttonchop whiskers declaimed from a board that had been set between two hogsheads. He held a foamy pitcher of beer in one hand. The board upon which he stood was considerably bowed with his weight. Some distance off, a group of bonneted women were looking at this show of mingled buffoonery and intemperance with disgust. The caption below the picture read POLITICS IN DERRY IS THIRSTY WORK, SEZ SENATOR GARNER! Daddy says pictures like this were really popular for about twenty years before the Civil War, Mike said. They called them foolcards, and people used to send them to each other. They were like some of the jokes in Mad, I guess. Suhsuhsatire, Bill said. Yeah, Mike said. But now look down in the corner of this one. The picture was like Mad in another wayit had as many details and little sidejokes as a big Mort Drucker panel in a Mad magazine movie takeoff. There was a grinning fat man pouring a glass of beer down a spotted dogs throat. There was a woman who had fallen on her prat in a mudpuddle. There were two street urchins slyly sticking sulphurheaded matches into the soles of a prosperouslooking businessmans shoes, and a girl swinging from her heels in an elm tree so that her underpants showed. But despite this bewildering intaglio of detail, none of them really needed Mike to point the clown out. Dressed in a loud checked vestbusting drummers suit, he was playing the shellgame with a bunch of drunken loggers. He was winking at a lumberjack who had, to judge by the gapemouthed look of surprise on his face, just picked the wrong nutshell. The drummerclown was taking a coin from him. Him again, Ben said. What ... a hundred years later? Just about, Mike said. And heres one from 1891. It was a clipping from the front page of the Derry News. HUZZAH! the headline proclaimed exuberantly. IRONWORKS OPENS! Just below this Town Turns Out for Gala Picnic. The picture showed a woodcut of the ribboncutting ceremony at the Kitchener Ironworks; its style reminded Bill of the Currier and Ives prints his mother had in the dining room, although this was nowhere near as polished. A fellow tricked out in a morning coat and tophat was holding a large pair of openjawed scissors above the Ironworks ribbon while a crowd of perhaps five hundred watched. Off to the left was a clowntheir clownturning a handspring for a group of children. The artist had caught him upside down, turning his smile into a scream. He passed the book on quickly to Richie. The next picture was a photograph under which Will Hanlon had written 1933 Repeal in Derry. Although none of the boys knew much about either the Volstead Act or its repeal, the picture made the salient facts clear. The photo was of Wallys Spa down in Hells HalfAcre. The place was almost literally filled to the rafters with men wearing opencollared white shirts, straw boaters, lumbermens shirts, teeshirts, bankers suits. All of them were holding glasses and bottles victoriously aloft. There were two big signs in the window. WELCOME BACK, JOHN BARLEYCORN! one read. The other said FREE BEER TONIGHT. The clown, dressed like the biggest dandy you ever saw (white shoes, spats, gangster pants), had his foot on the running board of a Reo auto and was drinking champagne from a ladys highheeled shoe. 1945, Mike said. The Derry News again. The headline JAPAN SURRENDERSITS OVER! THANK GOD ITS OVER! A parade was snakedancing its way along Main Street toward UpMile Hill. And there was the clown in the background, wearing his silver suit with the orange buttons, frozen in the matrix of dots that made up the grainy newsprint photo, seeming to suggest (at least to Bill) that nothing was over, no one had surrendered, nothing was won, nil was still the rule, zilch still the custom; seeming to suggest above all that all was still lost. Bill felt cold and dry and scared. Suddenly the dots in the picture disappeared and it began to move. Thats what Mike began. LLLook, Bill said. The word dropped out of his mouth like a partially melted icecube. AAAll of you luhlook at ththis! They crowded around. Oh my God, Beverly whispered, awed. Thats IT! Richie nearly screamed, pounding Bill on the back in his excitement. He looked around at Eddies white, drawn face and Stan Uriss frozen one. Thats what we saw in Georges room! Thats exactly what we Shhh, Ben said. Listen. And, almost sobbing You can hear themChrist, you can hear them in there. And in the silence that was only broken by the mild stir of the summer breeze, they all realized they could. The band was playing a martial marching tune, made faint and tinny by distance ... or the passage of time ... or whatever it was. The cheering of the crowd was like sounds that might come through on a badly tuned radio station. There were popping noises, also faint, like the muffled sound of snapping fingers. Firecrackers, Beverly whispered, and rubbed at her eyes with hands that shook. Those are firecrackers, arent they? No one answered. They watched the picture, their eyes eating up their faces. The parade wiggled its way toward them, but just before the marchers reached the extreme foregroundat the point where it seemed they must march right out of the picture and into a world thirteen years laterthey dropped from sight, as if on some kind of unknowable curve. The World War I soldiers first, their faces strangely old under their pieplate helmets, with their sign which read THE DERRY VFW WELCOMES HOME OUR BRAVE BOYS, then the Boy Scouts, the Kiwanians, the Home Nursing Corps, the Derry Christian Marching Band, then the Derry World War II vets themselves, with the highschool band behind them. The crowd moved and shifted. Tickertape and confetti fluttered down from the second and thirdfloor windows of the business buildings that lined the streets. The clown pranced along the sidelines, doing splits and cartwheels, miming a sniper, miming a salute. And Bill noticed for the first time that people were turning from himbut not as if they saw him, exactly; it was more as if they felt a draft or smelled something bad. Only the children really saw him, and they shrank away. Ben stretched his hand out to the picture, as Bill had done in Georges room. NuhNuhNuhNO! Bill cried. I think its all right, Bill, Ben said. Look. And he laid his hand on the protective plastic over the picture for a moment and then took it back. But if you stripped off that cover Beverly screamed. The clown had left off its antics when Ben withdrew his hand. It rushed toward them, its paintbloody mouth gibbering and laughing. Bill winced back but held onto the book all the same, thinking it would drop out of sight as the parade had done, and the marching band, and the Boy Scouts, and the Cadillac convertible carrying Miss Derry of 1945. But the clown did not disappear along that curve that seemed to define the edge of that old existence. Instead, it leaped with a scary, nimble grace onto a lamppost that stood in the extreme left foreground of the picture. It shinnied up like a monkey on a stickand suddenly its face was pressed against the tough plastic sheet Will Hanlon had put over each of the pages in his book. Beverly screamed again and this time Eddie joined her, although his scream was faint and bluebreathless. The plastic bulged outlater they would all agree they saw it. Bill saw the bulb of the clowns red nose flatten, the way your nose will flatten when you press it against a windowpane. Kill you all! The clown was laughing and screaming. Try to stop me and Ill kill you all! Drive you crazy and then kill you all! You cant stop me! Im the Gingerbread Man! Im the Teenage Werewolf! And for a moment It was the Teenage Werewolf, the moonsilvered face of the lycanthrope peering out at them from over the collar of the silver suit, white teeth bared. Cant stop me, Im the leper! Now the lepers face, haunted and peeling, rotting with sores, stared at them with the eyes of the living dead. Cant top me, Im the mummy! The lepers face aged and ran with sterile cracks. Ancient bandages swam halfway out of its skin and solidified there. Ben turned away, his face as white as curds, one hand plastered over his neck and ear. Cant stop me, Im the dead boys! No! Stan Uris screamed. His eyes bulged above bruisedlooking crescents of skinshockflesh, Bill thought randomly, and it was a word he would use in a novel twelve years later, with no idea where it had come from, simply taking it, as writers take the right word at the right time, as a simple gift from that outer space (otherspace) where the good words come from sometimes. Stan snatched the album from his hands and slammed it shut. He held it closed with both hands, the tendons standing out along the inner surfaces of his wrists and forearms. He looked around at the others with eyes that were nearly insane. No, he said rapidly. No, no, no. And suddenly Bill found he was more concerned with Stans repeated denials than with the clown, and he understood that this was exactly the sort of reaction the clown had hoped to provoke, because ... Because maybe Its scared of us ... really scared for the first time in Its long, long life. He grabbed Stan and shook him twice, hard, holding onto his shoulders. Stans teeth clicked together and he dropped the album. Mike picked it up and put it aside in a hurry, not liking to touch it after what he had seen. But it was still his fathers, and he understood intuitively that his father would never see in it what he had just seen. No, Stan said softly. Yes, Bill said. No, Stan said again. Yes. We aaall No. aaall suhhaw it, Stan, Bill said. He looked at the others. Yes, Ben said. Yes, Richie said. Yes, Mike said. Oh my God, yes. Yes, Bev said. Yes, Eddie managed, gasping it out of his rapidly closing throat. Bill looked at Stan, demanding with his eyes that Stan look back at him. Duhdont let it ggget yyou, man, Bill said. Yuhyou suhsaw it, tttoo. I didnt want to! Stan wailed. Sweat stood out on his brow in an oily sheen. But yyyou duhduhdid. Stan looked at the others, one by one. He ran his hands through his short hair and fetched up a great, shuddering sigh. His eyes seemed to clear of that lowering madness that had so disturbed Bill. Yes, he said. Yes. Okay. Yes. That what you want? Yes. Bill thought Were still all together. It didnt stop us. We can still kill It. We can still kill It ... if were brave. Bill looked around at the others and saw in each pair of eyes some measure of Stans hysteria. Not quite as bad, but there. YYYeah, he said, and smiled at Stan. After a moment Stan smiled back and some of that horrible shocked look left his face. Thats what I wuhwuhwanted, you wehwehwet end. Beepbeep, Dumbo, Stan said, and they all laughed. It was hysterical screaming laughter, but better than no laughter at all, Bill reckoned. CCCome on, he said, because someone had to say something. Lets fffinish the clubhouse. What do you sssay? He saw the gratitude in their eyes and felt a measure of gladness for them ... but their gratitude did little to heal his own horror. In fact, there was something in their gratitude which made him want to hate them. Would he never be able to express his own terror, lest the fragile welds that made them into one thing should let go? And even to think such a thing wasnt really fair, was it? Because in some measure at least he was using themusing his friends, risking their livesto settle the score for his dead brother. And was even that the bottom? No, because George was dead, and if revenge could be exacted at all, Bill suspected it could only be exacted on behalf of the living. And what did that make him? A selfish little shit waving a tin sword and trying to make himself look like King Arthur? Oh Christ, he groaned to himself, if this is the stuff adults have to think about I never want to grow up. His resolve was still strong, but it was a bitter resolve. Bitter. CHAPTER 15 The SmokeHole 1 Richie Tozier pushes his glasses up on his nose (already the gesture feels perfectly familiar, although he has worn contact lenses for twenty years) and thinks with some amazement that the atmosphere has changed in the room while Mike recalled the incident with the bird out at the Ironworks and reminded them about his fathers photograph album and the picture that had moved. Richie had felt a mad, exhilarating kind of energy growing in the room. He had done cocaine nine or ten times over the last couple of yearsat parties, mostly; coke wasnt something you wanted just lying around your house if you were a biggatime disc jockeyand the feel was something like that, but not exactly. This feeling was purer, more of a mainline high. He thought he recognized the feeling from his childhood, when he had felt it every day and had come to take it merely as a matter of course. He supposed that, if he had ever thought about that deeprunning aquifer of energy as a kid (he could not recall that he ever had), he would have simply dismissed it as a fact of life, something that would always be there, like the color of his eyes or his disgusting hammertoes. Well, that hadnt turned out to be true. The energy you drew on so extravagantly when you were a kid, the energy you thought would never exhaust itselfthat slipped away somewhere between eighteen and twentyfour, to be replaced by something much duller, something as bogus as a coke high purpose, maybe, or goals, or whatever rahrah Junior Chamber of Commerce word you wanted to use. It was no big deal; it didnt go all at once, with a bang. And maybe, Richie thought, thats the scary part. How you dont stop being a kid all at once, with a big explosive bang, like one of that clowns trick balloons with the BurmaShave slogans on the sides. The kid in you just leaked out, like the air out of a tire. And one day you looked in the mirror and there was a grownup looking back at you. You could go on wearing bluejeans, you could keep going to Springsteen and Seger concerts, you could dye your hair, but that was a grownups face in the mirror just the same. It all happened while you were asleep, maybe, like a visit from the Tooth Fairy. No, he thinks. Not the Tooth Fairy. The Age Fairy. He laughs aloud at the stupid extravagance of this image, and when Beverly looks at him questioningly, he waves a hand at her. Nothing, babe, he says. Just thinkin me thinks. But now that energy is back. No, not all the way backnot yet, anywaybut coming back. And its not just him; he can feel it filling the room. Mike looks okay to Richie for the first time since they all got together for that hideous lunch out by the mall. When Richie walked into the lobby and saw Mike sitting there with Ben and Eddie, he thought, shocked Theres a man whos going crazy, getting ready to commit suicide, maybe. But that look is gone now. Not just sublimated; gone. Richie has sat right here and watched the last of it slip out of Mikes face while he relived the experience of the bird and the album. Hes been energized. And it is the same with all of them. Its in their faces, their voices, their gestures. Eddie pours himself another ginandprunejuice. Bill knocks back some bourbon, and Mike cracks another beer. Beverly glances up at the balloons Bill has tethered to the microfilm recorder at the main desk and finishes her third screwdriver in a hurry. They have all been drinking pretty enthusiastically, but none of them are drunk. Richie doesnt know where that energy he feels is coming from, but its not out of a liquor bottle. DERRY NIGGERS GET THE BIRD Blue. THE LOSERS ARE STILL LOSING, BUT STANLEY URIS IS FINALLY AHEAD Orange. Christ, Richie thinks, opening a fresh beer for himself. it isnt bad enough It can be any damn monster It wants to be, and it isnt bad enough that It can feed off our fears. It also turns out to be Rodney Dangerfield in drag. Its Eddie who breaks the silence. How much do you think It knows about what were doing now? he asks. It was here, wasnt It? Ben says. Im not sure that means much, Eddie replies. Bill nods. Those are just images, he says. Im not sure that means It can see us, or know what were up to. You can see a news commentator on TV, but he cant see you. Those balloons arent just images, Beverly says, and jerks a thumb over her shoulder at them. Theyre real. Thats not true, though, Richie says, and they all look at him. Images are real. Sure they are. They And suddenly something else clicks into place, something new it clicks into place with such firm force that he actually puts his hands to his ears. His eyes widen behind his glasses. Oh my God! he cries suddenly. He gropes for the table, halfstands, then falls back into his chair with a boneless thud. He knocks his can of beer over reaching for it, picks it up, and drinks whats left. He looks at Mike while the others look at him, startled and concerned. The burning! he almost shouts. The burning in my eyes! Mike! The burning in my eyes Mike is nodding, smiling a little. RRichie? Bill asks. What iis it? But Richie barely hears him. The force of the memory sweeps through him like a tide, turning him alternately hot and cold, and he suddenly understands why these memories have come back one at a time. If he had remembered everything at once, the force would have been like a psychological shotgun blast let off an inch from his temple. It would have torn off the whole top of his head. We saw It come! he says to Mike. We saw It come, didnt we? You and me ... or was it just me? He grabs Mikes hand, which lies on the table. Did you see it too, Mikey, or was it just me? Did you see it? The forest fire? The crater? saw it, Mike says quietly, and squeezes Richies hand. Richie closes his eyes for a moment, thinking he has never felt such a warm and powerful wave of relief in his life, not even when the PSA jet he had taken from L.A. to San Francisco skidded off the runway and just stopped therenobody killed, nobody even hurt. Some luggage had fallen out of the overhead bins and that was all. He had jumped onto the yellow emergency slide and had helped a woman away from the plane. The woman had turned her ankle on a hummock concealed in the high grass. She was laughing and saying, I cant believe Im not dead, I cant believe it, I just cant believe it. So Richie, who was halfcarrying the woman with one arm and waving with the other to the firemen who were making frantic comeon gestures to the deplaning passengers, said Okay, youre dead, youre dead, you feel better now? and they both laughed crazily. That had been relieflaughter ... but this relief is greater. What are you guys talking about? Eddie asks, looking from one to the other. Richie looks at Mike, but Mike shakes his head. You go ahead, Richie. Ive had my say for the evening. The rest of you dont know or maybe dont remember, because you left, Richie tells them. Me and Mikey, we were the last two Injuns in the smokehole. The smokehole, Bill muses. His eyes are far and blue. The burning sensation in my eyes, Richie says, under my contact lenses. I felt it for the first time right after Mike called me in California. I didnt know what it was then, but I do now. It was smoke. Smoke that was twentyseven years old. He looks at Mike. Psychological, would you say? Psychosomatic? Something from the subconscious? I would say not, Mike answers quietly. I would say that what you felt was as real as those balloons, or the head I saw in the icebox, or the corpse of Tony Tracker that Eddie saw. Tell them, Richie. Richie says It was four or five days after Mike brought his dads album down to the Barrens. Sometime just after the middle of July, I guess. The clubhouse was done. But ... the smokehole thing, that was your idea, Haystack. You got it out of one of your books. Smiling a little, Ben nods. Richie thinks It was overcast that day. No breeze. Thunder in the air. Like the day a month or so later when we stood in the stream and made a circle and Stan cut our hands with that chunk of Coke bottle. The air was just sitting there, waiting for something to happen, and later Bill said that was why it got so bad in there so quick, because there was no draft. July 17th. Yes, that was it, that had been the day of the smokehole. July 17th, 1958, almost a month after summer vacation began and the nucleus of the LosersBill, Eddie, and Benhad formed down in the Barrens. Let me look up the weather forecast for that day almost twentyseven years ago, Richie thinks, and Ill tell you what it said before I even read it Richard Tozier, aka the Great Mentalizer. Hot, humid, chance of thundershowers. And watch out for the visions that may come while youre down in the smokehole.... It had been two days after the body of Jimmy Cullum was discovered, the day after Mr. Nell had come down to the Barrens again and sat right on the clubhouse without knowing it was there, because by then they had capped it off and Ben himself had carefully overseen the application of the TangleTrack and replacement of the sod. Unless you got right down on your hands and knees and crawled around, youd have no idea anything was there. Like the dam, Bens clubhouse had been a roaring success, but this time Mr. Nell didnt know anything about it. He had questioned them carefully, officially, taking down their answers in his black notebook, but there had been little they could tell himat least about Jimmy Cullumand Mr. Nell had gone away again, after reminding them once more that they were not to play in the Barrens alone ... ever. Richie guessed that Mr. Nell would have told them simply to get out if anyone in the Derry Police Department had really believed that the Cullum boy (or any of the others) had actually been killed in the Barrens. But they knew better; because of the sewer and stormdrain system, that was simply where the remains tended to finish up. Mr. Nell had come on the 16th, yes, a hot and humid day also, but sunny. The 17th had been overcast. Are you going to talk to us or not, Richie? Bev asks. She is smiling a little, her lips full and a pale rosered, her eyes alight. Im just thinking about where to start, Richie says. He takes his glasses off, wipes them on his shirt, and suddenly he knows where with the ground opening up at his and Bills feet. Of course he knew about the clubhouseso did Bill and the rest of thembut it still freaked him out, seeing the ground suddenly open on a slit of darkness like that. He remembers Bill riding him double on the back of Silver to the usual place on Kansas Street and then stowing his bike under the little bridge. He remembers the two of them walking along the path toward the clearing, sometimes having to turn sideways because the brush was so thickit was midsummer now, and the Barrens were at that years apogee of lushness. He remembers swatting at the mosquitoes that hummed maddeningly close to their ears; he even remembers Bill saying (oh how clearly it all comes back, not as if it happened yesterday, but as if it is happening now), HHHold it a sss 2 econd, RuhRichie. Theres a damn guhguhhood one on the bback of your nehneck. Oh Christ, Richie said. He hated mosquitoes. Little flying vampires thats all they were when you got right down to the facts. Kill it, Big Bill. Bill swatted the back of Richies neck. Ouch! Suhsuhsee? Bill held his hand in front of Richies face. There was a broken mosquito body in the center of an irregular patch of blood. My blood, Richie thought, which was shed for you and for many. Yeeick, he said. DDont wworry, Bill said. Lil fuckerll nehnever dance the tuhtuhtango again. They walked on, slapping at mosquitoes, waving at the clouds of noseeums attracted by something in the smell of their sweatsomething which would years later be identified as pheromones. Whatever they were. Bill, when you gonna tell the rest of em about the silver bullets? Richie asked as they approached the clearing. In this case the rest of them meant Bev, Eddie, Mike, and Stanalthough Richie guessed Stan already had a good idea of what they were studying up on down at the Public Library. Stan was sharptoo sharp for his own good, Richie sometimes thought. |
The day Mike brought his fathers album down to the Barrens Stan had almost flipped out. Richie had, in fact, been nearly convinced that they wouldnt see Stan again and the Losers Club would become a sextet (a word Richie liked a lot, always with the emphasis on the first syllable). But Stan had been back the next day, and Richie had respected him all the more for that. You going to tell them today? Nuhnot ttoday, Bill said. You dont think theyll work, do you? Bill shrugged, and Richie, who maybe understood Bill Denbrough better than anyone ever would until Audra Phillips, suspected all the things Bill might have said if not for the roadblock of his speech impediment that kids making silver bullets was boysbook stuff, comicbook stuff.... In a word, it was crap. Dangerous crap. They could try it, yeah. Ben Hanscom might even be able to bring it off, yeah. In a movie it would work, yeah. But ... So? I got an iiiidea, Bill said. Simpler. But only if BehBehBeverly If Beverly what? Nehhever mind. And Bill would say no more on the subject. They came into the clearing. If you looked closely, you might have thought that the grass there had a slightly matted looka slightly used look. You might even have thought that there was something a bit artificialalmost arranged about the scatter of leaves and pine needles on top of the sods. Bill picked up a RingDing wrapperBens, almost certainlyand put it absently in his pocket. The boys crossed to the center of the clearing ... and a piece of ground about ten inches long by three inches wide swung up with a dirty squall of hinges, revealing a black eyelid. Eyes looked out of that blackness, giving Richie a momentary chill. But they were only Eddie Kaspbraks eyes, and it was Eddie, whom he would visit in the hospital a week later, who intoned hollowly Whos that triptrapping on my bridge? Giggles from below, and a flashlight flicker. Thees ees the rurales, senhorr, Richie said, squatting down, twirling an invisible mustache, and speaking in his Pancho Vanilla Voice. Yeah? Beverly asked from below. Lets see your badges. Batches? Richie cried, delighted. We doan need no stinkin batches! Go to hell, Pancho, Eddie replied, and slammed the big eyelid closed. There were more muffled giggles from below. Come out with your hands up! Bill cried in a low, commanding adult voice. He began to tramp back and forth across the sodcovered cap of the clubhouse. He could see the ground springing up and down with his backandforth passage, but just barely; they had built well. You havent got a chance! he bellowed, seeing himself as fearless Joe Friday of the L.A.P.D. in his minds eye. Come on out of there, punks! Or well come in SHOOTIN! He jumped up and down once to emphasize his point. Screams and giggles from below. Bill was smiling, unaware that Richie was looking at him wiselylooking at him not as one child looks at another but, in that brief moment, as an adult looks at a child. He doesnt know that he doesnt always, Richie thought. Let them in, Ben, before they crash the roof in, Bev said. A moment later a trapdoor flopped open like the hatch of a submarine. Ben looked out. He was flushed. Richie knew at once that Ben had been sitting next to Beverly. Bill and Richie dropped down through the hatch and Ben closed it again. Then there they all were, sitting snug against board walls with their legs drawn up, their faces dimly revealed in the beam of Bens flashlight. SSSo whwhats gggoing oon? Bill asked. Not too much, Ben said. He was indeed sitting next to Beverly, and his face looked happy as well as flushed. We were just Tell em, Ben, Eddie interrupted. Tell em the story! See what they think. Wouldnt do much for your asthma, Stan told Eddie in his best someonehastobepracticalhere tone of voice. Richie sat between Mike and Ben, holding his knees in his linked hands. It was delightfully cool down here, delightfully secret. Following the gleam of the flashlight as it moved from face to face, he temporarily forgot what had so astounded him outside only a minute ago. What are you talkin about? Oh, Ben was telling us a story about this Indian ceremony, Bev said. But Stans right, it wouldnt be very good for your asthma, Eddie. It might not bother it, Eddie said, soundingto his credit, Richie thoughtonly a little uneasy. Usually its only when I get upset. Anyway, Id like to try it. Try wwwhat? Bill asked him. The SmokeHole Ceremony, Eddie said. WWWhats ththat? The beam of Bens flashlight drifted upward and Richie followed it with his eyes. It tracked aimlessly across the wooden roof of their clubhouse as Ben explained. It crossed the gouged and splintered panels of the mahogany door the seven of them had carried back here from the dump three days agothe day before the body of Jimmy Cullum was discovered. The thing Richie remembered about Jimmy Cullum, a quiet little boy who also wore spectacles, was that he liked to play Scrabble on rainy days. Not going to be playing Scrabble anymore, Richie thought, and shivered a little. In the dimness no one saw the shiver, but Mike Hanlon, sitting shoulder to shoulder with him, glanced at him curiously. Well, I got this book out of the library last week, Ben was saying. Ghosts of the Great Plains, its called, and its all about the Indian tribes that lived out west a hundred and fifty years ago. The Paiutes and the Pawnees and the Kiowas and the Otoes and the Commanches. It was really a good book. Id love to go out there sometime to where they lived. Iowa, Nebraska, Colorado, Utah ... Shut up and tell about the SmokeHole Ceremony, Beverly said, elbowing him. Sure, he said. Right. And Richie believed his response would have been the same if Beverly had given him the elbow and said, Drink the poison now, Ben, okay? See, almost all those Indians had a special ceremony, and our clubhouse made me think of it. Whenever they had to make a big decisionwhether to move on after the buffalo herds, or to find fresh water, or whether or not to fight their enemiestheyd dig a big hole in the ground and cover it up with branches, except for a little vent in the top. The smuhsmuhsmokehole, Bill said. Your quick mind never ceases to amaze me, Big Bill, Richie said gravely. You ought to go on TwentyOne. Ill bet you could even beat ole Charlie Van Doren. Bill made as if to hit him and Richie recoiled, bumping his head a pretty good one on a piece of shoring. Ouch! You ddeserved it, Bill said. I keel you, rotten gringo sumbeesh, Richie said. We doan need no stinkin Will you guys stop it? Beverly asked. This is interesting. And she favored Ben with such a warm look that Richie believed steam would start curling out of Haystacks ears in a couple of minutes. Okay, BBBen, Bill said. Go ooon. Sure, Ben said. The word came out in a croak. He had to clear his throat and start again. When the smokehole was finished, theyd start a fire down there. Theyd use green wood so it would be a really smoky fire. Then all the braves would go down there and sit around the fire. The place would fill up with smoke. The book said this was a religious ceremony, but it was also kind of a contest, you know? After half a day or so most of the braves would bug out because they couldnt stand the smoke anymore, and only two or three would be left. And they were supposed to have visions. Yeah, if I breathed smoke for five or six hours, Id probably have some visions, all right, Mike said, and they all laughed. The visions were supposed to tell the tribe what to do, Ben said. And I dont know if this part is true or not, but the book said that most times the visions were right. A silence fell and Richie looked at Bill. He was aware that they were all looking at Bill, and he had the feelingagainthat Bens story of the smokehole was more than a thing you read about in a book and then had to try for yourself, like a chemistry experiment or a magic trick. He knew it, they all knew it. Perhaps Ben knew it most of all. This was something they were supposed to do. They were supposed to have visions.... Most times the visions were right. Richie thought Illbet if we asked him, Haystack would tell us that book practically jumped into his hand. Like something wanted him to read that one particular book and then tell us about the smokehole ceremony. Becausetheres a tribe right here, isnt there? Yeah. Us. And, yeah, Iguess we do need to know what happens next. This thought led to another Was this supposed to happen? From the time Ben got the idea for an underground clubhouse instead of a treehouse, was this supposed to happen? How much of this are we thinking up ourselves, and how much is being thought up for us? In a way, he supposed such an idea should have been almost comforting. It was nice to imagine that something bigger than you, smarter than you, was doing your thinking for you, like the adults that planned your meals, bought your clothes, and managed your timeand Richie was convinced that the force that had brought them together, the force that had used Ben as its messenger to bring them the idea of the smokeholethat force wasnt the same as the one killing the children. This was some kind of counterforce to that other ... to (oh well you might as well say it) It. But all the same, he didnt like this feeling of not being in control of his own actions, of being managed, of being run. They all looked at Bill; they all waited to see what Bill would say. YYou nuhnuhknow, he said, that sounds rihreally nneat. Beverly sighed and Stan stirred uncomfortably ... that was all. Rihrihreally nuhneat, Bill repeated, looking down at his hands, and perhaps it was only the uneasy flashlight beam in Bens hands or his own imagination, but Richie thought Bill looked a little pale and a lot scared, although he was smiling. Maybe we could uuse a vihhision to tell us what to dddo about oour pruhpruhhoblem. And if anyone has a vision, Richie thought, it will be Bill. But about that he was wrong. Well, Ben said, it probably only works for Indians, but it might be flippy to try it. Yeah, well probably all pass out from the smoke and die in here, Stan said gloomily. Thatd be really flippy, all right. You dont want to, Stan? Eddie asked. Well, I sort of do, Stan said. He sighed. I think you guys are making me crazy, you know it? He looked at Bill. When? Bill said, WWell, nuhno ttime like the puhpuhpuhhresent, iis there? There was a startled, thoughtful silence. Then Richie got to his feet, straightarming the trapdoor open and letting in the muted light of that still summer day. I got my hatchet, Ben said, following him out. Who wants to help me cut some green wood? In the end they all helped. 3 It took them about an hour to get ready. They cut four or five armloads of small green branches, from which Ben had stripped the twigs and leaves. Theyll smoke, all right, he said. I dont even know if well be able to get them going. Beverly and Richie went down to the bank of the Kenduskeag and brought back a collection of goodsized stones, using Eddies jacket (his mother always made him take a jacket, even if it was eighty degreesit might rain, Mrs. Kaspbrak said, and if you have a jacket to put on, your skin wont get soaked if it does) as a makeshift sling. Carrying the rocks back to the clubhouse, Richie said You cant do this, Bev. Youre a girl. Ben said it was just the braves that went down in the smokehole, not the squaws. Beverly paused, looking at Richie with mixed amusement and irritation. A lock of hair had escaped from her ponytail; she pushed out her lower lip and blew it off her forehead. I could wrestle you to a fall any day, Richie. And you know it. Dat doan mattuh, Miss Scawlett! Richie said, popping his eyes at her. You is still a girl and you is always goan be a girl! You sho aint no Injun brave! Ill be a bravette, then, Beverly said. Now are we going to take these rocks back to the clubhouse or am I going to bounce a few of them off your asshole skull? Lawksamussy, Miss Scawlett, I aint got no asshole in mah skull! Richie screeched, and Beverly laughed so hard she dropped her end of Eddies jacket and all the stones fell out. She scolded Richie all the time they were picking them up again, and Richie joked and screeched in many Voices, and thought to himself how beautiful she was. Although Richie had not been serious when he spoke of excluding her from the smokehole on the basis of her sex, Bill Denbrough apparently was. She stood facing him, her hands on her hips, her cheeks flushed with anger. You can just take that and stuff it with a long pole, Stuttering Bill! Im in on this too, or arent I a member of your lousy club anymore? Patiently, Bill said IIts not Ilike that, BBBev, and yyou nuhknow iit. Somebody has to stay uuhup here. Why? Bill tried, but the roadblock was in again. He looked at Eddie for help. Its what Stan said, Eddie told her quietly. About the smoke. Bill says that might really happenwe could pass out down there. Then wed die. Bill says thats what happens to most people in housefires. They dont burn up. They choke to death on the smoke. They Now she turned to Eddie. Well, okay. He wants somebody to stay up on top in case theres trouble? Miserably, Eddie nodded. Well, what about you? Youre the one with the asthma. Eddie said nothing. She turned back to Bill. The others stood around, hands in their pockets, looking at their sneakers. Its because Im a girl, isnt it? Thats really it, isnt it? BehBehBehBeh You dont have to talk, she snapped. Just nod your head or shake it. Your head doesnt stutter, does it? Is it because Im a girl? Reluctantly, Bill nodded his head. She looked at him for a moment, her lips trembling, and Richie thought she would cry. Instead, she exploded. Well, fuck you! She whirled around to look at the others, and they flinched from her gaze, so hot it was nearly radioactive. Fuck all of you if you think the same thing! She turned back to Bill and began to talk fast, rapping him with words. This is something more than some diddlyshit kids game like tag or guns or hideandgoseek, and you know it, Bill. Were supposed to do this. Thats part of it. And youre not going to cut me out just because Im a girl. Do you understand? You better, or Im leaving right now. And if I go, Im gone. For good. You understand? She stopped. Bill looked at her. He seemed to have regained his calm, but Richie felt afraid. He felt that any chance they had of winning, of finding a way to get to the thing that had killed Georgie Denbrough and the other kids, getting to It and killing It, was now in jeopardy. Seven, Richie thought. Thats the magic number. There has to be seven of us. Thats the way its supposed to be. A bird sang somewhere; stopped; sang again. AAll rright, Bill said, and Richie let his breath out. But suhsuhsomebody has to sstay tuhhopside. Who wwwants to ddo it? Richie thought Eddie or Stan would surely volunteer for this duty, but Eddie said nothing. Stan stood pale and thoughtful and silent. Mike had his thumbs hooked into his belt like Steve McQueen in Wanted Dead or Alive, nothing moving but his eyes. Cuhcuhcome oon, Bill said, and Richie realized that all pretense had gone out of the thing now; Bevs impassioned speech and Bills grave, tooold face had seen to that. This was a part of it, perhaps as dangerous as the expedition he and Bill had made to the house at 29 Neibolt Street. They knew it ... and no one was backing down. Suddenly he was very proud of them, very proud to be with them. After all the years of being counted out, he was counted in. Finally counted in. He didnt know if they were still losers or not, but he knew they were together. They were friends. Damn good friends. Richie took his glasses off and rubbed them vigorously with the tail of his shirt. I know how to do it, Bev said, and took a book of matches from her pocket. On the front, so tiny youd need a magnifying glass to get a really good look at them, were pictures of that years candidates for the title of Miss Rheingold. Beverly lit a match and then blew it out. She tore out six more and added the burned match. She turned away from them, and when she turned back the white ends of the seven matches poked out of her closed fist. Pick, she said, holding the matches out to Bill. The one who picks the match with the burned head stays up here and pulls the rest out if they go flippy. Bill looked at her levelly. ThThis is hhhow you wwant iit? She smiled at him then, and her smile made her face radiant. Yeah, you big dummy, this is how I want it. What about you? I luhluhlove you, BBBev, he said, and color rose in her cheeks like hasty flames. Bill did not appear to notice. He studied the matchtails sticking out of her fist, and at length he picked one. Its head was blue and unburned. She turned to Ben and offered the remaining six. I love you too, Ben said hoarsely. His face was plumcolored; he looked like he was on the verge of a stroke. But no one laughed. Somewhere deeper in the Barrens, the bird sang again. Stan would know what it was, Richie thought randomly. Thank you, she said, smiling, and Ben picked a match. Its head was unburned. She offered them to Eddie next. Eddie smiled, a shy smile that was incredibly sweet and almost heartbreakingly vulnerable. I guess I love you, too, Bev, he said, and then picked a match blindly. Its head was blue. Beverly now offered the four matchtails in her hand to Richie. Ah loves yuh, Miss Scawlett! Richie screamed at the top of his voice, and made exaggerated kissing gestures with his lips. Beverly only looked at him, smiling a little, and Richie suddenly felt ashamed. I do love you, Bev, he said, and touched her hair. Youre cool. Thank you, she said. He picked a match and looked at it, positive hed picked the burned one. But he hadnt. She offered them to Stan. I love you, Stan said, and plucked one of the matches from her fist. Unburned. You and me, Mike, she said, and offered him his pick of the two left. He stepped forward. I dont know you well enough to love you, he said, but I love you anyway. You could give my mother shoutin lessons, I guess. They all laughed, and Mike took a match. Its head was also unburned. I guess its yyyou aafter all, Bev, Bill said. Looking disgustedall that flash and fire for nothingBeverly opened her hand. The head of the remaining match was also blue and unburned. YYYou jihjigjiggered them, Bill accused. No. I didnt. Her tone was not one of angry protestwhich would have been suspectbut flabbergasted surprise. Honest to God I didnt. Then she showed them her palm. They all saw the faint mark of soot from the burned matchhead there. Bill, I swear on my mothers name! Bill looked at her for a moment and then nodded. By common unspoken consent, they all handed the matches back to Bill. Seven of them, their heads intact. Stan and Eddie began to crawl around on the ground, but there was no burned match there. I didnt, Beverly said again, to no one in particular. So what do we do now? Richie asked. We aaall go down, Bill said. Because thats wwhat wwwere suhsupposed to do. And if we all pass out? Eddie asked. Bill looked at Beverly again. IIf BBevs ttelling the truhtruth, and sshe iiis, wwe wont. How do you know? Stan asked. II jjust dddo. The bird sang again. 4 Ben and Richie went down first and the others handed the rocks down one by one. Richie passed them on to Ben, who made a small stone circle in the middle of the dirt clubhouse floor. Okay, he said. Thats enough. The others came down, each with a handful of the green twigs theyd cut with Bens hatchet. Bill came last. He closed the trapdoor and opened the narrow hinged window. ThThThere, he said. Ththeres our smuhsmokehole. Do we hhave any kihkihkindling? You can use this, if you want, Mike said, and took a battered Archie funnybook out of his hip pocket. I read it already. Bill tore the pages out of the funnybook one by one, working slowly and gravely. The others sat around the walls, knee to knee and shoulder to shoulder, watching, not speaking. The tension was thick and still. Bill laid small twigs and branches over the paper and then looked at Beverly. YYYou ggot the muhmatches, he said. She lit one, a tiny yellow flare in the gloom. Darn thing probably wont catch anyway, she said in a slightly uneven voice, and touched a light to the paper in several places. When the matchflame got close to her fingers, she tossed it into the center. The flames blazed up yellow, crackling, throwing their faces into sharp relief, and in that moment Richie had no trouble believing Bens Indian story, and he thought it must have been like this back in those old days when the idea of white men was still no more than a rumor or a tall tale to those Indians who followed buffalo herds so big they could cover the earth from horizon to horizon, herds so big that their passing shook the ground like an earthquake. In that moment Richie could picture those Indians, Kiowas or Pawnees or whatever they were, down in their smokehole, knee to knee and shoulder to shoulder, watching as the flames guttered and sank into the green wood like hot sores, listening to the faint and steady sssssss of sap oozing out of the damp wood, waiting for the vision to descend. Yeah. Sitting here now he could believe it all ... and looking at their somber faces as they studied the flames and the charring pages of Mikes Archie funnybook, he could see that they believed it, too. The branches were catching. The clubhouse began to fill up with smoke. Some of it, white as cotton smokesignals in a Saturdaymatinee movie starring Randolph Scott or Audie Murphy, escaped from the smokehole. But with no moving air outside to create a draft, most of it stayed below. It had an acrid bite that made eyes sting and throats throb. Richie heard Eddie cough twicea flat sound like dry boards being whacked togetherand then fall silent again. He shouldnt be down here, he thought ... but something else apparently felt otherwise. Bill tossed another handful of green twigs on the smoldering fire and asked in a thin voice that was not much like his usual speaking voice Anyone having aany vihvihvisions? Visions of getting out of here, Stan Uris said. Beverly laughed at this, but her laughter turned into a fit of coughing and choking. Richie leaned his head back against the wall and looked up at the smokeholea thin rectangle of mellow white light. He thought about the Paul Bunyan statue that day in March ... but that had only been a mirage, a hallucination, a (vision) Smokes killin me, Ben said. Whoo! So leave, Richie murmured, not taking his eyes off the smokehole. He felt as if he was getting a handle on this. He felt as if he had lost ten pounds. And he sure as shit felt as if the clubhouse had gotten bigger. Damn straight on that last. He had been sitting with Ben Hanscoms fat right leg squashed against his left one and Bill Denbroughs bony left shoulder socked into his right arm. Now he was touching neither of them. He glanced lazily to his right and left to verify that his perception was true, and it was. Ben was a foot or so to his left. On his right, Bill was even father away. Place is bigger, friends and neighbors, he said. He took a deeper breath and coughed hard. It hurt, hurt deep in his chest, the way a cough hurt when you had the flu or the grippe or something. For awhile he thought it would never pass; that he would just go on coughing until they had to pull him out. If they still can, he thought, but the thought was really too dim to be frightening. Then Bill was pounding him on the back, and the coughing fit passed. You dont know you dont always, Richie said. He was looking at the smokehole again instead of at Bill. How bright it seemed! When he closed his eyes he could still see the rectangle, floating there in the dark, but bright green instead of bright white. Whuhwhuhwhat do you mmean? Bill asked. Stutter. He paused, aware that someone else was coughing but not sure who it was. You ought to do the Voices, not me, Big Bill. You The coughing got louder. Suddenly the clubhouse was flooded with daylight, so sudden and so bright Richie had to squint against it. He could just make out Stan Uris, climbing and clawing his way out. Sorry, Stan managed, through his spasmodic coughing. Sorry, cant Its all right, Richie heard himself say. You doan need no stinkin batches. His voice sounded as if it were coming from a different body. The trapdoor slammed shut a moment later, but enough fresh air had come in to clear his head a little. Before Ben moved over a little to fill the space Stan had vacated, Richie became aware of Bens leg again, pressing his. How had he gotten the idea that the clubhouse had gotten bigger? Mike Hanlon threw more sticks on the smoky fire. Richie resumed taking shallow breaths and looking up at the smokehole. He had no sense of real time passing, but he was vaguely aware that, in addition to the smoke, the clubhouse was getting good and hot. He looked around, looked at his friends. They were hard to see, halfswallowed in shadowsmoke and still white summerlight. Bevs head was tilted back against a piece of shoring, her hands on her knees, her eyes closed, tears trickling down her cheeks toward her earlobes. Bill was sitting crosslegged, his chin on his chest. Ben was But suddenly Ben was getting to his feet, pushing the trapdoor open again. There goes Ben, Mike said. He was sitting Indianfashion directly across from Richie, his eyes as red as a weasels. Comparative coolness struck them again. The air freshened as smoke swirled up through the trap. Ben was coughing and dryretching. He pulled himself out with Stans help, and before either of them could close the trapdoor, Eddie was staggering to his feet, his face a deadly pale except for the bruisedlooking patches under his eyes and traced just below his cheekbones. His thin chest was hitching up and down in quick, shallow spasms. He groped weakly for the edge of the escape hatch and would have fallen if Ben had not grabbed one hand and Stan the other. Sorry, Eddie managed in a squeaky little whisper, and then they hauled him up. The trapdoor banged down again. There was a long, quiet period. The smoke built up until it was a thick still fog in the clubhouse. Looks like a peasouper to me, Watson, Richie thought, and for a moment he imagined himself as Sherlock Holmes (a Holmes who looked a great deal like Basil Rathbone and who was totally black and white), moving purposefully along Baker Street; Moriarty was somewhere near, a hansom cab awaited, and the game was afoot. The thought was amazingly clear, amazingly solid. It seemed almost to have weight, as if it were not a little pocketdaydream of the sort he had all the time (batting cleanup for the Bosox, bottom of the ninth, bases loaded, and there it goes, its up ... ITS GONE! Home run, Tozier ... and that breaks the Babes record!), but something that was almost real. There was still enough of the wiseacre in him to think that if all he was getting out of this was a vision of Basil Rathbone as Sherlock Holmes, then the whole idea of visions was pretty overrated. Except of course it isnt Moriarty thats out there. Its out theresome Itand Its real. It Then the trapdoor opened again and Beverly was struggling her way out, coughing dryly, one hand cupped over her mouth. Ben got one hand and Stan grabbed her under the other arm. Halfpulled, halfscrambling under her own power, she was up and gone. IhIhIt iis bihigger, Bill said. Richie looked around. He saw the circle of stones with the fire smoldering within, fuming out clouds of smoke. Across the way he saw Mike sitting crosslegged like a totem carved from mahogany, staring at him though the fire with his smokereddened eyes. Except Mike was better than twenty yards away, and Bill was even farther away, on Richies right. The underground clubhouse was now at least the size of a ballroom. Doesnt matter, Mike said. Its gonna come pretty quick. Somethin is. YYYeah, Bill said. But I ... I ... I He began to cough. He tried to control it, but the cough worsened, a dry rattling. Dimly Richie saw Bill stumble to his feet, lunge for the trapdoor, and shove it open. GuhGuhGood luhIuhIuh And then he was gone, dragged up by the others. Looks like its you and me, ole Mikey, Richie said, and then he began to cough himself. I thought for sure that it would be Bill The cough worsened. He doubled over, hacking dryly, unable to get his breath. His head was thuddingwhackinglike a turnip filled with blood. His eyes teared behind his glasses. From far away, he heard Mike saying Go on up if you have to, Richie. Dont go flippy. Dont kill yourself. He raised a hand toward Mike and flapped it at him (no stinkin batches) in a negative gesture. Little by little he began to get the coughing under control again. Mike was right; something was going to happen, and soon. He wanted to still be here when it did. He tilted his head back and looked up at the smokehole again. The coughing fit had left him feeling lightheaded, and now he seemed to be floating on a cushion of air. It was a pleasant feeling. He took shallow breaths and thought Someday Im going to be a rockandroll star. Thats it, yes. Ill be famous. Ill make records and albums and movies. Ill have a black sportcoat and white shoes and a yellow Cadillac. And when I come back to Derry, theyll all eat their hearts out, even Bowers. I wear glasses, but what the fuck? Buddy Holly wears glasses. Ill bop till Im blue and dance till Im black. Ill be the first rockandroll star to ever come from Maine. Ill The thought drifted away. It didnt matter. He found that now he didnt need to take shallow breaths. His lungs had adapted. He could breathe as much smoke as he wanted. Maybe he was from Venus. Mike threw more sticks on the fire. Not to be outdone, Richie tossed on another handful himself. How you feeling, Rich? Mike asked. Richie smiled. Better. Good, almost. You? Mike nodded and smiled back. I feel okay. Have you been having some funny thoughts? Yeah. Thought I was Sherlock Holmes for a minute there. Then I thought I could dance like the Dovells. Your eyes are so red you wouldnt believe it, you know it? Yours too. Just a coupla weasels in the pen, thats what we are. Yeah? Yeah. You wanna say all right? All right. You wanna say you got the word? I got it, Mikey. Yeah, okay. They grinned at each other and then Richie let his head tilt back against the wall again and looked up at the smokehole. Shortly he began to drift away. No ... not away. Up. He was drifting up. Like (float down here we all) a balloon. Yuhyuhyou ggguys all riright? Bills voice, coming down through the smokehole. Coming from Venus. Worried. Richie felt himself thud back down inside himself. All right, he heard his voice, distant, irritated. All right, we said all right, be quiet, Bill, let us get the word, we wanna say we got the (world) word. The clubhouse was bigger than ever, floored now in some polished wood. The smoke was fogthick and it was hard to see the fire. That floor! Jesuscomepleaseus! It was as big as a ballroom floor in an MGM musical extravaganza. Mike looked at him from the other side, a shape almost lost in the fog. You coming, ole Mikey? Right here with you, Richie. You still want to say all right? Yeah... but hold my hand... can you catch hold? I think so. Richie held his hand out, and although Mike was on the far side of this enormous room he felt those strong brown fingers close over his wrist. Oh and that was good, that was a good touchgood to find desire in comfort, to find comfort in desire, to find substance in smoke and smoke in substance He tilted his head back and looked at the smokehole, so white and wee. It was farther up now. Miles up. Venusian skylight. It was happening. He began to float. Come on then, he thought, and began to rise faster through the smoke, the fog, the mist, whatever it was. 5 They werent inside anymore. |
The two of them were standing together in the middle of the Barrens, and it was nearly dusk. It was the Barrens, he knew that, but everything was different. The foliage was lusher, deeper, savagely fragrant. There were plants he had never seen before, and Richie realized some of the things he had first taken for trees were really giant ferns. There was the sound of running water, but it was much louder than it should have beenthis water sounded not like the leisurely flow of the Kenduskeag Stream but more the way he imagined the Colorado River would sound as it cut its way through the Grand Canyon. It was hot, too. Not that it didnt get hot in Maine during the summer, and humid enough so that sometimes you felt sticky just lying in your bed at night, but this was more heat and more humidity than he had ever felt in his whole life. A low mist, smoky and thick, lay in the hollows of the land and crept around the boys legs. It had a thin acrid smell like burning green wood. He and Mike began to move toward the sound of the running water without speaking, pushing their way through the strange foliage. Thick ropy lianas lay between some of the trees like spidery hammocks, and once Richie heard something go crashing off through the underbrush. It sounded bigger than a deer. He stopped long enough to look around, turning in a circle, studying the horizon. He knew where the Standpipes thick white cylinder should have been, but it wasnt there. Neither was the railroad trestle going over to the trainyards at the end of Neibolt Street or the Old Cape housing developmentlow bluffs and red sandstone outcroppings of rock bulged out of thick stands of giant fern and pine trees where the Old Cape should have been. There was a flapping noise overhead. The boys ducked as a squadron of bats flapped by. They were the biggest bats Richie had ever seen, and for a moment he was more terrified than he had been even when Bill was trying to get Silver rolling and he had heard the werewolf closing in on them from behind. The stillness and the alienness of this land were both terrible, but its awful familiarity was somehow worse. No need to be scared, he told himself. Remember that this is just a dream, or a vision, or whatever you want to call it. Me and ole Mikey are really back in the clubhouse, goofed up on smoke. Pretty soon Big Bill is gonna get noivous from the soivice because were not answering anymore, and he and Ben will come down and haul us out. Its just like Conway Twitty saysonlymakebelieve. But he could see how one of the bats wings was so ragged the hazy sun shone through it, and when they passed beneath one of the giant ferns he could see a fat yellow caterpillar trundling across a wide green frond, leaving its shadow behind it. There were tiny black mites jumping and sizzling on the caterpillars body. If this was a dream, it was the clearest one he had ever had. They went on toward the sound of the water, and in the thick kneehigh groundmist, Richie was unable to tell if his feet were touching the ground or not. They came to a place where both the mist and the ground stopped. Richie looked, unbelieving. This was not the Kenduskeagand yet it was. The stream boiled and roiled through a narrow watercourse cut through that same crumbly rocklooking across to the far side, he could see ages cut into those stacked layers of stone, red and then orange and then red again. You couldnt walk across this stream on steppingstones; youd need a rope bridge, and if you fell in you would be swept away at once. The sound of the water was the sound of bitter foolish anger, and as Richie watched, slackjawed, he saw a pinkishsilver fish jump in an impossibly high arc, snapping at the bugs that made shifting clouds just above the surface of the water. It splashed down again, giving Richie just time enough to register its presence, and to realize he had never seen a fish exactly like that in his whole life, not even in a book. Birds flocked across the sky, squalling harshly. Not a dozen or two dozen; for a moment the sky was so dark with birds that they blotted out the sun. Something else crashed through the bushes, and then more things. Richie wheeled, his heart thudding painfully in his chest, and saw something that looked like an antelope flash by, heading southeast. Somethings going to happen. And they know it. The birds passed, presumably alighting somewhere en masse farther south. Another animal crashed by them ... and another. Then there was silence except for the steady rumble of the Kenduskeag. The silence had a waiting quality about it, a pregnant quality Richie didnt like. He felt the hairs shifting and trying to stand up on the back of his neck and he groped for Mikes hand again. Do you know where we are? he shouted at Mike. You got the word? Jesus, yes! Mike shouted back. I got it! This is ago, Richie! Ago! Richie nodded. Ago, as in once upon a time, long long ago, when we all lived in the forest and nobody lived anywhere else. They were in the Barrens as they had been God knew how many thousands of years ago. They were in some unimaginable past before the ice age, when New England had been as tropical as South America was today ... if there still was a today. He looked around again, nervously, almost expecting to see a brontosaurus raise its cranelike neck against the sky and stare down at them, its mouth full of mud and dripping uprooted plants, or a sabertoothed tiger come stalking out of the undergrowth. But there was only that silence, as in the five or ten minutes before a vicious thundersquall strikes, when the purple heads stack up and up in the sky overhead and the light turns a queer, bruised purpleyellow and the wind dies completely and you can smell a thick aroma like overcharged car batteries in the air. Were in the ago, a million years back, maybe, or ten million, or eighty million, but here we are and somethings going to happen, I dont know what but something and Im scared I want it to end I want to be back and Bill please Bill please pull us out its like we fell into the picture some picture please please help Mikes hand tightened on his and he realized that now the silence had been broken. There was a steady low vibrationhe could feel it more than hear it, working against the tight flesh of his eardrums, buzzing the tiny bones that conducted the sound. It grew steadily. It had no tone; it simply was (the word in the beginning was the word the world the) a tuneless, soulless sound. He groped for the tree they stood near and as his hand touched it, cupped the curve of the bole, he could feel the vibration caught inside. At the same moment he realized he could feel it in his feet, a steady tingling that went up his ankles and calves to his knees, turning his tendons into tuning forks. It grew. And grew. It was coming out of the sky. Not wanting to but unable to help himself, Richie turned his face up. The sun was a molten coin burning a circle in the lowhanging overcast, surrounded by a fairyring of moisture. Below it, the verdant green slash that was the Barrens lay utterly still. Richie thought he understood what this vision was they were about to see the coming of It. The vibration took on a voicea rumbling roar that built to a shattering crescendo of sound. He clapped his hands to his ears and screamed and could not hear himself scream. Beside him, Mike Hanlon was doing the same, and Richie saw that Mikes nose was bleeding a little. The clouds in the west lit with a bloom of red fire. It traced its way toward them, widening from an artery to a stream to a river of ominous color; and then, as a burning, falling object broke through the cloud cover, the wind came. It was hot and searing, smoky and suffocating. The thing in the sky was gigantic, a flaming matchhead that was nearly too bright to look at. Arcs of electricity bolted from it, blue bullwhips that flashed out from it and left thunder in their wake. A spaceship! Richie screamed, falling to his knees and covering his eyes. Oh my God its a spaceship! But he believedand would tell the others later, as best he couldthat it was not a spaceship, although it might have come through space to get here. Whatever came down on that longago day had come from a place much farther away than another star or another galaxy, and if spaceship was the first word to come into his mind, perhaps that was only because his mind had no other way of grasping what his eyes were seeing. There was an explosion thena roar of sound followed by a rolling concussion that knocked them both down. This time it was Mike who groped for Richies hand. There was another explosion. Richie opened his eyes and saw a glare of fire and a pillar of smoke rising into the sky. It! he screamed at Mike, in an ecstasy of terror nownever in his life, before or after, would he feel any emotion so deeply, be so overwhelmed by feeling. It! It! It! Mike dragged him to his feet and they ran along the high bank of the young Kenduskeag, never noticing how close they were to the drop. Once Mike stumbled and went skidding to his knees. Then it was Richies turn to go down, barking his shin and tearing his pants. The wind had come up and it was pushing the smell of the burning forest toward them. The smoke grew thicker, and Richie became dimly aware that he and Mike were not running alone. The animals were on the move again, fleeing from the smoke, the fire, the death in the fire. Running from It, perhaps. The new arrival in their world. Richie began to cough. He could hear Mike beside him, also coughing. The smoke was thicker, washing out the greens and grays and reds of the day. Mike fell again and Richie lost his hand. He groped for it and could not find it. Mike! He screamed, panicked, coughing. Mike, where are you? Mike! MIKE! But Mike was gone; Mike was nowhere. richie! richie! richie! (!!WHACKO!!) richie! richie! richie, are you 6 all right? His eyes fluttered open and he saw Beverly kneeling beside him, wiping his mouth with a handkerchief. The othersBill, Eddie, Stan, and Benstood behind her, their faces solemn and scared. The side of Richies face hurt like hell. He tried to speak to Beverly and could only croak. He tried to clear his throat and almost vomited. His throat and lungs felt as if they had somehow been lined with smoke. At last he managed, Did you slap me, Beverly? It was all I could think of to do, she said. Whacko, Richie muttered. I didnt think you were going to be all right, is all, Bev said, and suddenly burst into tears. Richie patted her clumsily on the shoulder and Bill put a hand on the back of her neck. She reached around at once, took it, squeezed it. Richie managed to sit up. The world began to swim in waves. When it steadied down he saw Mike leaning against a tree nearby, his face dazed and ashypale. Did I puke? Richie asked Bev. She nodded, still crying. In a croaking, stumbling Irish Cops Voice, he asked, Get any on ye, darlin? Bev laughed through her tears and shook her head. I turned you on your side. I was afraid ... aaafraid youd chchchoke on it. She began to cry hard again. NuhNuhNo ffair, Bill said, still holding her hand. IIIm the one who stuhhuhhutters aaround hhere. Not bad, Big Bill, Richie said. He tried to get to his feet and sat down again heavily. The world was still swimming. He began to cough and turned his head away, aware that he was going to retch again only a moment before it happened. He threw up a mess of green foam and thick saliva that mostly came out in ropes. He closed his eyes tight and croaked, Anyone want a snack? Oh shit! Ben cried, disgusted and laughing at the same time. Looks more like puke to me, Richie said, although, in truth, his eyes were still tightly shut. The shit usually comes out the other end, at least for me. I dunno about you, Haystack. When he opened his eyes at last, he saw the clubhouse about twenty yards away. Both the window and the big trapdoor were thrown open. Smoke, thinning now, puffed from both. This time Richie was able to get to his feet. For a moment he was quite sure he was going to retch again, or faint, or both. Whacko, he murmured, watching the world waver and warp in front of his eyes. When the feeling passed, he made his way over to where Mike was. Mikes eyes were still weaselred, and from the dampness on his pants cuffs, Richie thought that maybe ole Mikey had taken a ride on the stomachelevator, too. For a white boy you did pretty good, Mike croaked, and punched Richie weakly on the shoulder. Richie was at a loss for wordsa condition of exquisite rarity. Bill came over. The others came with him. You pulled us out? Richie asked. MMe and BuhBen. YYou were scuhscuhrheaming. BBoth of yyyou. BBBut He looked over at Ben. Ben said, It must have been the smoke, Bill. But there was no conviction in the big boys voice at all. Flatly, Richie said You mean what I think you mean? Bill shrugged. WWWhats ththat, RihRichie? Mike answered. We werent there at first, were we? You went down because you heard us screaming, but at first we werent there. It was really smoky, Ben said. Hearing you both screaming that way, that was scary enough. But the screaming ... it sounded ... well ... It sssounded very ffffar aaway, Bill said. Stuttering badly, he told them that when he and Ben had gone down, they hadnt been able to see either Richie or Mike. They had gone plunging around in the smoky clubhouse, panicked, scared that if they didnt act quickly the two boys might die of smoke poisoning. At last Bill had gripped a handRichies. He had given a huhhuhhell of a yuhyank and Richie had come flying out of the gloom, only about onequarter conscious. When Bill turned around he had seen Ben with Mike in a bearhug, both of them coughing. Ben had thrown Mike up and out through the trapdoor. Ben listened to all this, nodding. I kept grabbing, you know? Really not doing anything except jabbing my hand out like I wanted to shake hands. You grabbed it, Mike. Damn good thing you grabbed it when you did. I think you were just about gone. You guys make the clubhouse sound a lot bigger than it is, Richie said. Talking about stumbling around in it and all. Its only five feet on every side. There was a moments silence while they all looked at Bill, who stood in frowning concentration. It wwwas bbigger, he said at last. WWWasnt it, Ben? Ben shrugged. It sure seemed like it. Unless it was the smoke. It wasnt the smoke, Richie said. Just before it happenedbefore we went outI remember thinking it was at least as big as a ballroom in a movie. Like one of those musicals. Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, something like that. I could barely see Mike against the other wall. Before you went out? Beverly asked. Well ... what I mean ... like ... She grabbed Richies arm. It happened, didnt it? It really happened! You had a vision, just like in Bens book! Her face was glowing. It really happened! Richie looked down at himself, and then at Mike. One of the knees of Mikes corduroy pants was out, and both the knees of his own jeans were torn. He could look through the holes and see bleeding scrapes on both his knees. If it was a vision, I never want to have another one, he said. I dont know about de Kingfish over there, but when I went down there, I didnt have any holes in my pants. Theyre practically new, for gosh sakes. My moms gonna give me hell. What happened? Ben and Eddie asked together. Richie and Mike exchanged a glance and then Richie said, Bevvie, you got a smoke? She had two, wrapped in a piece of tissue. Richie put one of them in his mouth and when she lit it the first drag made him cough so badly that he handed it back to her. Cant, he said. Sorry. It was the past, Mike said. Shit on that, Richie said. It wasnt just the past. It was ago. Yeah, right. We were in the Barrens, but the Kenduskeag was going a mile a minute. It was deep. It was fuckin wild. Sorry, Bevvie, but it was. And there were fish in it. Salmon, I think. MMy dddad ssays ththere havent been aaany fuhfish in the KKenduskkkeag for a lllong tuhhime. BBecause of the suhsewage. This was a long time, all right, Richie said. He looked around at them uncertainly. I think it was a million years ago, at least. A thunderstruck silence greeted this. Beverly broke it at last. But what happened? Richie felt the words in his throat, but he had to struggle to bring them out. It felt almost like vomiting again. We saw It come, he said at last. I think that was it. Christ, Stan muttered. Oh Christ. There was a sharp hissgasp as Eddie used his aspirator. It came out of the sky, Mike said. I never want to see anything like that again in my whole life. It was burning so hot you couldnt really look at it. And it was thowin off electricity and makin thunder. The noise ... He shook his head and looked at Richie. It sounded like the end of the world. And when it hit, it started a forest fire. That was at the end of it. Was it a spaceship? Ben asked. Yes, Richie said. No, Mike said. They looked at each other. Well, I guess it was, Mike said, and at the same time Ricie said No, it really wasnt a spaceship, you know, but They paused again while the others looked at them, perplexed. You tell, Richie said to Mike. We mean the same thing, I think, but theyre not getting it. Mike coughed into his fist and then looked up at the others, almost apologetically. I dont know just how to tell you, he said. TTTry, Bill said urgently. It came out of the sky, Mike repeated, but it wasnt a spaceship, exactly. It wasnt a meteor, either. It was more like ... well ... like the Ark of the Covenant, in the Bible, that was supposed to have the Spirit of God inside of it ... except this wasnt God. Just feeling It, watching It come, you knew It meant bad, that It was bad. He looked at them. Richie nodded. It came from . . outside. I got that feeling. From outside. Outside where, Richie? Eddie asked. Outside everything, Richie said. And when It came down ... It made the biggest damn hole you ever saw in your life. It turned this big hill into a doughnut, just about. It landed right where the downtown part of Derry is now. He looked at them. Do you get it? Beverly dropped the cigarette halfsmoked and crushed it out under one shoe. Mike said, Its always been here, since the beginning of time ... since before there were men anywhere, unless maybe there were just a few of them in Africa somewhere, swinging through the trees or living in caves. The craters gone now, and the ice age probably scraped the valley deeper and changed some stuff around and filled the crater in ... but It was here then, sleeping, maybe, waiting for the ice to melt, waiting for the people to come. Thats why It uses the sewers and the drains, Richie put in. They must be regular freeways for It. You didnt see what It looked like? Stan Uris asked abruptly and a little hoarsely. They shook their heads. Can we beat It? Eddie said in the silence. A thing like that? No one answered. CHAPTER 16 Eddies Bad Break 1 By the time Richie finishes, theyre all nodding. Eddie is nodding along with them, remembering along with them, when the pain suddenly races up his left arm. Races up? No. Rips through it feels as if someone is trying to sharpen a rusty saw on the bone in there. He grimaces and reaches into the pocket of his sportjacket, sorts through a number of bottles by feel, and takes out the Excedrin. He swallows two with a gulp of ginandprunejuice. The arm has been paining him off and on all day. At first he dismissed it as the twinges of bursitis he sometimes gets when the weather is damp. But halfway through Richies story, a new memory clicks into place for him and he understands the pain. This isnt Memory Lane were wandering down anymore, he thinks; its getting more and more like the Long Island Expressway. Five years ago, during a routine checkup (Eddie has a routine checkup every six weeks), the doctor said matteroffactly Theres an old break here, Ed.... Did you fall out of a tree when you were a kid? Something like that, Eddie agreed, not bothering to tell Dr. Robbins that his mother undoubtedly would have fallen down dead of a brain hemorrhage if she had seen or heard of her Eddie climbing trees. The truth was, he hadnt been able to remember exactly how he broke the arm. It didnt seem important (although, Eddie thinks now, that lack of interest was in itself very oddheis, after all, a man who attaches importance to a sneeze or a slight change in the color of his stools). But it was an old break, a minor irritation, something that happened a long time ago in a boyhood he could barely remember and didnt care to recall. It pained him a little when he had to drive long hours on rainy days. A couple of aspirin took care of it nicely. No big deal. But now it is not just a minor irritation; it is some madman sharpening that rusty saw, playing bonetunes, and he remembers that was how it felt in the hospital, especially late at night, in the first three or four days after it happened. Lying there in bed, sweating in the summer heat, waiting for the nurse to bring him a pill, tears running silently down his cheeks into the bowls of his ears, thinking Its like some kooks sharpening a saw in there. If this is Memory Lane, Eddie thinks, Id trade it for one great big brain enema a mental high colonic. Unaware he is going to speak, he says It was Henry Bowers who broke my arm. Do you remember that? Mike nods. That was just before Patrick Hockstetter disappeared. I dont remember the date. I do, Eddie says flatly. It was the 20th of July. The Hockstetter kid was reported missing on ... what? ... the 23rd? Twentysecond, Beverly Rogan says, although she doesnt tell them why she is so sure of the date it is because she saw It take Hockstetter. Nor does she tell them that she believed then and believes now that Patrick Hockstetter was crazy, perhaps even crazier than Henry Bowers. She will tell them, but this is Eddies turn. She will speak next, and then she supposes that Ben will narrate the climax of that Julys events ... the silver bullet they had never quite dared to make. A nightmare agenda if ever there was one, she thinksbut that crazy exhilaration persists. When did she last feel this young? She can hardly sit still. The 20th of July, Eddie muses, rolling his aspirator along the table from one hand to the other. Three or four days after the smokehole thing. I spent the rest of the summer in a cast, remember? Richie slaps his forehead in a gesture they all remember from the old days and Bill thinks, with a mixture of amusement and unease, that for a moment there Richie looked just like Beaver Cleaver. Sure, of course! You were in a cast when we went to the house on Neibolt Street, werent you? And later... in the dark... But now Richie shakes his head a little, puzzled. What, RRichie? Bill asks. Cant remember that part yet, Richie admits. Can you? Bill shakes his head slowly. Hockstetter was with them that day, Eddie says. It was the last time I ever saw him alive. Maybe he was a replacement for Peter Gordon. I guess Bowers didnt want Peter around anymore after he ran the day of the rockfight. They all died, didnt they? Beverly asks quietly. After Jimmy Cullum, the only ones who died were Henry Bowerss friends... or his exfriends. All but Bowers, Mike agrees, glancing toward the balloons tethered to the microfilm recorder. And hes in Juniper Hill. A private insane asylum in Augusta. Bill says, WWWhat about when they broke your arm, EEEddie? Your stutters getting worse, Big Bill, Eddie says solemnly, and finishes his drink in one gulp. Never mind that, Bill says. TTell us. Tell us, Beverly repeats, and puts her hand lightly on his arm. The pain flares there again. All right, Eddie says. He pours himself a fresh drink, studies it, and says, It was a couple of days after I came home from the hospital that you guys came over to the house and showed me those silver ballbearings. You remember, Bill? Bill nods. Eddie looks at Beverly. Bill asked you if youd shoot them, if it came to that... because you had the best eye. I think you said you wouldnt... that youd be too afraid. And you told us something else, but I just cant remember what it was. Its like Eddie sticks his tongue out and plucks the end of it, as if something were stuck there. Richie and Ben both grin. Was it something about Hockstetter? Yes, Beverly says. Ill tell when youre done. Go ahead. It was after that, after all you guys left, that my mother came in and we had a big fight. She didnt want me to hang around with any of you guys again. And she might have gotten me to agreeshe had a way, a way of working on a guy, you know ... Bill nods again. He remembers Mrs. Kaspbrak, a huge woman with a strange schizophrenic face, a face capable of looking stony and furious and miserable and frightened all at the same time. Yeah, she might have gotten me to agree, Eddie says. But something else happened the same day Bowers broke my arm. Something that really shook me up. He utters a little laugh, thinking It shook me up, all right .... Is that all you can say? What goods talking when you can never tell people how you really feel? In a book or a movie what I found out that day before Bowers broke my arm would have changed my life forever and nothing would have happened the way it did ... in a book or a movie it would have set me free. In a book or a movie I wouldnt have a whole suitcase full of pills back in my room at the Town House, I wouldnt be married to Myra, I wouldnt have this stupid fucking aspirator here right now. In a book or a movie. Because Suddenly, as they all watch, Eddies aspirator rolls across the table by itself. As it rolls it makes a dry rattling sound, a little like maracas, a little like bones ... a little like laughter. As it reaches the far side, between Richie and Ben, it flips itself up into the air and falls on the floor. Richie makes a startled halfgrab and Bill cries sharply, Dont tttouch it! The balloons! Ben yells, and they all turn. Both balloons tethered to the microfilm recorder now read ASTHMA MEDICINE GIVES YOU CANCER! Below the slogan are grinning skulls. They explode with twin bangs. Eddie looks at this, mouth dry, the familiar sensation of suffocation starting to tighten down in his chest like locking bolts. Bill looks back at him. Who ttold you and wwwhat did they tell you? Eddie licks his lips, wanting to go after his aspirator, not quite daring to. Who knew what might be in it now? He thinks about that day, the 20th, about how it was hot, about how his mother gave him a check, all filled out except for the amount, and a dollar in cash for himselfhisallowance. Mr. Keene, he says, and his voice sounds distant to his own ears, without power. It was Mr. Keene. Not exactly the nicest man in Derry, Mike says, but Eddie, lost in his thoughts, barely hears him. Yes, it was hot that day, but cool inside the Center Street Drug, the wooden fans turning leisurely below the pressedtin ceiling, and there was that comforting smell of mixed powders and nostrums. This was the place where they sold healththat was his mothers unstated but clearly communicated conviction, and with his bodyclock set at halfpast eleven, Eddie had no suspicion that his mother might be wrong about that, or anything else. Well, Mr. Keene sure put an end to that, he thinks now with a kind of sweet anger. He remembers standing at the comic rack for awhile, spinning it idly to see if there were any new Batmans or Superboys, or his own favorite, Plastic Man. He had given his mothers list (she sent him to the drugstore as other boys mothers might send them to the corner grocery) and his mothers check to Mr. Keene; he would fill the order and then write in the amount on the check, giving Eddie the receipt so she could deduct the amount from her checking balance. This was all SOP for Eddie. Three different kinds of prescription for his mother, plus a bottle of Geritol because, she told him mysteriously, Its full of iron, Eddie, and women need more iron than men. Also, there would be his vitamins, a bottle of Dr. Swetts Elixir for Children... and, of course, his asthma medicine. It was always the same. Later he would stop in the Costello Avenue Market with his dollar and get two candybars and a Pepsi. He would eat the candy, drink the soda, and jingle his pocketchange all the way home. But this day was different; it would end with him in the hospital and that was certainly different, but it started being different when Mr. Keene called him. Because instead of handing him the big white bag full of cures and the receipt, admonishing him to put the receipt in his pocket so he wouldnt lose it, Mr. Keene looked at him thoughtfully and said, Come 2 back into the office for a minute, Eddie. I want to talk to you. Eddie only looked at him for a moment, blinking, a little scared. The idea that maybe Mr. Keene thought he had been shoplifting flashed briefly through his mind. There was that sign by the door that he always read when he came into the Center Street Drug. It was written in accusing black letters so large that he bet even Richie Tozier could read it without his glasses SHOPLIPTING IS NOT A KICK OR A GROOVE OR A GASSER! SHOPLIFTING IS A CRIME, AND WE WILL PROSECUTE! Eddie had never shoplifted anything in his life, but that sign always made him feel guiltymade him feel as if Mr. Keene knew something about him that he didnt know about himself. Then Mr. Keene confused him even further by saying, How about an icecream soda? Well Oh, its on the house. I always have one in the office around this time of day. Good energy, unless you need to watch your weight, and Id say neither of us do. My wife says I look like a stuffed string. Your friend there the Hanscom boy, hes the one who needs to have a care about his weight What flavor, Eddie? Well, my mother said to get home as soon as I You look like a chocolate man to me. Chocolate okay for you? Mr. Keenes eyes twinkled, but it was a dry twinkle, like the sun shining on mica in the desert. Or so Eddie, a fan of such Western writers as Max Brand and Archie Joceylen, thought. Sure, Eddie gave in. Something about the way Mr. Keene pushed his goldrimmed glasses up on his blade of a nose made him edgy. Something about the way Mr. Keene seemed both nervous and secretly pleased. He didnt want to go into the office with Mr. Keene. This wasnt about a soda. Nope. And whatever it was about, Eddie had an idea it wasnt such great news. Maybe hes going to tell me I got cancer or something, Eddie thought wildly. That kidcancer. Leukemia. Jesus! Oh, dont be so stupid, he answered himself back, trying to sound, in his own mind, like Stuttering Bill. Stuttering Bill had replaced Jock Mahoney, who played the Range Rider on TV Saturday mornings, as the great hero of Eddies life. In spite of the fact that he couldnt talk right, Big Bill always seemed to be on top of things. This guys a pharmacist, not a doctor, for cripes sake. But Eddie was still nervous. Mr. Keene had raised the countergate and was beckoning to Eddie with one bony finger. Eddie went, but reluctantly. Ruby, the countergirl, was sitting by the cash register and reading a Silver Screen. Would you make two icecream sodas, Ruby? Mr. Keene called to her. One chocolate, one coffee? Sure, Ruby said, marking her place in the magazine with a tinfoil gum wrapper and getting up. Bring them into the office. Sure. Come on, son. Im not going to bite you. And Mr. Keene actually winked, astounding Eddie completely. He had never been in back of the counter before, and he gazed at all the bottles and pills and jars with interest. He would have lingered if he had been on his own, examining Mr. Keenes mortar and pestle, his scales and weights, the fishbowls full of capsules. But Mr. Keene propelled him forward into the office and closed the door firmly behind him. When it clicked shut Eddie felt a warning tightness in his chest and fought it. |
There would be a fresh aspirator in with his mothers things, and he could have a long satisfying honk on it as soon as he was out of here. A bottle of licorice whips stood on the corner of Mr. Keenes desk. He offered it to Eddie. No thank you, Eddie said politely. Mr. Keene sat down in the swivel chair behind his desk and took one. Then he opened his drawer and took something out. He put it down next to the tall bottle of licorice whips and Eddie felt real alarm course through him. It was an aspirator. Mr. Keene tilted back in his swivel chair until his head was almost touching the calendar on the wall behind him. The picture on the calendar showed more pills. It said SQUIBB. And and for one nightmare moment, when Mr. Keene opened his mouth to speak, Eddie remembered what had happened in the shoe store when he was just a little kid, when his mother had screamed at him for putting his foot in the Xray machine. For that one nightmare moment Eddie thought Mr. Keene would say Eddie, nine out of ten doctors agree that asthma medicine gives you cancer, just like the Xray machines they used to have in the shoe stores. Youve probably got it already. Just thought you ought to know. But what Mr. Keene did say was so peculiar that Eddie could think of no response at all; he could only sit in the straight wooden chair on the other side of Mr. Keenes desk like a nit. This has gone on long enough. Eddie opened his mouth and then closed it again. How old are you, Eddie? Eleven, isnt it? Yes, sir, Eddie said faintly. His breathing was indeed shallowing up. He wasnt yet whistling like a teakettle (which was how Richie put it Somebody turn Eddie off! Hes reached the boil!), but that might happen at any time. He looked longingly at the aspirator on Mr. Keenes desk, and because something else seemed required, he said Ill be twelve in November. Mr. Keene nodded, then leaned forward like a TV pharmacist in a commercial and clasped his hands together. His eyeglasses gleamed in the strong light thrown by the overhead fluorescent bars. Do you know what a placebo is, Eddie? Nervously, taking his best guess, Eddie said Those are the things on cows that the milk comes out of, arent they? Mr. Keene laughed and rocked back in his chair. No, he said, and Eddie blushed to the roots of his flattop haircut. Now he could hear the whistle creeping into his breathing. A placebo He was interrupted by a brisk double tap at the door. Without waiting for a comein call, Ruby entered with an oldfashioned icecreamsoda glass in each hand. Yours must be the chocolate, she said to Eddie, and gave him a grin. He returned it as best he could, but his interest in icecream sodas was at its lowest ebb in his entire personal history. He felt scared in a way that was both vague and specific; it was the way he felt scared when he was sitting on Dr. Handors examination table in his underpants, waiting for the doctor to come in and knowing his mother was out in the waiting room, taking up most of one sofa, a book (most likely Norman Vincent Peales The Power of Positive Thinking or Dr. Jarviss Vermont Folk Medicine) held firmly up to her eyes like a hymnal. Stripped of his clothes and defenseless, he felt caught between the two of them. He sipped some of his soda as Ruby went out, hardly tasting it. Mr. Keene waited until the door was shut and then smiled his dry sunonmica smile again. Loosen up, Eddie. Im not going to bite you, or hurt you. Eddie nodded, because Mr. Keene was a grownup and you were supposed to agree with grownups at all costs (his mother had taught him that), but inside he was thinking Oh, Ive heard that bullshit before. It was about what the doctor said when he opened his sterilizer and the sharp frightening smell of alcohol drifted out, stinging his nostrils. That was the smell of shots and this was the smell of bullshit and both came down to the same thing when they said it was just going to be a little prick, something you hardly felt at all, that meant it was going to hurt plenty. He tried another halfhearted suck on his soda straw, but it was no good; he needed all the space in his narrowing throat just to suck in air. He looked at the aspirator sitting in the middle of Mr. Keenes blotter, wanted to ask for it, didnt quite dare. A weird thought occurred to him maybe Mr. Keene knew he wanted it but didnt dare ask for it, that maybe Mr. Keene was (torturing) teasing him. Except that was a really stupid idea, wasnt it? A grownupparticularly a healthdispensing grownupwouldnt tease a little kid that way, would he? Surely not. It wasnt even to be considered, because consideration of such an idea might necessitate a terrifying reappraisal of the world as Eddie understood it. But there it was, there it was, so near and yet so far, like water just beyond the reach of a man who was dying of thirst in the desert. There it was, standing on the desk below Mr. Keenes smiling mica eyes. Eddie wished, more than anything else, that he was down in the Barrens with his friends around him. The thought of a monster, some great monster, lurking under the city where he had been born and where he had grown up, using the sewers and drains to creep from place to placethat was a frightening thought, and the thought of actually fighting that creature, of taking it on, was even more frightening ... but somehow this was worse. How could you fight a grownup who said it wasnt going to hurt when you knew it was? How could you fight a grownup who asked you funny questions and said obscurely ominous things like This has gone on long enough? And almost idly, in a kind of sidethought, Eddie discovered one of his childhoods great truths. Grownups are the real monsters, he thought. It was no big deal, not a thought that came in a revelatory flash or announced itself with trumpets and bells. It just came and was gone, almost buried under the stronger, overriding thought I want my aspirator and I want to be out of here. Loosen up, Mr. Keene said again. Most of your trouble, Eddie, comes from being so tight and stiff all the time. Take your asthma, for instance. Look here. Mr. Keene opened his desk drawer, fumbled around inside, and then brought out a balloon. Expanding his narrow chest as much as possible (his tie bobbed like a narrow boat riding a mild wave), he huffed into it and blew it up. CENTER STREET DRUG, the balloon said. PRESCRIPTIONS, SUNDRIES, OSTOMY SUPPLIES. Mr. Keene pinched the balloons rubber neck and held the balloon out in front of him. Now pretend for just a moment that this is a lung, he said. Your lung. I should really blow up two, of course, but since I only had one left from the sale we had just after Christmas Mr. Keene, could I have my aspirator now? Eddies head was starting to pound. He could feel his windpipe sealing itself up. His heartrate was up, and sweat stood out on his forehead. His chocolate icecream soda stood on the corner of Mr. Keenes desk, the cherry on top sinking slowly into a goo of whipped cream. In a minute, Mr. Keene said. Pay attention, Eddie. I want to help you. Its time somebody did. If Russ Handor isnt man enough to do it, Ill have to. Your lung is like this balloon, except its surrounded by a blanket of muscle; these muscles are like the arms of a man operating a bellows, you understand? In a healthy person, those muscles help the lungs to expand and contract easily. But if the owner of those healthy lungs is always getting stiff and tight, the muscles begin to work against the lungs rather than with them. Look! Mr. Keene wrapped a bunched, bony, liverspotted hand around the balloon and squeezed. The balloon bulged over and under his fist and Eddie winced, trying to get ready for the pop. Simultaneously he felt his breathing stop altogether. He leaned over the desk and grabbed for the aspirator on the blotter. His shoulder struck the heavy icecreamsoda glass. It toppled off the desk and shattered on the floor like a bomb. Eddie heard that only dimly. He was clawing the top off the aspirator, slamming the nozzle into his mouth, triggering it off. He took a tearing heaving breath, his thoughts a ratrun of panic as they always were at moments like this Please Mommy Im suffocating I cant BREATHE oh my dear God oh dear Jesus meekandmild I cant BREATHE please I dont want to die dont want to die oh please Then the fog from the aspirator condensed on the swollen walls of his throat and he could breathe again. Im sorry, he said, nearly crying. Im sorry about the glass ... Ill clean it up and pay for it ... just please dont tell my mother, okay? Im sorry, Mr. Keene, but I couldnt breathe There was that double tap at the door again and Ruby poked her head in. Is everything Everythings fine, Mr. Keene said sharply. Leave us. Well Im sawry! Ruby said. She rolled her eyes and closed the door. Eddies breath was starting to whistle in his throat again. He took another pull at the aspirator and then began his fumbling apology once more. He ceased only when he saw that Mr. Keene was smiling at himthat peculiar dry smile. Mr. Keenes hands were laced over his middle. The balloon lay on his desk. A thought came to Eddie; he tried to hold it back and couldnt. Mr. Keene looked as if Eddies asthma attack had tasted better to him than his halffinished coffee soda. Dont be concerned, he said. Ruby will clean up the mess later, and if you want to know the truth, Im rather glad you broke the glass. Because I promise not to tell your mother that you broke it if you promise not to tell her we had this little talk. Oh, I promise that, Eddie said eagerly. Good, Mr. Keene said. We have an understanding. And you feel much better now, dont you? Eddie nodded. Why? Why? Well ... because I had my medicine. He looked at Mr. Keene the way he looked at Mrs. Casey in school when he had given an answer he wasnt quite sure of. But you didnt have any medicine, Mr. Keene said. You had a placebo. A placebo, Eddie, is something that looks like medicine and tastes like medicine but isnt medicine. A placebo isnt medicine because it has no active ingredients. Or, if it is medicine, its medicine of a very special sort. Headmedicine. Mr. Keene smiled. Do you understand that, Eddie? Headmedicine. Eddie understood, all right; Mr. Keene was telling him he was crazy. But through numb lips he said, No, I dont get you. Let me tell you a little story, Mr. Keene said. In 1954, a series of medical tests on ulcer patients was run at DePaul University. One hundred ulcer patients were given pills. They were all told the pills would help their ulcers, but fifty of the patients really got placebos.... They were, in fact, MMs given a uniform pink coating. Mr. Keene uttered a strange shrill gigglethat of a man describing a prank rather than an experiment. Of those one hundred patients, ninetythree said they felt a definite improvement, and eightyone showed an improvement. So what do you think? What conclusion do you draw from such an experiment, Eddie? I dont know, Eddie said faintly. Mr. Keene tapped his head solemnly. Most sickness starts in here, thats what I think. Ive been in this business a long long time, and I knew about placebos a mighty stretch of years before those doctors at DePaul University did their study. Usually its old folks who end up getting the placebos. The old fellow or the old girl will go to the doctor, convinced that theyve got heart disese or cancer or diabetes or some damn thing. But in a good many cases its nothing like that at all. They dont feel good because theyre old, thats all. But whats a doctor to do? Tell them theyre like watches with wornout mainsprings? Huh! Not likely. Doctors like their fees too much. And now Mr. Keenes face wore an expression somewhere between a smile and a sneer. Eddie just sat there waiting for it to be over, to be over, to be over. You didnt have any medicine those words clanged in his mind. The doctors dont tell them that, and I dont tell them that, either. Why bother? Sometimes an old party will come in with a prescription blank that will say it right out Placebo, or 25 grains Blue Skies, which was how old Doc Pearson used to put it. Mr. Keene cackled briefly and then sucked on his coffee soda. Well, whats wrong with it? he asked Eddie, and when Eddie only sat there, Mr. Keene answered his own question. Why, nothing! Nothing at all! At least ... usually. Placebos are a blessing for old people. And then there are other casesfolks with cancer, folks with degenerative heart disease, folks with terrible things that we dont understand yet, some of them children just like you, Eddie! In cases like that, if a placebo makes the patient feel better, where is the harm? Do you see the harm, Eddie? No sir, Eddie said, and looked down at the splatter of chocolate ice cream, sodawater, whipped cream, and broken glass on the floor. In the middle of all this was the maraschino cherry, as accusing as a bloodclot at a crime scene. Looking at this mess made his chest feel tight again. Then were like Ike and Mike! We think alike! Five years ago, when Vernon Maitland had cancer of the esophagusa painful, painful sort of cancerand the doctors had run out of anything effective they could give him for his pain, I came by his hospital room with a bottle of sugarpills. He was a special friend, you see. And I said, Vern, these are special experimental painpills. The doctor doesnt know Im giving them to you, so for Gods sake be careful and dont tattle on me. They might not work, but I think they will. Take no more than one a day, and only if the pain is especially bad. He thanked me with tears in his eyes. Tears, Eddie! And they worked for him! Yes! They were only sugarpills, but they killed most of his pain ... because pain is here. Solemnly, Mr. Keene tapped his head again. Eddie said My medicine does so work. I know it does, Mr. Keene replied, and smiled a maddening complacent grownups smile. It works on your chest because it works on your head. HydrOx, Eddie, is water with a dash of camphor thrown in to give it a medicine taste. No, Eddie said. His breath had begun to whistle again. Mr. Keene drank some of his soda, spooned some of the melting ice cream, and fastidiously wiped his chin with his handkerchief while Eddie used his aspirator again. I want to go now, Eddie said. Let me finish, please. No! I want to go, youve got your money and I want to go! Let me finish, Mr. Keene said, so forbiddingly that Eddie sat back in his chair. Grownups could be so hateful in their power sometimes. So hateful. Part of the problem here is that your doctor, Russ Handor, is weak. And part of the problem is that your mother is determined you are ill. You, Eddie, have been caught in the middle. Im not crazy, Eddie whispered, the words coming out in a bare husk. Mr. Keenes chair creaked like a monstrous cricket. What? I said Im not crazy! Eddie shouted. Then, immediately, a miserable blush rose into his face. Mr. Keene smiled. Think what you like, that smile said. Think what you like, and Ill think what I like. All Im telling you, Eddie, is that youre not physically ill. Your lungs dont have asthma; your mind does. You mean Im crazy. Mr. Keene leaned forward, looking at him intently over his folded hands. I dont know, he said softly. Are you? Its all a lie! Eddie cried, surprised the words came out so strongly from his tight chest. He was thinking of Bill, how Bill would react to such amazing charges. Bill would know what to say, stutter or not. Bill would know how to be brave. All a great big lie! I do have asthma, I do! Yes, Mr. Keene said, and now the dry smile had become a weird skeletal grin. But who gave it to you, Eddie? Eddies brain thudded and whirled. Oh, he felt sick, he felt very sick. Four years ago, in 1954the same year as the DePaul tests, oddly enoughDr. Handor began prescribing this HydrOx for you. That stands for hydrogen and oxygen, the two components of water. I have condoned this deception since then, but I will not condone it anymore. Your asthma medicine works on your mind rather than your body. Your asthma is the result of a nervous tightening of the diaphragm that is ordered by your mind ... or your mother. You are not sick. A terrible silence descended. Eddie sat in his chair, his mind whirling. For a moment he considered the possibility that Mr. Keene might be telling the truth, but there were ramifications in such an idea that he could not face. Yet why would Mr. Keene lie, especially about something so serious? Mr. Keene sat and smiled his bright dry heartless desert smile. I do have asthma, I do. The day that Henry Bowers punched me in the nose, the day Bill and I were trying to make a dam in the Barrens, I almost died. Am I supposed to think that my mind was just ... just making all of that up? But why would he lie? (It was only years later, in the library, that Eddie asked himself the more terrible question Why would he tell me the truth?) Dimly he heard Mr. Keene saying Ive kept my eye on you, Eddie. I told you all this because youre old enough to understand, but also because Ive noticed youve finally made some friends. They are good friends, arent they? Yes, Eddie said. Mr. Keene tilted his chair back (it made that cricketlike noise again), and closed one eye in what might or might not have been a wink. And Ill bet your mother doesnt like them much, does she? She likes them fine, Eddie said, thinking of the cutting things his mother had said about Richie Tozier (He has a foul mouth ... and Ive smelled his breath, Eddie ... I think he smokes), her sniffing remark not to loan any money to Stan Uris because he was a Jew, her outright dislike of Bill Denbrough and that fatboy. He repeated to Mr. Keene She likes them a lot. Does she? Mr. Keene said, still smiling. Well, maybe shes right and maybe shes wrong, but at least you have friends. Maybe you ought to talk to them about this problem of yours. This ... this mental weakness. See what they have to say. Eddie didnt reply. He was through talking to Mr. Keene; that seemed safer. And he was afraid that if he didnt get out of here soon, he really would cry. Well! Mr. Keene said, standing up. I think that just about finishes us up, Eddie. If Ive upset you, Im sorry. I was only doing my duty as I saw it. I But before he could say any more, Eddie had snatched up his aspirator and the white bag of pills and nostrums and had fled. One of his feet skidded in the icecreamy mess on the floor and he almost fell. Then he was running, bolting from the Center Street Drug Store in spite of his whistling breath. Ruby stared after him over her movie magazine, her mouth open. Behind him he seemed to sense Mr. Keene standing in the doorway of his office and watching his graceless retreat over the prescription counter, gaunt and neat and thoughtful and smiling. Smiling that dry desert smile. He paused outside on the threeway corner of Kansas, Main, and Center. He took another deep pull from his aspirator while sitting on the low stone wall by the busstophis throat was now positively slimy with that medicinal taste (nothing but water with some camphor thrown in) and he thought that if he had to use the aspirator again today he would probably puke his guts. He slipped it into his pocket and watched the traffic pass back and forth, headed up Main Street and down UpMile Hill. He tried not to think. The sun beat down on his head, blaringly hot. Each passing car threw bright darts of reflection into his eyes, and a headace was starting in his temples. He couldnt find a way to stay angry at Mr. Keene, but he had no trouble at all feeling bad for Eddie Kaspbrak. He felt real bad for Eddie Kaspbrak. He supposed that Bill Denbrough never wasted time feeling sorry for himself, but Eddie just couldnt seem to help it. More than anything else he wanted to do exactly what Mr. Keene had suggested go down to the Barrens and tell his friends everything, see what they would say, find out what answers they had. But he couldnt do that now. His mother would expect him home with her medicines soon (your mind ... or your mother) and if he wasnt there (your mother is determined you are ill) trouble would follow. She would assume he had been with Bill or Richie or the Jewboy, as she called Stan (insisting that she meant no prejudice by so calling him, but was simply slapping down the cardsher phrase for truthtelling in difficult situations). And standing here on this corner, trying hopelessly to sort out his flying thoughts, Eddie knew what she would say if she knew one of his other friends was a Negro and another was a girla girl old enough to be getting bosoms. He started slowly toward UpMile Hill, dreading the stiff climb in this heat. It felt almost hot enough to fry an egg on the sidewalk. For the first time he found himself wishing for school to be in again, for a new grade and a new teachers peculiarities to contend with. For this dreadful summer to be over. He stopped halfway up the hill, not far from where Bill Denbrough would rediscover his bike Silver twentyseven years later, and pulled his aspirator from his pocket. Hydrox Mist, the label said. Administer as needed. Something else clicked home. Administer as needed. He was only a kid, still wet behind the ears (as his mother sometimes told him when she was slapping down the cards), but even a kid of eleven knew that you didnt give someone real medicine and then write on the label Administer as needed. If it was real medicine, it would be too easy to kill yourself as you went happyassholing around and administering as needed. He supposed you could kill yourself with plain old aspirin doing that. He looked fixedly at the aspirator, unaware of the old lady who glanced curiously at him as she passed on down the hill toward Main Street with her shopping basket over her arm. He felt betrayed. And for one moment he almost cast the plastic squeezebottle into the gutterbetter yet, he thought, throw it down that sewergrating. Sure! Why not? Let It have it down there in Its tunnels and dripping sewerpipes. Have a placeebo, you hundredfaced creep! He uttered a wild laugh and came within an ace of doing it. But in the end, habit was simply too strong. He replaced the aspirator in his right front pants pocket and walked on, hardly hearing the occasional blare of a horn or the diesel drone of the Bassey Park bus as it passed him. He was likewise unaware of how close he was to discovering what being hurtreally hurtwas all about. 3 When he came out of the Costello Avenue Market twentyfive minutes later with a Pepsi in one hand and two Payday candybars in the other, Eddie was unpleasantly surprised to see Henry Bowers, Victor Criss, Moose Sadler, and Patrick Hockstetter kneeling on the crushed gravel to the left of the little store. For a moment Eddie thought they were shooting craps; then he saw they were pooling their money on Victors baseball shirt. Their summerschool textbooks lay off to one side in an untidy heap. On an ordinary day Eddie might have simply faded quietly back into the store and asked Mr. Gedreau if he could leave by the back door but this had been no ordinary day. Eddie froze right where he was instead, one hand still holding the screen door with its tin cigarette signs (WINSTON TASTES GOOD, LIKE A CIGARETTE SHOULD, TWENTYONE GREAT TOBACCOS MAKE TWENTY WONDERFUL SMOKES, the bellboy who was shouting CALL FOR PHILIP MORRIS), the other clutching the brown grocery bag and the white drugstore bag. Victor Criss saw him and elbowed Henry. Henry looked up; so did Patrick Hockstetter. Moose, whose relays worked more slowly, went on counting out pennies for five seconds or so before the sudden silence sank into him and he also looked up. Henry stood, brushing loose pieces of gravel from the knees of the biballs he was wearing. There were splints on the sides of his bandaged nose, and his voice had a nasal foghorning quality. Well I be go to hell, he said. One of the rockthrowers. Wheres your friends, asshole? They inside? Eddie was shaking his head numbly before he realized this was another mistake. Henrys smile broadened. Well, thats okay, he said. I dont mind taking you one by one. Come on down here, asshole. Victor stood beside Henry; Patrick Hockstetter trailed behind them, smiling in a porky vacant way Eddie was familiar with from school. Moose was still getting up. Come on, asshole, Henry said. Lets talk about throwing rocks. Lets talk about that, you wanna? Now that it was too late Eddie decided it would be wise to go back into the store. Back in the store where there was a grownup. But as he retreated Henry darted forward and grabbed him. He pulled Eddies arm, pulled hard, his smile turning into a snarl. Eddies hand was ripped free of the screen door. He was pulled off the steps and would have crashed headlong into the gravel if Victor hadnt caught him roughly under the arms. Victor threw him. Eddie managed to keep on his feet, but only by whirling around twice. The four boys faced him now over a distance of about ten feet, Henry slightly ahead of the others, smiling. His hair stood up at the back in a cowlick. Behind Henry and on his left was Patrick Hockstetter, a genuinely spooky kid. Eddie hadnt ever seen him with anyone else until today. He was just enough overweight so that his belly always hung slightly over his belt, which had a Red Ryder buckle. His face was perfectly round, and usually as pale as cream. Now he had a slight sunburn. It was heaviest on his nose, which was peeling, but it spread out toward either cheek like wings. In school, Patrick liked to kill flies with his green plastic SkoolTime ruler and put them in his pencilbox. Sometimes he would show his fly collection to some new kid in the playyard at recess, his heavy lips smiling, his graygreen eyes sober and thoughtful. He never spoke when he exhibited his dead flies, no matter what the new kid might say to him. That expression was on his face now. How ya doin, Rock Man? Henry asked, advancing across the distance between them. Got any rocks on you? Leave me alone, Eddie said in a trembling voice. Leave me alone, Henry mimicked, waving his hands in mock terror. Victor laughed. What are you going to do if I dont, Rock Man? Huh? His hand flashed out, incredibly fast, and exploded against Eddies cheek with a gunshot sound. Eddies head rocked back. Tears began to pour from his left eye. My friends are inside, Eddie said. My friends are inside, Patrick Hockstetter squealed. Ooooh! Ooooh! Ooooh! He began to circle to Eddies right. Eddie started to turn in that direction, Henrys hand flashed out again, and this time his other cheek flamed. Dont cry, he thought, thats what they want, but dont you do it Eddie Bill wouldnt do it, Bill wouldnt cry, and dont you cry, eith Victor stepped forward and gave Eddie a hard openhanded push in the middle of his chest. Eddie stumbled half a step backward and then fell sprawling over Patrick, who had crouched directly behind his feet. He thudded to the gravel, scraping his arms. There was a whoof! as the wind rushed out of him. A moment later Henry Bowers was on top of him, his knees pinning Eddies arms, his butt on Eddies stomach. Got any rocks, Rock Man? Henry raved down at him, and Eddie was more frightened by the mad light in Henrys eyes than he was by the pain in his arms or by his inability to get his breath back. Henry was nuts. Somewhere close by, Patrick tittered. You wanna throw rocks? Huh? Ill give you rocks! Here! Heres some rocks! Henry swept up a handful of gravel and slammed it down into Eddies face. He rubbed the gravel into Eddies skin, cutting his cheeks, his eyelids, his lips. Eddie opened his mouth and screamed. Want rocks? Ill give you rocks! Heres some rocks, Rock Man! You want rocks? Okay! Okay! Okay! Gravel slammed into his open mouth, lacerating his gums, grinding against his teeth. He felt sparks fly against his fillings. He screamed again and spat gravel out. Want some more rocks? Okay? How about a few more? How about Stop that! Here, here! Stop that! You, boy! Quit on him! Right now! You hear me? Quit on him! Through halflidded, tearblurred eyes, Eddie saw a big hand come down and grab Henry by the collar of his shirt and the right strap of his biballs. The hand gave a yank and Henry was pulled off. He landed in the gravel and got up. Eddie rose more slowly. He was trying to scramble to his feet, but his scrambler seemed temporarily broken. He gasped and spat chunks of bloody gravel out of his mouth. It was Mr. Gedreau, dressed in his long white apron, and he looked furious. There was no fear in his face, although Henry stood about three inches taller and probably outweighed him by fifty pounds. There was no fear in his face because he was the grownup and Henry was the kid. Except this time, Eddie thought, that might not mean anything. Mr. Gedreau didnt understand. He didnt understand that Henry was nuts. You get out of here, Mr. Gedreau said, advancing on Henry until he stood toe to toe with the hulking sullenfaced boy. You get out and you dont want to come back, either. I dont hold with bullying. I dont hold with four against one. What would your mothers think? He swept the others with his hot, angry eyes. Moose and Victor dropped their gazes and examined their sneakers. Patrick only stared at and through Mr. Gedreau with that vacant graygreen look. Mr. Gedreau looked back at Henry and got just as far as You get on your bikes and when Henry gave him a good hard push. An expression of surprise that would have been comical in other circumstances spread across Mr. Gedreaus face as he flew backward, loose gravel spurting out from under his heels. He struck the steps leading up to the screen door and sat down hard. Why you he began. Henrys shadow fell on him. Get inside, he said. You Mr. Gedreau said, and this time he stopped on his own. Mr. Gedreau had finally seen it, Eddie realizedthe light in Henrys eyes. He got up quickly, apron flapping. He went up the stairs as fast as he could, stumbling on the second one from the top and going briefly to one knee. He was up again at once, but that stumble, as brief as it had been, seemed to rob him of the rest of his grownup authority. He spun around at the top and yelled Im calling the cops! Henry made as if to lunge for him, and Mr. Gedreau flinched back. That was the end, Eddie realized. As incredible, as unthinkable as it seemed, there was no protection for him here. It was time to go. While Henry was standing at the bottom of the steps and glaring up at Mr. Gedreau and while the others were staring, transfixed (and, except for Patrick Hockstetter, not a little horrified) by this sudden successful defiance of adult authority, Eddie saw his chance. He whirled, took to his heels, and ran. He was halfway up the block before Henry turned, his eyes blazing. Get him! he bellowed. Asthma or no asthma, Eddie ran them a good race that day. There were spaces, some of them as long as fifty feet, when he couldnt remember if the soles of his P.F. Flyers had touched the sidewalk or not. For a few moments he even entertained the giddy notion that he might be able to outrun them. Then, just before he reached Kansas Street and what might have been safety, a little kid on a trike suddenly pedaled out of a driveway and right into Eddies path. Eddie tried to swerve, but running fullout as he had been, he might have done better to jump over the kid (the kids name, in fact, was Richard Cowan, and he would grow up, marry, and father a son named Frederick Cowan, who would be drowned in a toilet and then be partially eaten by a thing that rose up from the toilet like black smoke and then took an unthinkable shape), or at least to try. One of Eddies feet caught on the trikes back deck, where an adventurous little shit might stand and push the trike along like a scooter. Richard Cowan, whose unborn son would be murdered by It twentyseven years later, barely rocked on his trike. Eddie, however, went flying. |
He struck the sidewalk on his shoulder, rebounded, came down again, and skidded ten feet, erasing the skin from his elbows and knees. He was trying to get up when Henry Bowers hit him like a shell from a bazooka and knocked him flat. Eddies nose connected briskly with the concrete. Blood flew. Henry did a quick sideroll like a paratrooper and was up again. He grabbed Eddie by the nape of the neck and by his right wrist. His breath, snorting through his swelled and splinted nose, was warm and moist. Want rocks, Rock Man? Sure! Shit! He jerked Eddies wrist halfway up his back. Eddie yelled. Rocks for the Rock Man, right, Rock Man? He jerked Eddies wrist up even higher. Eddie screamed. Behind him, dimly, he could hear the others approaching, and the little kid on the trike starting to bawl. Join the club, kid, he thought, and in spite of the pain, in spite of the tears and the fear, he brayed a huge donkeylike heehaw of laughter. You think this is funny? Henry asked, sounding suddenly astounded rather than furious. You think this is funny? And did Henry also sound scared? Years later Eddie would think Yes, scared, he sounded scared. Eddie twisted his wrist in Henrys grip. He was slick with sweat and he almost got away. Perhaps that was why Henry shoved Eddies wrist up harder this time than before. Eddie heard a crack in his arm like the sound of winterwood giving under an accumulated plate of ice. The pain that rolled out of his fractured arm was gray and huge. He shrieked, but the sound seemed distant. The color was washing out of the world, and when Henry let go of him and pushed, he seemed to float toward the sidewalk. It took a long time to get down to that old sidewalk. He had a good look at every single crack in it as he glided down. He had a chance to admire the way the July sun glinted off the flecks of mica in that old sidewalk. He had a chance to note the remains of a very old hopscotch grid that had been done in pink chalk on that old sidewalk. Then, for just a moment, it swam and looked like something else. It looked like a turtle. He might have fainted then, but he struck on his newly broken arm, and this fresh pain was sharp, bright, hot, terrible. He felt the splintered ends of the greenstick fracture grind together. He bit his tongue, bringing fresh blood. He rolled over on his back and saw Henry, Victor, Moose, and Patrick standing over him. They looked impossibly tall, impossibly high up, like pallbearers peering into a grave. You like that, Rock Man? Henry asked, his voice drifting down over a distance, floating through clouds of pain. You like that action, Rock Man? You like that jobbanobba? Patrick Hockstetter giggled. Your fathers crazy, Eddie heard himself say, and so are you. Henrys grin faded so fast it might have been slapped off his face. He drew his foot back to kick ... and then a siren rose in the still hot afternoon. Henry paused. Victor and Moose looked around uneasily. Henry, I think we better get out of here, Moose said. I know damn well Im getting out of here, Victor said. How far away their voices seemed! Like the clowns balloons, they seemed to float. Victor took off toward the library, cutting into McCarron Park to get off the street. Henry hesitated a moment longer, perhaps hoping the copcar was on some other business and he could continue with his own. But the siren rose again, closer. You got lucky, fuckface, he said. He and Moose took off after Victor. Patrick Hockstetter waited for a moment. Heres a little something extra for you, he whispered in his low, husky voice. He inhaled and spat a large green lunger into Eddies upturned, sweating, bloody face. Splat. Dont eat it all at once if you dont want, Patrick said, smiling his liverish unsettling smile. Save some for later, if you want. Then he turned slowly and was also gone. Eddie tried to wipe the lunger off with his good arm, but even that little movement made the pain flare again. Now when you started off for the drugstore, you never thought youd end up on the Costello Avenue sidewalk with a busted arm and Patrick Hockstetters snot running down your face, did you? You never even got to drink your Pepsi. Lifes full of surprises, isnt it? Incredibly, he laughed again. It was a weak sound, and it hurt his broken arm to laugh, but it felt good. And there was something else no asthma. His breathing was okay, at least for now. A good thing, too. He never would have been able to get to his aspirator. Never in a thousand years. The siren was very close now, whooping and whooping. Eddie closed his eyes and saw red under his eyelids. Then the red turned black as a shadow fell over him. It was the little kid with the trike. You okay? the little kid asked. Do I look okay? Eddie asked. No, you look terrible, the little kid said, and pedaled off, singing The Farmer in the Dell. Eddie began to giggle. Here was the copcar; he could hear the squeal of its brakes. He found himself hoping vaguely that Mr. Nell would be in it, even though he knew Mr. Nell was a foot patrolman. Why in the name of God are you giggling? He didnt know, any more than he knew why he should feel, in spite of the pain, such intense relief. Was it maybe just because he was still alive, that the worst he had suffered was a broken arm, and there were still some pieces to pick up? He settled for that, but years later, sitting in the Derry Library with a glass of gin and prune juice in front of him and his aspirator near at hand, he told the others he thought it was something more than that; he had been old enough to feel that something more, but not to understand or define it. I think it was the first real pain I ever felt in my life, he would tell the others. It wasnt what I thought it would be at all. It didnt put an end to me as a person. I think ... it gave me a basis for comparison, finding out you could still exist inside the pain, in spite of the pain. Eddie turned his head weakly to the right and saw large black Firestone tires, blinding chrome hubcaps, and pulsing blue lights. He heard Mr. Nells voice then, thickly Irish, impossibly Irish, more like Richies Irish Cop Voice than Mr. Nells real voice ... but perhaps that was the distance Holy Jaysus, its the Kaspbrak bye! At this point Eddie floated away. 4 And, with one exception, stayed away for quite awhile. There was a brief period of consciousness in the ambulance. He saw Mr. Nell sitting across from him, tipping a drink from his little brown bottle and reading a paperback called I the Jury. The girl on the cover had the biggest bosoms Eddie had ever seen. His eyes shifted past Mr. Nell to the driver up front. The driver peered around at Eddie with a big leering grin, his skin livid with greasepaint and talcum powder, his eyes shiny as new quarters. It was Pennywise. Mr. Nell, Eddie husked. Mr. Nell looked up and smiled. How are you feelin, me bye? ... driver ... the driver ... Yes, well be there in a jig, Mr. Nell said, and handed him the little brown bottle. Suck some of this. Itll make ye feel better. Eddie drank what tasted like liquid fire. He coughed, hurting his arm. He looked toward the front and saw the driver again. Just some guy with a crewcut. No clown. He drifted off again. Much later there was the Mergency Room and a nurse wiping blood and dirt and snot and gravel off his face with a cold cloth. It stung, but it felt wonderful at the same time. He heard his mother bugling and clarioning outside, and he tried to tell the nurse not to let her in, but no words would come out, no matter how hard he tried. ... if hes dying, I want to know! his mother was bellowing. You hear me? Its my right to know, and its my right to see him! I can sue you, you know! I know lawyers, plenty of lawyers! Some of my best friends are lawyers! Dont try to talk, the nurse said to Eddie. She was young, and he could feel her bosoms pressing against his arm. For a moment he had this crazy idea that the nurse was Beverly Marsh, and then he drifted away again. When he came back his mother was in the room, talking to Dr. Handor at a mileaminute clip. Sonia Kaspbrak was a huge woman. Her legs, encased in support hose, were trunklike but weirdly smooth. Her face was pale now except for hectic flaring blots of rouge. Ma, Eddie managed, ... all right ... Im all right Youre not, youre not, Mrs. Kaspbrak moaned. She wrung her hands. Eddie heard her knuckles crack and grind. He began to feel his breath shorten up as he looked at her, seeing what a state she was in, how this latest escapade of his had hurt her. He wanted to tell her to take it easy or shed have a heart attack, but he couldnt. His throat was too dry. Youre not all right, youve had a serious accident, a very serious accident, but you will be all right, I promise you that, Eddie, you will be all right, even if we need to bring in every specialist in the book, oh Eddie ... Eddie ... your poor arm ... She burst into honking sobs. Eddie saw that the nurse who had washed his face was looking at her without much sympathy. All through this aria, Dr. Handor had been stuttering, Sonia ... please, Sonia ... Sonia ... ? He was a skinny, limplooking man with a little mustache that hadnt grown very well and which, in addition, had been clipped unevenly, so it was longer on the left side than on the right. He looked nervous. Eddie remembered what Mr. Keene had told him that morning and felt a certain sorrow for Dr. Handor. At last, gathering himself, Russ Handor managed to say If you cant control yourself, youll have to leave, Sonia. She whirled on him and he drew back. Ill do no such thing! Dont you even suggest it! This is my son lying here in agony! My son lying here on his bed of pain! Eddie astounded them all by finding his voice. I want you to leave, Ma. If theyre going to do something thatll make me yell, and I think they are, youll feel better if you go. She turned to him, astonished ... and hurt. At the sight of the hurt on her face, he felt his chest begin to tighten down inexorably. I certainly will not! she cried. What an awful thing to say, Eddie! Youre delirious! You dont understand what youre saying, thats the only explanation! I dont know what the explanation is, and I dont care, the nurse said. All I know is that were standing here doing nothing while we should be setting your sons arm. Are you suggesting Sonia began, her voice rising toward the high, bugling note it took on when she was most upset. Please, Sonia, Dr. Handor said. Lets not have an argument here. Lets help Eddie. Sonia stood back, but her glowering eyesthe eyes of a mother bear whose cub has been threatenedpromised the nurse that there would be trouble later. Possibly even a suit. Then her eyes misted, extinguishing the glower or at least hiding it. She took Eddies good hand and squeezed it so painfully that he winced. Its bad, but youll be well again soon, she said. Well again soon, I promise you that. Sure, Ma, Eddie wheezed. Could I have my aspirator? Of course, she said. Sonia Kaspbrak looked at the nurse triumphantly, as if vindicated of some ridiculous criminal charge. My son has asthma, she said. Its quite serious, but he copes with it beautifully. Good, the nurse said flatly. His ma held the aspirator for him so he could inhale. A moment later Dr. Handor was feeling Eddies broken arm. He was as gentle as possible but the pain was still enormous. Eddie felt like screaming and gritted his teeth against it. He was afraid if he screamed his mother would scream, too. Sweat stood out on his forehead in large clear drops. Youre hurting him, Mrs. Kaspbrak said. I know you are! Theres no need of that! Stop it! Theres no need for you to hurt him! Hes very delcate, he cant stand that sort of pain! Eddie saw the nurse lock her furious eyes with Dr. Handors tired, worried ones. He saw the wordless conversation that passed between them Send that woman out of here, doctor. And in the drop of his eyes I cant. I dont dare. There was great clarity inside the pain (although, in truth, this was not a clarity that Eddie would want to experience often the price was too high), and in that unspoken conversation, Eddie accepted everything Mr. Keene had told him. His HydrOx aspirator was filled with nothing more than flavored water. The asthma wasnt in his throat or his chest or his lungs but in his head. Somehow or other he was going to have to deal with that truth. He looked at his mother, seeing her clear in his pain each flower on her Lane Bryant dress, the sweatstains under her arms where the pads she wore had soaked through, the scuffmarks on her shoes. He saw how small her eyes were in their pockets of flesh, and now a terrible thought came to him those eyes were almost predatory, like the eyes of the leper that had crawled out of the basement at 29 Neibolt Street. Here I come, thats all right ... it wont do you any good to run, Eddie.... Dr. Handor put his hands gently around Eddies broken arm and squeezed. The pain exploded. Eddie drifted away. 5 They gave him some liquid to drink and Dr. Handor set the fracture. He heard Dr. Handor telling his ma that it was a greenstick fracture, no more serious than any childhood break Its the sort of break kids get falling out of trees, he said, and Eddie heard his ma respond furiously Eddie doesnt climb trees! Now I want the truth! How bad is he? Then the nurse was giving him a pill. He felt her bosoms against his shoulder again and was grateful for their comforting pressure. Even through the haze he could see that the nurse was angry and he thought he said, Shes not the leper, please dont think that, shes only eating me because she loves me, but perhaps nothing came out because the nurses angry face didnt change. He had a faint recollection of being pushed up a corridor in a wheelchair and his mothers voice somewhere behind, fading What do you mean, visiting hours? Dont talk to me about visiting hours, thats my son! Fading. He was glad she was fading, glad he was fading. The pain was gone and the clarity was gone with it. He didnt want to think. He wanted to drift. He was aware that his right arm felt very heavy. He wondered if they had put it in a cast yet. He couldnt seem to see if they had or not. He was vaguely aware of radios playing from rooms, of patients who looked like ghosts in their hospital johnnies walking up and down the wide halls, and that it was hot ... so very hot. When he was wheeled into his room, he could see the sun going down in an angry orange boil of blood and thought incoherently Like a great big clownbutton. Come on, Eddie, you can walk, a voice was saying, and he found that he could. He was slid between crisp cool sheets. The voice told him that he would have some pain in the night, but not to ring for a painkiller unless it got very bad. Eddie asked if he could have a drink of water. The water came with a straw that had an accordion middle so you could bend it. It was cool and good. He drank it all. There was pain in the night, a good deal of it. He lay awake in bed, holding the callbutton in his left hand but not pressing it. A thunderstorm was going on outside, and when the lightning flashed bluewhite, he turned his head away from the windows, afraid he might see a monstrous, grinning face etched across the sky in that electric fire. At last he slept again, and in his sleep he had a dream. In it he saw Bill, Ben, Richie, Stan, Mike, and Bevhis friendsarriving at the hospital on their bikes (Bill was riding Richie double on Silver). He was surprised to see that Beverly was wearing a dressit was a lovely green, the color of the Caribbean in a National Geographic plate. He couldnt remember if he had ever seen her in a dress before; all he remembered were jeans and pedalpushers and what the girls called schoolsets skirts and blouses, the blouses usually white with round collars, the skirts usually brown and pleated and hemmed at midshin, so that the scabs on their knees didnt show. In the dream he saw them coming in for the 200 P.M. visiting hours and his mother, who had been waiting patiently since eleven, shouting so loudly at them that everyone turned to look at her. If you think youre going to go in there, youve got another think coming! Eddies mother shouted, and now the clown, who had been sitting here in the waiting room all along (but way back in one corner, with a copy of Look magazine held up in front of his face until now), jumped up and mimed applause, patting his whitegloved hands together rapidly. He capered and danced, now turning a cartwheel, now executing a neat backover flip, as Mrs. Kaspbrak ranted at Eddies fellow Losers and as they shrank, one by one, behind Bill, who only stood there, pale but outwardly calm, his hands stuffed deep into the pockets of his jeans (maybe so no one, including Bill himself, would be able to see if they were shaking or not). No one saw the clown except Eddie ... although a baby who had been sleeping peacefully in his mothers arms awoke and began to cry lustily. Youve done enough damage! Eddies ma shouted. I know who those boys were! Theyve been in trouble at school, theyve even been in trouble with the police! And just because those boys have something against you is no reason for them to have something against him. I told him so, and he agrees with me. He wants me to tell you to go away, hes done with you, he never wants to see any of you again. He doesnt want your socalled friendship anymore! Any of you! I knew it would lead to trouble, and look at this! My Eddie in the hospital! A boy as delicate as he is ... The clown capered and jumped and did splits and stood on one hand. Its smile was real enough now, and in his dream Eddie realized that this was of course what the clown wanted, a nice big wedge to drive among them, splitting them apart and destroying any chance of concerted action. In a kind of filthy ecstasy, the clown did a double barrelroll and burlesqued kissing his mothers cheek. ThThThose bbbhoys who dihdid itBill began. Dont you speak back to me! Mrs. Kaspbrak shrieked. Dont you dare speak back to me! Hes done with you, I say! Done! Then an intern came running into the waiting room and told Eddies ma she would have to be quiet or leave the hospital. The clown started to fade, started to wash out, and as it did it began to change. Eddie saw the leper, the mummy, the bird; he saw the werewolf, and a vampire whose teeth were Gillette BlueBlades set at crazy angles like mirrors in a carnival mirrormaze; he saw Frankenstein, the creature, and something fleshy and shelllike that opened and closed like a mouth; he saw a dozen other terrible things, a hundred. But just before the clown washed out completely, he saw the most terrible thing of all his mas face. No! he tried to scream. No! No! Not her! Not my ma! But no one looked around; no one heard. And in the dreams fading moments, he realized with a cold and wormy horror that they couldnt hear him. He was dead. It had killed him and he was dead. He was a ghost. 6 Sonia Kaspbraks soursweet triumph at sending Eddies socalled friends away evaporated almost as soon as she stepped into Eddies private room the next afternoon, on the 21st of July. She could not tell exactly why the feeling of triumph should fade like that, or why it should be displaced by an unfocused fear; it was something in her sons pale face, which was not blurred with pain or anxiety but instead bore an expression she could not remember ever having seen there before. It was sharp, somehow. Sharp and alert and set. The confrontation between Eddies friends and Eddies ma had not occurred in the waiting room, as in Eddies dream; she had known they would be comingEddies friends, who were probably teaching him to smoke cigarettes in spite of his asthma, his friends who had such an unhealthy hold over him that they were all he talked about when he came home for the evening, his friends who got his arm broken. She had told all of this to Mrs. Van Prett next door. The time has come, Mrs. Kaspbrak had said grimly, to slap a few cards down on the table. Mrs. Van Prett, who had horrible skinproblems and who could almost always be counted upon to agree eagerly, almost pathetically, with everything Sonia Kaspbrak said, in this case had the temerity to disagree. I should think youd be glad hes made some friends, Mrs. Van Prett said as they hung out their washes in the earlymorning cool before workthis had been during the first week of July. And hes safer if hes with other children, Mrs. Kaspbrak, dont you think so? With all thats going on in this town, and all the poor children that have been murdered? Mrs. Kaspbraks only reply had been an angry sniff (in fact, she couldnt just then think of an adequate verbal response, although she thought of dozenssome of them extremely cuttinglater on), and when Mrs. Van Prett called her that evening, sounding rather anxious, to ask if Mrs. Kaspbrak would be going to the Beano down at Saint Marys with her like usual, Mrs. Kaspbrak had replied coldly that she believed she would just stay home that evening and put her feet up instead. Well, she hoped Mrs. Van Prett was satisfied now. She hoped Mrs. Van Prett saw now that the only danger abroad in Derry this summer wasnt the sexmaniac killing children and babies. Here was her son, lying on his bed of pain in Derry Home Hospital, he might never be able to use his good right arm again, she had heard of such things, or, God forbid, loose splinters from the break might work through his bloodstream to his heart and puncture it and kill him, oh of course God would never allow that to happen, but she had heard of it happening, so that meant God could allow such a thing to happen. In certain cases. So she lingered on the Home Hospitals long and shady front porch, knowing they would show up, coldly determined to put paid to this socalled friendship, this camaraderie that ended in broken arms and beds of pain, once and for all. Eventually they came, as she had known they would, and to her horror she saw that one of them was a nigger. Not that she had anything against niggers; she thought they had every right to ride where they wanted to on the buses down south, and eat at white lunchcounters, and should not be made to sit in nigger heaven at the movies unless they bothered white (women) people, but she also believed firmly in what she called the Bird Theory Blackbirds flew with other blackbirds, not with the robins. Grackles roosted with grackles; they did not mix in with the bluebirds or the nightingales. To each his own was her motto, and seeing Mike Hanlon pedal up with the others just as if he belonged there caused her resolution, like her anger and her dismay, to grow apace. She thought reproachfully, as if Eddie were here and could listen to her You never told me that one of your friends was a nigger. Well, she thought, twenty minutes later, stepping into the hospital room where her son lay with his arm in a huge cast that was strapped to his chest (it hurt her heart just to look at it), she had sent them packing in jig time ... no pun intended. None of them except for the Denbrough boy, the one who had such a horrible stutter, had had the nerve to so much as speak back to her. The girl, whoever she was, had flashed a pair of decidedly slutty jades eyes at Soniafrom Lower Main Street or someplace even worse, had been Sonia Kaspbraks opinionbut she had wisely kept her mouth shut. If she had dared so much as to let out a peep, Sonia would have given her a piece of her mind; would have told her what sort of girls ran with the boys. There were names for girls like that, and she would not have her son associated, now or ever, with the girls who bore them. The others had done no more than look down at their shuffling feet. That was about what she had expected. When she was done saying what she had to say, they had gotten on their bikes and ridden away. The Denbrough boy had the Tozier boy riding double behind him on a huge, unsafelooking bike, and with an interior shudder Mrs. Kaspbrak had wondered how many times her Eddie had ridden on that dangerous bike, risking his arms and his legs and his neck and his life. I did this for you, Eddie, she thought as she walked into the hospital with her head firmly up. I know you may feel a bit disappointed at first; thats natural enough. But parents know better than their children; the reason God made parents in the first place was to guide, instruct ... and protect. After his initial disappointment, he would understand. And if she felt a certain relief now, it was of course on Eddies behalf and not on her own. Relief was only to be expected when you had saved your son from bad companions. Except that her sense of relief was marred by fresh unease now, looking into Eddies face. He was not asleep, as she had thought he would be. Instead of a drugged doze from which he would wake disoriented, dimwitted, and psychologically vulnerable, there was this sharp, watchful look, so different from Eddies usual soft tentative glance. Like Ben Hanscom (although Sonia did not know this), Eddie was the sort of boy who would look quickly into a face, as if to test the emotional weather brewing there, and glance just as quickly away. But he was looking at her steadily now (perhaps its the medication, she thought, of course thats it; Ill have to consult with Dr. Handor about his medication), and she was the one who felt a need to glance aside. He looks like hes been waiting for me, she thought, and it was a thought that should have made her happya boy waiting for his mother must surely be one of Gods most favored creations You sent my friends away. The words came out flatly, with no doubt or question in them. She flinched almost guiltily, and certainly the first thought to flash through her mind was a guilty oneHow does he know that? He cant know that! and she was immediately furious with herself (and him) for feeling that way. So she smiled at him. How are we feeling today, Eddie? That was the right response. Someonesome foolish candystriper, or perhaps even that incompetent and antagonistic nurse from the day beforehad been carrying tales. Someone. How are we feeling? she asked again when he didnt respond. She thought he hadnt heard her. Shed never read in any of her medical literature of a broken bone affecting the sense of hearing, but she supposed it was possible, anything was possible. Eddie still didnt respond. She came farther into the room, hating the tentative, almost timid feeling inside her, dstrusting it because she had never felt tentative or timid around Eddie before. She felt anger as well, although that was still nascent. What right did he have to make her feel that way, after all she had done for him, after all she had sacrificed for him? Ive talked to Dr. Handor, and he assures me that youre going to be perfectly all right, Sonia said briskly, sitting down in the straightbacked wooden chair by the bed. Of course if theres the slightest problem, well go to see a specialist in Portland. In Boston, if thats what it takes. She smiled, as if conferring a great favor. Eddie did not smile back. And still he did not reply. Eddie, are you hearing me? You sent my friends away, he repeated. Yes, she said, dropping the pretense, and said no more. Two could play at that game. She simply looked back at him. But a strange thing happened; a terrible thing, really. Eddies eyes seemed to ... to grow, somehow. The flecks of gray in them seemed actually to be moving, like racing stormclouds. She became aware suddenly that he was not in a snit, or having a poopie, or any of those things. He was furious with her ... and Sonia was suddenly scared, because something more than her son seemed to be in this room. She dropped her eyes and fumbled her purse open. She began searching for a Kleenex. Yes, I sent them away, she said, and found that her voice was strong enough and steady enough ... as long as she wasnt looking at him. Youve been seriously injured, Eddie. You dont need any visitors right now except for your own ma, and you dont need visitors like that, ever. If it hadnt been for them, youd be home watching the TV right now, or building on your soapbox racer in the garage. It was Eddies dream to build a soapbox racer and take it to Bangor. If he won there, he would be awarded an allexpensespaid trip to Akron, Ohio, for the National Soapbox Derby. Sonia was perfectly willing to allow him this dream as long as it seemed to her that completion of the racer, which was made out of orange crates and the wheels from a ChooChoo Flyer wagon, was just thata dream. She certainly had no intention of letting Eddie risk his life in such a dangerous contraption, not in Derry, not in Bangor, and certainly not in Akron, which (Eddie had informed her) would mean riding in an airplane as well as making a suicidal run down a steep hill in a wheeled orange crate with no brakes. But, as her own mother had often said, what a person didnt know couldnt hurt him (her mother had also been fond of saying Tell the truth and shame the devil, but when it came to the recollection of aphorisms Sonia, like most people, could be remarkably selective). My friends didnt break my arm, Eddie said in that same flat voice. I told Dr. Handor last night and I told Mr. Nell when he came in this morning. Henry Bowers broke my arm. Some other kids were with him, but Henry did it. If Id been with my friends, it never would have happened. It happened because I was alone. This made Sonia think of Mrs. Van Pretts comment about how it was safer to have friends, and that brought the rage back like a tiger. She snapped her head up. That doesnt matter and you know it! What do you think, Eddie? That your ma fell off a hay truck yesterday? Is that what you think? I know well enough why the Bowers boy broke your arm. That Paddy cop was at our house, too. That big boy broke your arm because you and your friends crossed him somehow. Now do you think that would have happened if youd listened to me and stayed away from them in the first place? NoI think that something even worse might have happened, Eddie said. Eddie, you dont mean that. I mean it, he said, and she felt that power coming off him, coming out of him, in waves. Bill and the rest of my friends will be back, Ma. Thats something I know. And when they come, youre not going to stop them. Youre not going to say a word to them. Theyre my friends, and youre not going to steal my friends just because youre scared of being alone. She stared at him, flabbergasted and terrified. Tears filled her eyes and spilled down her cheeks, wetting the powder there. This is how you talk to your mother now, I guess, she said through her sobs. Maybe this is the way your friends talk to their folks. I guess you learned it from them. She felt safer in her tears. Usually when she cried Eddie cried, too. A low weapon, some might say, but were there really any low weapons when it came to protecting her son? She thought not. She looked up, the tears streaming from her eyes, feeling both unutterably sad, bereft, betrayed ... and sure. Eddie would not be able to stand against such a flood of tears and sorrow. That cold sharp look would leave his face. Perhaps he would begin to gasp and wheeze a little bit, and that would be a sign, as it was always a sign, that the fight was over and that she had won another victory ... for him, of course. Always for him. She was so shocked to see that same expression on his faceit had, if anything, deepenedthat her voice caught in midsob. There was sorrow under his expression, but even that was frightening it struck her in some way as an adult sorrow, and thinking of Eddie as adult in any way always caused a panicky little bird to flutter inside her mind. |
This was how she felt on the infrequent occasions when she wondered what would happen to her if Eddie didnt want to go to Derry Business College or the University of Maine in Orono or Husson in Bangor so he could come home every day after his classes were done, what would happen if he met a girl, fell in love, wanted to get married. Wheres the place for me in any of that? the panicky birdvoice would cry when these strange, almost nightmarish thoughts came. Where would my place be in a life like that? I love you, Eddie! I love you! I take care of you and I love you! You dont know how to cook, or change your sheets, or wash your underwear! Why should you? I know those things for you! I know because I love you! He said it himself now I love you, Ma. But I love my friends, too. I think ... I think youre making yourself cry. Eddie, you hurt me so much, she whispered, and fresh tears doubled his pale face, trebled it. If her tears a few moments ago had been calculated, these were not. In her own peculiar way she was toughshe had seen her husband into his grave without cracking up, she had gotten a job in a depressed jobmarket where it wasnt easy to get a job, she had raised her son, and when it had been necessary, she had fought for him. These were the first totally unaffected and uncalculated tears she had wept in years, perhaps since Eddie had gotten the bronchitis when he was five and she had been so sure he would die as he lay there in his bed of pain, glowing bright with fever, whooping and coughing and gasping for breath. She wept now because of that terribly adult, somehow alien expression on his face. She was afraid for him, but she was also, in some way, afraid of him, afraid of that aura that seemed to surround him ... which seemed to demand something of her. Dont make me have to choose between you and my friends, Ma, Eddie said. His voice was uneven, strained, but still under control. Because thats not fair. Theyre bad friends, Eddie! she cried in a nearfrenzy. I know that, I feel that with all my heart, theyll bring you nothing but pain and grief! And the most horrible thing of all was that she did sense that; some part of her had intuited it in the eyes of the Denbrough boy, who had stood before her with his hands in his pockets, his red hair flaming in the summer sun. His eyes had been so grave, so strange and distant ... like Eddies eyes now. And hadnt that same aura been around him as was around Eddie now? The same, but even stronger? She thought yes. Ma She stood up so suddenly she almost knocked the straightbacked chair over. Ill come back this evening, she said. Its the shock, the accident, the pain, those things, that make you talk this way. I know it. You ... you ... She groped, and found her original text in the flying confusion of her mind. Youve had a bad accident, but youre going to be just fine. And youll see Im right, Eddie. Theyre bad friends. Not our sort. Not for you. You think it over and ask yourself if your ma ever told you wrong before. You think about it and ... and ... Im running! she thought with a sick and hurtful dismay. Im running away from my own son! Oh God, please dont let this be! Ma. For a moment she almost fled anyway, scared of him now, oh yes, he was more than Eddie; she sensed the others in him, his friends and something else, something that was beyond even them, and she was afraid it might flash out at her. It was as if he were in the grip of something, some dreadful fever, as he had been in the grip of the bronchitis that time when he was five, when he had almost died. She paused, her hand on the doorknob, not wanting to hear what he might say ... and when he said it, it was so unexpected that for a moment she didnt really understand it. When comprehension crashed down, it came like a loose load of cement, and for a moment she thought she would faint. Eddie said Mr. Keene said my asthma medicine is just water. What? What? She turned blazing eyes on him. Just water. With some stuff added to make it taste like medicine. He said it was a placeebo. Thats a lie! That is nothing but a solid lie! Why would Mr. Keene want to tell you a lie like that? Well, there are other drugstores in Derry, I guess. I guess Ive had time to think about it, Eddie said, softly and implacably, his eyes never leaving hers, and I think hes telling the truth. Eddie, I tell you hes not! The panic was back, fluttering. What I think, Eddie said, is that it must be the truth or there would be some kind of warning on the bottle, like if you take too much it will kill you or at least make you sick. Even Eddie, I dont want to hear this! she cried, and clapped her hands to her ears. Youre ... youre ... youre just not yourself and thats all that it is! Even if its something you can just go in and buy without a prescription, they put special instructions on it, he went on, not raising his voice. His gray eyes lay on hers, and she couldnt seem to drop her gaze, or even move it. Even if its just Vicks cough syrup ... or your Geritol. He paused for a moment. Her hands dropped from her ears; it seemed too much work to hold them up. They seemed very heavy. And its like ... you must have known that, too, Ma. Eddie! She nearly wailed it. Because, he went on, as if she had not spoken at allhe was frowning now, concentrating on the problem, because your folks are supposed to know about medicines. Why, I use that aspirator five, sometimes six times a day. And you wouldnt let me do that if you thought it could, like, hurt me. Because its your job to protect me. I know it is, because thats what you always say. So ... did you know, Ma? Did you know it was just water? She said nothing. Her lips were trembling. It felt as if her whole face was trembling. She was no longer crying. She felt too scared to cry. Because if you did, Eddie said, still frowning, if you did know, Id want to know why. I can figure some things out, but not why my ma would want me to think water was medicine ... or that I had asthma herehe pointed to his chestwhen Mr. Keene says I only have it up here and he pointed to his head. She thought she would explain everything then. She would explain it quietly and logically. How she had thought he was going to die when he was five, and how that would have driven her crazy after losing Frank only two years before. How she came to understand that you could only protect your child through watchfulness and love, that you must tend a child as you tended a garden, fertilizing, weeding, and yes, occasionally pruning and thinning, as much as that hurt. She would tell him that sometimes it was better for a childparticularly a delicate child like Eddieto think he was sick than to really get sick. And she would finish by talking to him about the deadly foolishness of doctors and the wonderful power of love; she would tell him that she knew he had asthma, and it didnt matter what the doctors thought or what they gave him for it. She would tell him you could make medicine with more than a malicious meddling druggists mortar and pestle. Eddie, she would say, its medicine because your mothers love makes it medicine, and in just that way, for as long as you want me and let me, I can do that. This is a power that God gives to loving caring mothers. Please, Eddie, please, my hearts own love, you must believe me. But in the end she said nothing. Her fright was too great. But maybe we dont even have to talk about it, Eddie went on. Mr. Keene might have been joking with me. Sometimes grownups ... you know, they like to play jokes on kids. Because kids believe almost anything. Its mean to do that to kids, but sometimes grownups do it. Yes, Sonia Kaspbrak said eagerly. They like to joke and sometimes theyre stupid ... mean ... and ... and... So Ill kind of keep an eye out for Bill and the rest of my friends, Eddie said, and keep right on using my asthma medicine. Thats probably best, dont you think? She realized only now, when it was too late, how neatlyhow cruellyshe had been trapped. What he was doing was almost blackmail, but what choice did she have? She wanted to ask him how he could be so calculating, so manipulative. She opened her mouth to ask ... and then closed it again. It was too likely that, in his present mood, he might answer. But she knew one thing. Yes. One thing for sure she would never never never set foot into Mr. NosyParker Keenes drugstore again in her life. His voice, oddly shy now, interrupted her thoughts. Ma? She looked up and saw it was Eddie again, just Eddie, and she went to him gladly. Can I have a hug, Ma? She hugged him, but carefully, so as not to hurt his broken arm (or dislodge any loose bonefragments so they could run an evil race around his bloodstream and then lodge in his heartwhat mother would kill her son with love?), and Eddie hugged her back. 7 As far as Eddie was concerned, his ma left just in time. During the horrible confrontation with her he had felt his breath piling up and up and up in his lungs and throat, still and tideless, stale and brackish, threatening to poison him. He held on until the door had snicked shut behind her and then he began to gasp and wheeze. The sour air working in his tight throat jabbed up and down like a warm poker. He grabbed for his aspirator, hurting his arm but not caring. He triggered a long blast down his throat. He breathed deep of the camphor taste, thinking It doesnt matter if its a placeebo, words dont matter if a thing works. He lay back against his pillows, eyes closed, breathing freely for the first time since she had come in. He was scared, plenty scared. The things he had said to her, the way he had actedit had been him and yet it hadnt been him at all. There had been something working in him, working through him, some force ... and his mother had felt it, too. He had seen it in her eyes and in her trembling lips. He had no sense that this power was an evil one, but its enormous strength was frightening. It was like getting on an amusementpark ride that was really dangerous and realizing you couldnt get off until it was over, come what might. No turning around, Eddie thought, feeling the hot, itchy weight of the cast that encased his broken arm. No one goes home until we get to the end. But God Im so scared, so scared. And he knew that the truest reason for demanding she not cut him off from his friends was something he could never have told her I cant face this alone. He cried a little then, and then drifted off into a restless sleep. He dreamed of a darkness in which machinerypumping machineryran on and on. 8 It was threatening showers again that evening when Bill and the rest of the Losers returned to the hospital. Eddie was not surprised to see them come filing in. He had known they would be back. It had been hot all dayit was generally agreed later that that third week of July was the hottest of an exceptionally hot summerand the thunderheads began to build up around four in the afternoon, purpleblack and colossal, pregnant with rain, loaded with lightnings. People went about their errands quickly and a little uneasily, with one eye always cocked at the sky. Most agreed it would rain good and hard by dinnertime, washing some of the thick humidity out of the air. Derrys parks and playgrounds, underpopulated all summer, were totally deserted that evening by six. The rain had still not fallen, and the swings hung moveless and shadeless in a light that was a queer flat yellow. Thunder rumbled thicklythat, a barking dog, and the low mutter of traffic on Outer Main Street were the only sounds that drifted in through Eddies window until the Losers came. Bill was first, followed by Richie. Beverly and Stan followed them, then Mike. Ben came last. He looked excruciatingly uncomfortable in a white turtleneck sweater. They came to his bed, solemn. Not even Richie was smiling. Their faces, Eddie thought, fascinated. Jeezumcrow, their faces! He was seeing in them what his mother had seen in him that afternoon that odd combination of power and helplessness. The yellow stormlight lay on their skins, making their faces seem ghostlike, distant, shadowy. Were passing over, Eddie thought. Passing over into something newwere on the border. But whats on the other side? Where are we going? Where? HhHello, EhEhEddie, Bill said. How you dddoin? Okay, Big Bill, Eddie said, and tried to smile. Had a day yesterday, I guess, Mike said. Thunder rumbled behind his voice. Neither the overhead light nor the bedside lamp was on in Eddies room, and all of them seemed to fade in and out of the bruised light. Eddie thought of that light all over Derry right now, lying long and still across McCarron Park, falling through the holes in the roof of the Kissing Bridge in smudged lackadaisical rays, making the Kenduskeag look like smoky glass as it cut its broad shallow path through the Barrens; he thought of seesaws standing at dead angles behind Derry Elementary as the thunderheads piled up and up; he thought of this thundery yellow light, and the stillness, as if the whole town had fallen asleep ... or died. Yes, he said. It was a big day. My ffolks are ggoing out to a muhmuhmovie the night aaafter nnext, Bill said. When the ppichictures change. Were ggoing to mmake them then. The suhsuhsuh Silver balls, Richie said. I thought Its better this way, Ben said quietly. I still think we could have made the bullets, but thinking isnt good enough. If we were grownups Oh yeah, the world would be peachy if we were grownups, Beverly said. Grownups can make anything they want, cant they? Grownups can do anything they want, and it always comes out right. She laughed, a jagged nervous sound. Bill wants me to shoot It. Can you feature that, Eddie? Just call me Beverly Oakley. I dont know what youre talking about, Eddie said, but he thought he didhe was getting some kind of picture, anyway. Ben explained. They would melt down one of his silver dollars and make two silver balls a little smaller than ballbearings. And then, if there really was a werewolf residing at 29 Neibolt Street, Beverly would put a silver ball into Its head with Bills Bullseye slingshot. Goodbye werewolf. And if they were right about one creature who wore many faces, goodbye It. There must have been some sort of expression on Eddies face, because Richie laughed and nodded. I know how you feel, man. I thought Bill must have lost his few remaining marbles when he started talking about using his slingshot instead of his dads gun. But this afternoon He stopped and cleared his throat. This afternoon after your ma blew us out of the water was how he had been about to start, and that obviously wouldnt do. This afternoon we went down to the dump. Bill brought his Bullseye. Look. From his back pocket Richie took a flattened can which had once held Del Monte pineapple chunks. There was a ragged hole about two inches in diameter through the middle of it. Beverly did that with a rock, from twenty feet away. Looks like a .38 to me. De Trashmouth was convinced. And when de Trashmouth is convinced, de Trashmouth is convinced. Killing cans is one thing, Beverly said. If it was something else ... something alive ... Bill, you should be the one. Really. Nno, Bill said. We aaall ttook turns. You suhsuhsaw how it wwwent. How did it go? Eddie asked. Bill explained, slowly and haltingly, while Beverly looked out the window with her lips pressed so tightly together they were white. She was, for reasons she could not explain even to herself, more than afraid she was deeply embarrassed by what had happened today. On the way over here tonight she had argued again, passionately, that they try to make the bullets after all ... not because she was any more sure than Bill or Richie that they would actually work when the time came, but becauseif something did happen out at that housethe weapon would be in (Bills) someone elses hands. But facts were facts. They had each taken ten rocks and shot the Bullseye at ten cans set up twenty feet away. Richie had gotten one out of ten (and his one hit was really only a nick), Ben had gotten two, Bill four, Mike five. Beverly, shooting almost casually and appearing to aim not at all, had banged nine of the ten cans dead center. The tenth fell over when the rock she fired bounced off the rim. But first wwwwe ggotta make the uhuhammo. Night after next? I should be out by then, Eddie said. His mother would protest that ... but he didnt think she would protest too much. Not after this afternoon. Does your arm hurt? Beverly asked. She was wearing a pink dress (not the dress he had seen in his dream; perhaps she had worn that this afternoon, when Ma sent them away) on which she had appliqud small flowers. And silk or nylon hose; she looked very adult but also somehow very childlike, like a girl playing dressup. Her expression was dreamy and distant. Eddie thought I bet thats how she looks when shes sleeping. Not too much, he said. They talked for awhile, their voices punctuated by thunder. Eddie did not ask them about what had happened when they came to the hospital earlier that day, and none of them mentioned it. Richie took out his yoyo, made it sleep once or twice, then put it back. Conversation lagged, and in one of the pauses there was a brief click that made Eddie look around. Bill had something in his hand, and for a moment Eddie felt his heart speed up in alarm. For that brief moment he thought it was a knife. But then Stan turned on the rooms overhead, dispelling the gloom, and he saw it was only a ballpoint pen. In the light they all looked natural again, real, only his friends. I thought we ought to sign your cast, Bill said. His eyes met Eddies squarely. But thats not it, Eddie thought with sudden and alarming clarity. Its a contract. Its a contract, Big Bill, isnt it, or the closest well ever get to one. He was frightened ... and then ashamed and angry at himself. If he had broken his arm before this summer, who would have signed the cast? Anyone besides his mother, and perhaps Dr. Handor? His aunts in Haven? These were his friends, and his mother was wrong they werent bad friends. Maybe, he thought, there arent any such things as good friends or bad friendsmaybe there are just friends, people who stand by you when youre hurt and who help you feel not so lonely. Maybe theyre always worth being scared for, and hoping for, and living for. Maybe worth dying for, too, if thats what has to be. No good friends. No bad friends. Only people you want, need to be with; people who build their houses in your heart. Okay, Eddie said, a little hoarsely. Okay, thatd be real good, Big Bill. So Bill leaned solemnly over his bed and wrote his name on the hillocky plaster of Paris that encased Eddies mending arm, the letters large and looping. Richie signed with a flourish. Bens handwriting was as narrow as he was wide, the letters slanting backward. They looked ready to fall over at the slightest push. Mike Hanlons writing was large and awkward because he was lefthanded and the angle was bad for him. He signed above Eddies elbow and circled his name. When Beverly bent over him, he could smell some light flowery perfume on her. She signed in a round Palmermethod script. Stan came last, and wrote his name in tightpacked little letters by Eddies wrist. They all stepped back then, as if aware of what they had done. Outside, thunder muttered heavily again. Lightning washed the hospitals wooden exterior in brief stuttering light. Thats it? Eddie asked. Bill nodded. CCCome ohohover to my hhouse aafter suhhupper day aaafter ttomorrow if you cccan, ookay? Eddie nodded, and the subject was closed. There was another period of desultory, almost aimless conversation. Some of it was about the dominant topic in Derry that Julythe trial of Richard Macklin for the bludgeonmurder of his stepson Dorsey, and the disappearance of Dorseys older brother, Eddie Corcoran. Macklin would not break down and confess, weeping, on the witness stand for another two days, but the Losers were in agreement that Macklin probably had nothing to do with Eddies disappearance. The boy had either run away ... or It had gotten him. They left around quarter of seven, and the rain still had not fallen. It continued to threaten until long after Eddies ma had come, made her visit, and gone home again (she had been horrified at the signatures on Eddies cast, and even more horrified at his determination to leave the hospital the following dayshe had been envisioning a stay of a week or more in absolute quiet, so that the ends of the break could set together, as she said). Eventually the stormclouds broke apart and drifted away. Not so much as a drop of rain had fallen in Derry. The humidity remained, and people slept on porches and on lawns and in sleeping bags in back fields that night. The rain came the next day, not long after Beverly saw something terrible happen to Patrick Hockstetter. CHAPTER 17 Another One of the Missing The Death of Patrick Hockstetter 1 When he finishes, Eddie pours himself another drink with a hand not completely steady. He looks at Beverly and says, You saw It, didnt you? You saw It take Patrick Hockstetter the day after you all signed my cast. The others lean forward. Beverly pushes her hair back in a reddish cloud. Beneath it her face looks extraordinarily pale. She fumbles a fresh cigarette out of her packthe last oneand flicks her Bic. She cant seem to guide the flame to the tip of her cigarette. After a moment Bill holds her wrist lightly but firmly and puts the flame where its supposed to go. Beverly looks at him gratefully and exhales a cloud of bluishgray smoke. Yeah, she says. I saw that happen. She shivers. He was cruhcruhcrazy, Bill says, and thinks Just the fact that Henry let a flako like Patrick Hockstetter hang around as that summer wore on ... that says something, doesnt it? Either that Henry was losing some of his charm, some of his attraction, or that Henrys own craziness had progressed far enough so that the Hockstetter kid seemed okay to him. Both came to the same thingHenrys increasing ... what? degeneration? Is that the word? Yes, in light of what happened to him, where he ended up, I think it is. Theres something else to support the idea, too, Bill thinks, but as yet he can only remember it vaguely. He and Richie and Beverly had been down at Tracker Brothersearly August by then, and the summerschool that had kept Henry out of their hair for most of the summer was just about to endand hadnt Victor Criss approached them? A very frightened Victor Criss? Yes, that had happened. Things had been rapidly approaching the end by then, and Bill thinks now that every kid in Derry had sensed itthe Losers and Henrys group most of all. But that had been later. Oh yeah you got that right, Beverly says flatly. Patrick Hockstetter was crazy. None of the girls would sit in front of him in school. Youd be sitting there, doing your arithmetic or writing a story or a composition, and all at once youd feel this hand ... almost as light as a feather, but warm and sweaty. Meaty. She swallows, and there is a small click in her throat. The others watch her solemnly from around the table. Youd feel it on your side, or maybe on your breast. Not that any of us had much in the way of breasts back then. But Patrick didnt seem to care about that. Youd feel that ... that touch, and youd jerk away from it, and turn around, and there Patrick would be, grinning with those big rubbery lips. He had a pencil box Full of flies, Richie says suddenly. Sure. Hed kill em with this green ruler he had and then put em in his pencil box. I even remember what it looked likered, with a wavy white plastic cover that slid open and closed. Eddie is nodding. Youd jerk away and hed grin and then maybe hed open his pencil box so you could see the dead flies inside, Beverly says. And the worst thingthe horrible thingwas the way hed smile and never say anything. Mrs. Douglas knew. Greta Bowie told on him, and I think Sally Mueller said something once, too. But ... I think Mrs. Douglas was scared of him, too. Ben has rocked back on the rear legs of his chair, and his hands are laced behind his neck. She still cannot believe how lean he is. Im pretty sure youre right, he says. WhWhat hhappened to hhhim, Beverly? Bill asks. She swallows again, trying to fight off the nightmarish power of what she saw that day in the Barrens, her roller skates tied together and hung over her shoulder, one knee a stinging net of pain from a fall she had taken on Saint Crispins Lane, another of the short treelined streets that deadended where the land fell (and still falls) sharply into the Barrens. She remembers (oh these memories, when they come, are so clear and so powerful) that she was wearing a pair of denim shortsreally too short, they came only to just below the hem of her panties. She had become more conscious of her body over the last yearover the last six months, actually, as it began to curve and become more womanly. The mirror was one reason for this heightened consciousness, of course, but not the main one; the main one was that her father seemed even sharper just lately, more apt to use his slapping hand or even his fists. He seemed restless, almost caged, and she was more and more nervous when she was around him, more and more on her mark. It was as if there was a smell they made between them, a smell that wasnt there when she was in the apartment alone, one that had never been there when they were in it togethernot until this summer. And when Mom was gone it was worse. If there was a smell, some smell, then he knew it too, maybe, because Bev saw less and less of him as the hot weather wore on, partly because of his summer bowling league, partly because he was helping his friend Joe Tammerly fix cars ... but she suspects it was partly that smell, the one they made between them, neither of them meaning to but making it just the same, as helpless to stop it as either was helpless to stop sweating in July. The vision of the birds, hundreds and thousands of them, descending on the roofpeaks of houses, on telephone wires, on TV aerials, intervenes again. And poison ivy, she says aloud. WWWhat? Bill asks. Something about poison ivy, she says slowly, looking at him. But it wasnt. It just felt like poison ivy. Mike? Never mind, Mike says. It will come. Tell us what you do remember, Bev. I remember the blue shorts, she would tell them, and how faded they were getting; how tight around my hips and butt. I had half a pack of Lucky Strikes in one pocket and the Bullseye in the other Do you remember the Bullseye? she asks Richie, but they all nod. Bill gave it to me, she says. I didnt want it, but it...he ... She smiles at Bill, a little wanly. You couldnt say no to Big Bill, that was all. So I had it and thats why I was out by myself that day. To practice. I still didnt think Id have the guts to use it when the time came. Except ... I used it that day. I had to. I killed one of them ... one of the parts of It. It was terrible. Even now its hard for me to think of. And one of the others got me. Look. She raises her arm and turns it over so they can all see a puckery scar on the roundest part of her upper forearm. It looks as if a hot circular object about the size of a Havana cigar had been pressed against her skin. It is slightly sunken, and looking at it gives Mike Hanlon a chill. This is one of the parts of the story which, like Eddies unwilling hearttoheart with Keene, he has suspected but never actually heard. You were right about one thing, Richie, she says. That Bullseye was a killer. I was scared of it, but I sorta loved it, too. Richie laughs and claps her on the back. Shit, I knew that back then, you stupid skirt. You did? Really? Yeah, really, he says. It was something in your eyes, Bevvie. I mean, it looked like a toy, but it was real. You could blow holes in things. And you blew a hole in something with it that day, Ben muses. She nods. Was it Patrick you No, God no! Beverly says. It was the other ... wait. She crushes out her cigarette, sips her drink, and gets herself under control again. Finally she is. Well ... no. But she has a feeling its the closest shes going to get tonight. I was rollerskating, you see, and I fell down and gave myself a good scrape. Then I decided Id go down to the Barrens and practice. I went by the clubhouse first to see if you guys were there. You werent. Just that smoky smell. You guys remember how long that place went on smelling of smoke? They all nod, smiling. We never really did get the smell out, did we? Ben says. So then I headed down to the dump, she says, because thats where we had the ... the tryouts, I guess youd call them, and I knew thered be lots of things to shoot at. Maybe even, you know, rats. She pauses. Theres a fine misty sweat on her forehead now. Thats what I really wanted to shoot at, she says finally. Something that was alive. Not a seagullI knew I couldnt shoot a gullbut a rat ... I wanted to see if I could. Im glad I came from the Kansas Street side instead of the Old Cape side, though, because there wasnt much cover over there by the railroad embankment. They would have seen me and God knows what would have happened the. Who would have suhsuhseen yyou? Them, Beverly says. Henry Bowers, Victor Criss, Belch Huggins, and Patrick Hockstetter. They were down in the dump and Suddenly, amazing all of them, she begins to giggle like a child, her cheeks turning rosered. She giggles until tears stand in her eyes. What the hell, Bev, Richie says. Let us in on the joke. Oh it was a joke, all right, she says. It was a joke, but I think they might have killed me if they knew Id seen. I remember now! Ben cries, and he begins to laugh, too. I remember you telling us! Giggling wildly, Beverly says, They had their pants down and they were lighting farts. There is an instant of thunderstruck silence and then they all begin to laughthe sound echoes through the library. Thinking of exactly how to tell them of Patrick Hockstetters death, the thing she fixes on first is how approaching the town dump from the Kansas Street side was like entering some weird asteroid belt. There was a rutted dirt track (a town road, actually; it even had a name, Old Lyme Street) that ran from Kansas Street to the dump, the only actual road into the Barrensthe citys dump trucks used it. Beverly walked near Old Lyme Street but didnt take itshe had grown more cautiousshe supposed all of them hadsince Eddies arm had been broken. Especially when she was alone. She wove her way through the heavy undergrowth, skirting a patch of poison ivy with its reddish oily leaves, smelling the dumps smoky rot, hearing the seagulls. On her left, through occasional breaks in the foliage, she could see Old Lyme Street. The others are looking at her, waiting. She checks her cigarette pack and finds it empty. Wordlessly, Richie tosses her one of his. She lights up, looks around at them, and says Heading toward the dump from the Kansas Street side was a little like 2 entering some weird asteroid belt. The dumpoid belt. At first there was nothing but the underbrush growing from the spongy ground underfoot, and then you would see your first dumpoid a rusty can that had once contained Prince Spaghetti Sauce, maybe, or an SOK soda bottle crawling with bugs attracted by the sweetsticky remains of cream soda or birch beer. Then there would be a bright wink of sun kicking off a scrap of tinfoil caught in a tree. You might see a bedspring (or trip over it, if you werent watching where you were going) or a bone some dog had carried away, gnawed, dropped. The dump itself wasnt so badwas, in fact, sort of interesting, Beverly thought. What was nasty (and sort of creepy) was the way it had of spreading. Of creating this dumpoid belt. She was getting closer now; the trees were bigger, mostly firs, and the bushes were thinning out. |
The gulls cheeped and cried in their shrill querulous voices, and the air was smudgy with the smell of burning. Now, on Beverlys right, leaning at an angle against the base of a spruce tree, was a rusty Amana refrigerator. Beverly glanced at it, thinking vaguely of the state policeman who had visited her class when she had been in the third grade. He had told them that such things as discarded refrigerators were dangerousa kid could climb into one while playing hideandgoseek, for instance, and smother to death inside. Although why anyone would want to get in a scroungy old She heard a shout, so close it made her jump, followed by laughter. Beverly grinned. So they were here. They had left the clubhouse because of the smoky smell and had come down here. They were maybe breaking bottles with rocks, maybe just dumppicking. She began to walk a little faster, the nasty scrape she had gotten earlier now forgotten in her eagerness to see them ... to see him, with his red hair so much like hers, to see if he would smile at her in that oddly endearing onesided way of his. She knew she was too young to love a boy, too young to have anything but crushes, but she loved Bill just the same. And she walked a little faster, her skates swinging heavily from her shoulder, the sling of his Bullseye beating soft time against her left buttock. She almost walked into them before realizing it wasnt her gang at all, but Bowerss. She walked out of the screening bushes and the dumps steepest side lay about seventy yards ahead, a twinkling avalanche of junk lying along the high angle of the gravelpit. Mandy Fazios bulldozer was off to the left. Much closer in front of her was a wilderness of junked cars. At the end of each month these were crushed and hauled off to Portland for scrap, but now there were a dozen or more, some sitting on bare wheelrims, some on their sides, one or two lying on their roofs like dead dogs. They were arranged in two rows and Beverly walked down the rough trashlittered aisle between them like some punk bride of the future, wondering idly if she could break a windshield with the Bullseye. One of the pockets of her blue shorts bulged with the small ballbearings that were her practice ammo. The voices and laughter were coming from beyond the junkedout cars and to the left, at the edge of the dump proper. Beverly rounded the last one, a Studebaker with its entire front end missing. Her hail of greeting died on her lips. The hand she had put up to wave did not exactly fall back to her side; it seemed to wilt. Her first furiously embarrassed thought was Oh dear God, why are they all naked? This was followed by the scary realization of who they were. She froze there in front of the halfStudebaker with her shadow stapled to the heels of her lowtopped sneakers. For that one moment she was totally visible to them; if any of the four had looked up from the circle they were squatting in, he could not have missed her, a girl of slightly more than medium height, a pair of skates over one shoulder, the knee of one long coltish leg still oozing blood, her mouth slackjawed, her cheeks scarlet. Before darting back behind the Studebaker she saw that they werent entirely naked after all; they had their shirts on, and their pants and underpants were simply pulled down to their shoetops, as if they had to Go Number Two (in her shock, Beverlys mind had automatically reverted to the euphemism she had been taught as a toddler)except whoever heard of four boys Going Number Two at the same time? Once out of sight again, her first thought was to get awayget away fast. Her heart was pumping hard, her muscles heavy with adrenaline. She looked around, seeing what she hadnt bothered to notice walking up here, when she had thought the voices she heard belonged to her friends. The row of junked cars on her left was really pretty thinthey were by no means packed in door to door as they would be in the week or so before the crusher came to turn them into rough blocks of twinkling metal. She had been exposed to the boys several times walking up to where she was now; if she retreated, she would be exposed again, and this time she might be seen. Also, she felt a certain shameful curiosity what in the world could they be doing? Carefully, she peeked around the Studebaker. Henry and Victor Criss were more or less facing in her direction. Patrick Hockstetter was on Henrys left. Belch Huggins had his back to her. She observed the fact that Belch had an extremely large, extremely hairy ass, and halfhysterical giggles suddenly bubbled up her throat like the head on a glass of ginger ale. She had to clap both hands over her mouth and withdraw behind the Studebaker again, struggling to hold the giggles in. Youve got to get out of here, Beverly. If they catch you She looked back down between the junked cars, still holding her hands over her mouth. The aisle was maybe ten feet wide, littered with cans, twinkling with little jigsaw pieces of SafTGlas, scruffy with weeds. If she so much as made a sound, they might hear her ... particularly if their absorption in whatever strange thing they were doing flagged. When she thought of how casually she had walked up here, her blood ran cold. Also ... What in the world can they be doing? She peeked again, seeing more of the details this time. There was a careless scatter of books and papers nearbyschoolbooks. They had just come from their summer classes, then, what most of the kids called Dummy School or Makeup School. And, because Henry and Victor were facing her way, she could see their things. They were the first things she had ever seen in her life, other than pictures in a smudgy little book that Brenda Arrowsmith had showed her the year before, and in those pictures you really couldnt see very much. Bev observed now that their things were little tubes that hung down between their legs. Henrys was small and hairless, but Victors was quite big, and there was a cloudy fuzz of fine black hair just over it. Bill has one of those, she thought, and suddenly her whole body seemed to flush at onceheat rushed through her in a wave that made her feel giddy and faint and almost sick to her stomach. In that moment she felt much the way Ben Hanscom had felt on the last day of school, looking down at her ankle bracelet and observing the way it flashed in the sun ... but he had not felt the intermixed sense of terror she felt now. She looked behind her once more. Now the pathway between the cars leading to the shelter of the Barrens seemed much longer. She was scared to move. If they knew she had seen their things, they would probably hurt her. And not just a little. They would hurt her badly. Belch Huggins bellowed suddenly, making her jump, and Henry yelled Three feet! No shit, Belch! It was three feet! Wasnt it, Vic? Vic agreed it was, and they all roared with trolllike laughter. Beverly tried another look around the junked Studebaker. Patrick Hockstetter had turned and halfrisen so that his butt was nearly in Henrys face. In Henrys hand was a silvery, glinting object. After a moments study she made it out as a lighter. I thought you said you felt one coming on, Henry said. I do, Patrick said. Ill tell you when. Get ready! ... Get ready, its coming! Get ... now! Henry flicked the lighter. At the same moment there was the unmistakable ripping sound of a really good fart. There was no mistaking that sound; Beverly had heard it enough in her own house, usually on Saturday night, after the beans and franks. A regular bear for his beans was her father. As Patrick blew off and Henry flicked the lighter, she saw something that made her jaw drop. A bright blue jet of flame appeared to roar directly out of Patricks bum. To Bev it looked like the pilotlight on a gasburner. The boys roared their trolllike laughter and Beverly withdrew behind the sheltering car, stifling mad giggles again. She was laughing, but not because she was amused. In some very weird way it was funny, yes, but mostly she was laughing because she felt a deep revulsion accompanied by a sort of horror. She was laughing because she knew of no other way to cope with what she had seen. It had something to do with seeing the boys things, but that was by no means all or even the great part of what she felt. She had known, after all, that boys had things, the same way she knew that girls had different things; this was only what you might call a confirmed sighting. But the rest of what they were doing seemed so strange, so ludicrous and yet at the same time so deadlyprimitive that she found herself, in spite of the giggling fit, groping for the core of herself with some desperation. Stop, she thought, as if this were the answer, stop, theyll hear you, so just you stop it, Bevvie! But that was impossible. The best she could do was to laugh without engaging her vocal cords, so that the sounds came out of her in a series of almost inaudible chuffs, her hands pasted over her mouth, her cheeks as red as Mac apples, her eyes swimming with tears. Holy shit, that hurts! Victor roared. Twelve feet! Henry bellowed. I swear to God, Vic, twelve fuckin feet! I swear it on my mothers name! I dont care if it was twenty fuckin feet, you burned my ass off! Victor howled, and there was more bellowing laughter ; still trying to giggle silently from behind the sheltering car, Beverly thought of a movie she had seen on TV. Jon Hall had been in it. It was about this jungle tribe, they had a secret rite, and if you saw it, you got sacrificed to their god, which was this big stone idol. This did not stop her giggles, but infused them with a nearly frantic quality. They were becoming more and more like silent screams. Her belly hurt. Tears streamed down her face. 3 Henry, Victor, Belch, and Patrick Hockstetter ended up in the dump lighting each others farts on that hot July afternoon because of Rena Davenport. Henry knew what resulted from consuming large amounts of baked beans. This result was perhaps best expressed in a little ditty he had learned at his fathers knee when he was still in short pants Beans, beans, the musical fruit! The more you eat, the more you toot! The more you toot, the better you feel! Then youre ready for another meal! Rena Davenport and his father had been courting for nearly eight years. She was fat, forty, and usually filthy. Henry supposed that Rena and his father sometimes fucked, although he could not imagine anyone squashing his body down on Rena Davenports. Renas beans were her pride. She soaked them Saturday nights and baked them over a slow fire all day Sunday. Henry supposed they were okaythey were something to shovel into your mouth and chew up, anywaybut after eight years anything lost its charm. Nor was Rena content to make just a few beans; she cooked them in job lots. When she turned up Sunday evenings in her old green De Soto (a naked rubber babydoll hung from the rearview mirror, looking like the worlds youngest lynchmob victim), she usually had the Bowerses beans steaming on the seat beside her in a twelvegallon galvanizedsteel pail. The three of them would eat the beans that night (Rena raving about her own cooking all the while, crazy Butch Bowers grunting and mopping up beanjuice with a piece of Sonny Boy bread or simply telling her to shut up if there was a ballgame on the radio, Henry just eating, staring out the window, thinking his own thoughtsit was over a plate of Sundaynight beans that he had conceived the idea of poisoning Mike Hanlons dog Mr. Chips), and Butch would reheat a mess of them the next night. On Tuesdays and Wednesdays Henry would take a Tupperware box full of them to school. By Thursday or Friday, neither Henry nor his father could eat any more. The houses two bedrooms would smell of stale farts in spite of the open windows. Butch would take the remains and mix them into the other slops and feed them to Bip and Bop, the Bowerses two pigs. Rena would like as not show up the following Sunday with another steaming pail, and the cycle would start all over again. That morning Henry had put up an enormous quantity of leftover beans, and the four of them had eaten the whole lot at noon, sitting out on the playground in the shade of a big old elm. They had eaten until they were nearly bursting. It had been Patrick who suggested they go down to the dump, which would be fairly quiet in the middle of a workingday summer afternoon. By the time they arrived, the beans were doing their work quite nicely. 4 Little by little, Beverly got herself under control again. She knew she had to get out; beating a retreat was ultimately less dangerous than hanging around. They were absorbed in what they were doing, and even if worse came to worst, she could get a headstart (and in the back of her mind she had also decided that, if worst came to terrible, a few shots from the Bullseye might discourage them). She was about to begin creeping away when Victor said, I gotta go, Henry. My dad wants me to help him pick corn this afternoon. Oh shit, Henry said. Hell live. No, hes mad at me. Because of what happened the other day. Fuck him if he cant take a joke. Beverly listened more closely now, suspecting it might be the scuffle which had ended with Eddies broken arm that they were talking about. No, I gotta go. I think his ass hurts, Patrick said. Watch your mouth, fuckface, Victor said. It might grow on you. I got to go too, Belch said. Your father want you to pick corn? Henry asked angrily. This was what might have passed for a jest in Henrys mind; Belchs father was dead. No. But I got a job delivering the Weekly Shopper. I gotta do that tonight. Whats this Weekly Shopper crap? Henry asked, now sounding upset as well as angry. Its a job, Belch said with ponderous patience. I make money. Henry made a disgusted sound, and Beverly risked another peek around the car. Victor and Belch were standing, buckling their belts. Henry and Patrick were still squatting with their pants down. The lighter glinted in Henrys hand. Youre not chickening out, are you? Henry asked Patrick. Nope, Patrick said. You dont have to pick corn or go do some pussy job? Nope, Patrick said again. Well, Belch said uncertainly, see you around, Henry. Sure, Henry said, and spat near one of Belchs clodhopping workshoes. Vic and Belch started off together toward the two rows of wrecked cars ... toward the Studebaker behind which Beverly was crouching. At first she could only cringe, frozen with fear like a rabbit. Then she slid around the left side of the Studebaker and backed down the gap between it and the battered, doorless Ford next to it. For a moment she paused, looking from side to side, hearing them approach. She hesitated, her mouth cottonydry, her back itchy with sweat; a part of her mind was numbly wondering how shed look in a cast like Eddies, with the Losers names signed on it. Then she dived into the Ford on the passenger side. She curled up on the filthy floormat, making herself as small as possible. It was boiling hot inside the junkedout Ford, and it smelled so thickly of dust, rotting upholstery, and elderly ratcrap that she had to struggle grimly to keep from sneezing or coughing. She heard Belch and Victor pass close by, talking in low voices. Then they were gone. She sneezed three times, quickly and quietly, into her cupped hands. She supposed she could go now, if she was careful. The best way to do it would be to shift over to the drivers side of the Ford, sneak back to the aisle, and then just do a fade. She believed she could manage it, but the shock of almost being discovered had robbed her of her courage, at least for the time being. She felt safer here in the Ford. And maybe, now that Victor and Belch had gone, the other two would also go soon. Then she could go back to the clubhouse. She had lost all interest in targetshooting. Also, she had to pee. Come on, she thought. Come on, hurry up and go, hurry up and go, puhLEEZE! A moment later she heard Patrick roar with mixed laughter and pain. Six feet! Henry bellowed. Just like a fuckin blowtorch! Swear to God! Silence then for awhile. Sweat trickling down her back. The sun beating through the Fords cracked windshield on the nape of her neck. Heaviness in her bladder. Henry bellowed so loud that Beverly, who had been close to dozing in spite of her discomfort, almost cried out herself. Damn it, Hockstetter! You burned my frigging ass! What are you doing with that lighter? Ten feet, Patrick giggled (just the sound of it made Bev feel cold and revolted, as if she had seen a worm squirm its way out of her salad). Ten feet if it was an inch, Henry. Bright blue. Ten feet if it was an inch. Swear to God! Gimme that, Henry grunted. Come on, come on, you stupidniks, go, get out! When Patrick spoke again his voice was so low Bev could barely hear it. If there had been the slightest breath of wind on the air that baking afternoon, she would not have done. Let me show you something, Patrick said. What? Henry asked. Just something. Patrick paused. It feels good. What? Henry asked again. Then there was silence. I dont want to look, I dont want to see what theyre doing now, and besides, they might see me, in fact they probably will because youve used up all your luck today, girlyo. So just stay right here. No peeking ... But her curiosity had overcome her good sense. There was something strange in that silence, something a little bit scary. She raised her head inch by inch until she could look through the Fords cracked cloudy windshield. She neednt have worried about being seen; both of the boys were concentrating on what Patrick was doing. She didnt understand what she was seeing, but she knew it was nasty ... not that she would have expected anything else from Patrick, who was just so weird. He had one hand between Henrys thighs and one hand between his own. One hand was flogging Henrys thing gently; with his other hand Patrick was rubbing his own. Except he wasnt exactly rubbing ithe was kind of ... squoozing it, pulling it, letting it flop back down. What is he doing? Beverly wondered, dismayed. She didnt know, not for sure, but it scared her. She didnt think she had been this scared since the blood had vomited out of the bathroom drain and splattered all over everything. Some deep part of her cried out that if they discovered she had seen this, whatever it was, they might do more than hurt her; they might actually kill her. Still, she couldnt look away. She saw that Patricks thing had gotten a little longer, but not much; it still dangled between his legs like a snake with no backbone. Henrys, however, had grown amazingly. It stood up stiff and hard, almost poking his bellybutton. Patricks hand went up and down, up and down, sometimes pausing to squeeze, sometimes tickling that odd, heavy sac under Henrys thing. Those are his balls, Beverly thought. Do boys have to go around with those all the time? God, Id go crazy! Another part of her mind then whispered Bill has those. On its own, her mind visualized her holding them, cupping them in her hand, testing their texture ... and that hot feeling raced through her again, sparking off a furious blush. Henry stared at Patricks hand as if hypnotized. His lighter lay on the rocky scree beside him, reflecting hot afternoon sun. Want me to put it in my mouth? Patrick asked. His big, livery lips smiled complacently. Huh? Henry asked, as if startled from some deep dream. Ill put it in my mouth if you want. I dont m Henrys hand flashed out, halfcurled, not quite a fist. Patrick was knocked sprawling. His head thudded on the gravel. Beverly dived down again, her heart crashing in her chest, her teeth locked against a little whimpering moan. After knocking Patrick down, Henry had turned and for a moment, just before she dropped back into her little huddled ball on the passenger side of the driveshaft hump, it seemed that her eyes and Henrys had locked. Please God the sun was in his eyes, she prayed. Please God Im sorry I peeked. Please God. There was an agonizing pause then. Her white blouse was plastered to her body with sweat. Droplets like seed pearls gleamed on her tanned arms. Her bladder throbbed painfully. She felt that very soon she would wet her pants. She waited for Henrys furious crazy face to appear in the opening where the Fords passenger door had been, sure it was going to happenhow could he have missed seeing her? He would drag her out and hurt her. He would A new and even more terrible thought now occurred to her, and once again she had to engage in a painful, crampy struggle to keep from wetting her pants. Suppose he did something to her with his thing? Suppose he wanted her to put it in her somewhere? She knew where it was supposed to go, all right; it seemed that knowledge had suddenly sprung into her mind fullblown. She thought that if Henry tried to put his thing in her she would go crazy. Please no, please God dont let him have seen me, please, okay? Then Henry spoke, and to her growing horror his voice was coming from someplace much closer. I dont go for that queer stuff. From farther off, Patricks voice You liked it. I didnt like it! Henry shouted. And if you tell anyone I did, Ill kill you, you fucking little pansy! You got a boner, Patrick said. He sounded like he was smiling. As much as she feared Henry Bowers, the smile would not have surprised Beverly. Patrick was crazy, crazier than Henry, maybe, and people that crazy werent afraid of anything. I saw it. Footsteps crunched over the gravelcloser and closer. Beverly looked up, her eyes bulging. Through the Fords old windshield she could now see the back of Henrys head. He was looking toward Patrick now, but if he turned around If you tell anyone, Ill say youre a cocksucker, Henry said. Then Ill kill you. You dont scare me, Henry, Patrick said, and giggled. But I might not tell if you gave me a dollar. Henry shifted restlessly. He turned slightly; Beverly could now see onequarter of his profile instead of just the back of his head. Please God please God, she begged incoherently, and her bladder throbbed more strongly. If you tell, Henry said, his voice low and deliberate, Ill tell what youve been doing with the cats. With the dogs, too. Ill tell them about your refrigerator. You know whatll happen, Hockstetter? Theyll come and take you away and put you into the fuckingA looneybin. Silence from Patrick. Henry drummed his fingers on the hood of the Ford Beverly was hiding in. Do you hear me? I hear you. Patrick sounded sullen now. Sullen and a little scared. He burst out You liked it! You got a boner! Biggest boner I ever saw! Yeah, I bet you seen a lot of em, you fuckin little homo faggot. You just remember what I said about the refrigerator. Your refrigerator. And if I see you around again, Ill knock your block off. More silence from Patrick. Henry moved away. Beverly turned her head and saw him pass by the drivers side of the Ford. If he had looked to his left even a little bit, he would have seen her. But he didnt look. A moment later she heard him heading off the way Victor and Belch had gone. Now there was just Patrick. Beverly waited, but nothing happened. Five minutes dragged by. Her need to urinate was now desperate. She might be able to hold out for another two or three minutes, but no more. And it made her uneasy not to know for sure where Patrick was. She peeked through the windshield again and saw him just sitting there. Henry had forgotten his lighter. Patrick had put his schoolbooks back into a small canvas carrier sack and had slung it around his neck like a newsboys, but his pants and underpants were still down around his ankles. He was playing with the lighter. He would spin the wheel, produce a flame that was almost invisible in the bright day, snap the lighter closed, and then start all over again. He seemed hypnotized. A line of blood ran from the corner of his mouth to his chin, and his lips were swelling up on the right side. He seemed not to notice, and once again Beverly felt a squirmy sort of revulsion. Patrick was crazy, all right; she had never in her life wanted so badly to get away from someone. Moving very carefully, she crawled backward over the Fords driveshaft hump and squeezed under the steering wheel. She put her feet out on the ground and crept to the back of the Ford. Then she ran quickly back the way she had come. When she had entered the pines beyond the junked cars, she looked back over her shoulder. No one was there. The dump dozed in the sun. She felt the bands of tension around her chest and stomach loosen with relief, and all that was left was the need to urinate, so great that she now felt sick with it. She hurried down the path a short way and then ducked off to the right. She had her shorts unsnapped almost before the underbrush had closed behind her again. She took a quick look around to make sure there was no poison ivy at hand; then she squatted, holding the tough trunk of a bush for balance. She was pulling her shorts up again when she heard approaching footsteps from the dump. All she could see through the bushes were flashes of blue denim and the faded plaid of a schoolshirt. It was Patrick. She ducked down, waiting for him to pass by toward Kansas Street. She was more sanguine about her position here. The cover was good, she no longer had to pee, and Patrick was off in his own cuckoo world. When he was gone she would double back and head for the clubhouse. But Patrick didnt pass by. He stopped on the path almost directly opposite her and stood looking at the rusting Amana refrigerator. Beverly could observe Patrick along a natural sightline in the bushes without too much chance of being seen. Now that she was relieved, she found she was curious againand if Patrick did happen to see her, she felt certain she could outrun him. He wasnt as fat as Ben, but he was podgy. She pulled the Bullseye out of her back pocket, however, and put half a dozen steel pellets in the breast pocket of her old Ship n Shore. Crazy or not, a good one to the knee might discourage the likes of Patrick Hockstetter in a hurry. She remembered the refrigerator well enough now. There were lots of discarded fridges at the dump, but it suddenly occurred to her that this was the only one shed seen which Mandy Fazio hadnt disarmed by either tearing out the latching mechanism with pliers or simply removing the door altogether. Patrick began to hum and sway back and forth in front of the rusty old refrigerator, and Beverly felt a fresh chill course through her. He was like a guy in a horror movie trying to summon a dead body out of a crypt. Whats he up to? But if she had known that, or what was going to happen when Patrick finished his private ritual and opened the dead Amanas rusty door, she would have run away as fast as she could. 5 No onenot even Mike Hanlonhad the slightest idea of how crazy Patrick Hockstetter really was. He was twelve, the son of a paint salesman. His mother was a devout Catholic who would die of breast cancer in 1962, four years after Patrick was consumed by the dark entity which existed in and below Derry. Although his IQ tested out as low normal, Patrick had already repeated two grades, the first and third. He was taking summer classes this year so he would not have to repeat the fifth as well. His teachers found him an apathetic student (this several of them noted on the bare six lines of the Derry Elementary Schools report cards reserved for TEACHERS COMMENTS) and a rather disturbing one as well (which none notedtheir feelings were too vague, too diffuse, to be expressed in sixty lines, let alone six). If he had been born ten years later, a guidance counsellor might have steered him toward a child psychologist who might (or might not; Patrick was far more clever than his lackluster IQ results indicated) have realized the frightening depths behind that slack and pallid moonface. He was a sociopath, and perhaps, by that hot July in 1958, he had become a fullfledged psychopath. He could not remember a time when he had believed that other peopleany other living creatures, for that matterwere real. He believed himself to be an actual creature, probably the only one in the universe, but was by no means convinced that his actuality made him real. He had no sense of hurting, exactly, and no real sense of being hurt (his indifference to being struck in the mouth by Henry in the dump was a case in point). But while he found reality a totally meaningless concept, he understood the concept of rules perfectly. And while all of his teachers had found him odd (both Mrs. Douglas, his fifthgrade teacher, and Mrs. Weems, who had had Patrick in the third grade, knew about the pencilbox full of flies, and while neither of them totally ignored the implications, each had between twenty and twentyeight other students, each with problems of his or her own), none of them had serious disciplinary problems with him. He might turn in test papers that were utterly blankor blank except for a large, decorative questionmarkand Mrs. Douglas had discovered it was best to keep him away from the girls because of his Roman hands and Russian fingers, but he was quiet, so quiet that there were times when he might have been taken for a big lump of clay that had been crudely fashioned to look like a boy. It was easy to ignore a Patrick, who failed quietly, when you had to cope with boys like Henry Bowers and Victor Criss, who were actively disruptive and insolent, boys who would steal milkmoney or happily deface school property if given a chance, and girls like the unfortunately named Elizabeth Taylor, who was epileptic and whose few poor braincells worked only sporadically and who had to be discouraged from pulling her dresses up in the playyard to show off a new pair of panties. In other words, Derry Elementary School was the typical confused educational carnival, a circus with so many rings that Pennywise himself might have gone unnoticed. Certainly none of Patricks teachers (or his parents, for that matter) suspected that, when he was five, Patrick had murdered his baby brother Avery. Patrick had not liked it when his mother brought Avery home from the hospital. He didnt care (or so he at first told himself) if his parents had two kids, five kids, or five dozen kids, as long as the kid or kids didnt alter his own schedule. But he found that Avery did. Meals came late. The baby cried in the night and woke him up. It seemed that his parents were always hanging over its crib, and often when he tried to get their attention he found that he could not. For one of the few times in his life, Patrick became frightened. It occurred to him that if his parents had brought him, Patrick, home from the hospital, and if he was real, then Avery might be real, too. It might even be that, when Avery got big enough to walk and talk, to bring in his fathers copy of the Derry News from the front step and to hand his mother the bowls when she baked bread, they might decide to get rid of Patrick altogether. It was not that he feared they loved Avery more (although it was obvious to Patrick that they did love him more, and in this case his judgment was probably correct). What he cared about was (1) the rules that were being broken or had changed since Averys arrival, (2) Averys possible reality, and (3) the possibility that they might throw him out in favor of Avery. Patrick went into Averys room one afternoon around twothirty, shortly after the schoolbus had dropped him off from his afternoon kindergarten session. It was January. Outside, snow was beginning to fall. A powerful wind boomed across McCarron Park and rattled the frosty upstairs storm windows. His mother was napping in her bedroom; Avery had been fussy all the previous night. His father was at work. Avery was sleeping on his stomach, his head turned to one side. |
Patrick, his moonface expressionless, turned Averys head so his face was pressed directly into the pillow. Avery made a snuffling noise and turned his head back to the side. Patrick observed this, and stood thinking about it while the snow melted off his yellow boots and puddled on the floor. Perhaps five minutes passed (quick thinking was not Patricks specialty), and then he turned Averys face into the pillow again and held it there for a moment. Avery stirred under his hand, struggling. But his struggles were weak. Patrick let go. Avery turned his head to the side again, made one snorting little cry, and then went on sleeping. The wind gusted, rattling the windows. Patrick waited to see if the one little cry would awaken his mother. It didnt. Now he felt swept by a great excitement. The world seemed to stand out in front of him clearly for the first time. His emotional equipment was severely defective, and in those few moments he felt as a totally colorblind person might feel if given a shot which enabled him to perceive colors for a short time ... or as a junkie who has just fixed feels as the smack rockets his brain into orbit. This was a new thing. He had not suspected it existed. Very gently, he turned Averys face into the pillow again. This time when Avery struggled, Patrick did not let go. He pressed the babys face more firmly into the pillow. The baby was making steady muffled cries now, and Patrick knew it was awake. He had a vague idea that it might tell on him to his mother if he stopped. He held it down. The baby struggled. Patrick held it down. The baby farted. Its struggles weakened. Patrick still held it down. It eventually became totally still. Patrick held it down for another five minutes, feeling that excitement crest and then begin to ebb the shot wearing off, turning the world gray again, the fix mellowing into an accustomed low doze. Patrick went downstairs and got himself a plate of cookies and poured himself a glass of milk. His mother came down half an hour later and said she hadnt even heard him come in, she had been that tired (you wont be anymore, mom, Patrick thought, dont worry, I fixed it). She sat down with him, ate one of his cookies, and asked him how school had been. Patrick said it was all right and showed her his drawing of a house and a tree. His paper was covered with looping meaningless scribbles made with black and brown crayon. His mother said it was very nice. Patrick brought home the same looping scrawls of black and brown every day. Sometimes he said it was a turkey, sometimes a Christmas tree, sometimes a boy. His mother always told him it was very nice ... although sometimes, in a part of her so deep she hardly knew it was there, she worried. There was something a little disquieting about the dark sameness of those big scribbled loops of black and brown. She didnt discover Averys death until nearly five oclock; until then she had simply assumed he was taking a very long nap. By then Patrick was watching Crusader Rabbit on their seveninch TV, and he went on watching TV through all the uproar that followed. Whirlybirds was on when Mrs. Henley arrived from next door (his screaming mother had been holding the babys corpse in the open kitchen door, believing in some blind way that the cold air might revive it; Patrick was cold and got a sweater out of the downstairs closet). Highway Patrol, Ben Hanscoms favorite, was on when Mr. Hockstetter arrived home from work. By the time the doctor arrived, Science Fiction Theater, with Your Host Truman Bradley, was just coming on. Who knows what strange things the universe may hold? Truman Bradley speculated while Patricks mother shrieked and struggled in her husbands arms in the kitchen. The doctor observed Patricks deep calm and unquestioning stare and assumed the boy was in shock. He wanted Patrick to take a pill. Patrick didnt mind. It was diagnosed as cribdeath. Years later there might have been questions about such a fatality, deviations from the usual infantdeath syndrome observed. But when it happened, the death was simply noted and the baby buried. Patrick was gratified that once things finally settled down his meals began to come on time again. In the madness of that afternoon and eveningpeople banging in and out of the house, the red lights of the Home Hospital ambulance pulsing on the walls, Mrs. Hockstetter screaming and wailing and refusing to be comfortedonly Patricks father came within brushing distance of the truth. He was standing numbly by Averys empty crib some twenty minutes after the body had been removed, simply standing there, unable to believe any of this had happened. He looked down and saw a pair of tracks on the hardwood floor. They had been made by the snow melting off Patricks yellow rubber boots. He looked at them, and a dreadful thought rose briefly in his mind like bad gas from a deep mineshaft. His hand went slowly to his mouth and his eyes widened. A picture began to form in his mind. Before it could come clear he left the room, slamming the door behind him so hard that the top of the frame splintered. He never asked Patrick any questions. Patrick had never done anything like that again, although he might have done so if the chance had presented itself. He felt no guilt, had no bad dreams. As time passed, however, he became more aware of what would have happened to him if he had been caught. There were rules. Unpleasant things happened to you if you didnt follow them ... or if you were caught breaking them. You could be locked up or stuck in the electrocution chair. But that remembered feeling of excitementthat feeling of color and sensationwas simply too powerful and too wonderful to give over entirely. Patrick killed flies. At first he only smacked them with his mothers flyswatter; later he discovered he could kill them quite efficiently with a plastic ruler. He also discovered the joys of flypaper. A long sticky runner of it could be purchased for two cents at the Costello Avenue Market and Patrick sometimes stood for as long as two hours in the garage, watching the flies land and then struggle to get free, his mouth ajar, his dusty eyes alight with that rare excitement, sweat running down his round face and his thick body. Patrick killed beetles, but if possible he captured them first. Sometimes he would steal a long needle from his mothers pincushion, impale a Japanese beetle on it, and sit crosslegged in the garden watching it die. His expression at these times was the expression of a boy who is reading a very good book. Once he had discovered a runover cat that was dying in the gutter on Lower Main Street and sat watching it until an old woman saw him pushing the squashed and mewing thing around with his foot. She whacked him with the broom she had been using to sweep her walk. Go on home! she had shouted at him. What are you, crazy? Patrick had gone on home. He wasnt mad at the old woman. He had been caught breaking the rules, that was all. Then, last year (it would not have surprised Mike Hanlon or any of the others at that point to have known that it was, in fact, on the same day that George Denbrough had been murdered), Patrick had discovered the rusty Amana refrigeratorone of the larger dumpoids in the belt surrounding the dump itself. Like Bev, he had heard the cautionary warnings about such abandoned appliances, about how thirtysquirty million kids got their stupid selves smoked in them each year. Patrick had stood looking at the refrigerator for a long time, idly playing pocketpool with himself. That excitement was back, stronger than it had ever been, except for the time he had fixed Avery. The excitement was back because, in the chilly yet fuming wastes that passed for his mind, Patrick Hockstetter had had an idea. The Luces, who lived three houses down from the Hockstetters, missed their cat, Bobby, a week later. The Luce kids, who couldnt remember a time when Bobby hadnt been there, spent hours combing the neighborhood for him. They even pooled their money and put an ad in the Derry News Lost and Found column. Nothing came of it. And if any of them had seen Patrick that day, bulkier than ever in his mothballsmelling winter parka (after the floodwaters receded in that fall of 57, it had come off bitterly cold almost at once), carrying a cardboard carton, they would have thought nothing of it. The Engstroms, a block over and almost directly behind the Hockstetter home, lost their cocker pup about ten days before Thanksgiving. Other families lost dogs and cats over the next six or eight months, and Patrick of course had taken them all, not to mention a dozen unremarked strays from the Hells HalfAcre area of Derry. He put them into the rusty Amana near the dump, one by one. Each time he brought another animal down, his heart thundering in his chest, his eyes hot and watery with excitement, he would expect to find that Mandy Fazio had pulled the Amanas latch or popped the hinges with his sledgehammer. But Mandy never touched that particular refrigerator. Perhaps he didnt realize it was there, perhaps the force of Patricks will kept him away ... or perhaps some other force did that. The Engstroms cocker lasted the longest. In spite of the singlenumber cold, it was still alive when Patrick came back for the third time in as many days, although it had lost all of its friskiness (it had been wagging its tail and lapping his hands frantically when he originally hauled it out of the box and stuffed it into the refrigerator). When he came back a day after putting it in, the puppy had damn near gotten away. Patrick had to chase it almost all the way to the dump before he was able to jump it and get hold of one rear leg. The puppy had nipped Patrick with its sharp little teeth. Patrick didnt mind. In spite of the nips, he had taken the cocker back to the refrigerator and bundled it back in. He had a hardon when he did it. This was not uncommon. On the second day the puppy had tried to get out again, but it moved much too slowly. Patrick shoved it back in, slammed the Amanas rusty door, and leaned against it. He could hear the puppy scratching against the door. He could hear its muffled whines. Good dog, said Patrick Hockstetter. His eyes were closed and he was breathing fast. Thats a good dog. On the third day the puppy could only roll its eyes toward Patricks face when the door opened. Its sides were heaving rapidly and shallowly. When Patrick returned the next day, the cocker was dead with a cake of foam frozen around its mouth and muzzle. This made Patrick think of coconut Popsicles, and he laughed quite hard as he hauled the frozen corpse from his killingbottle and thew it in the bushes. The supply of victims (which Patrick thought of, when he thought of them at all, as test animals) had been thin this summer. Questions of reality aside, his sense of selfpreservation was well developed, his intuition exquisite. He suspected he was suspected. By whom he was not sure Mr. Engstrom? Perhaps. Mr. Engstrom had turned around and given Patrick a long speculative look in the AP one day this spring. Mr. Engstrom had been buying cigarettes and Patrick had been sent for bread. Mrs. Josephs? Maybe. She sat in her parlor window with a telescope sometimes and was, according to Mrs. Hockstetter, a nosy parker. Mr. Jacubois, who had an ASPCA sticker on the back bumper of his car? Mr. Nell? Someone else? Patrick didnt know for sure, but his intuition told him he was suspected, and he never argued with his intuition. He had taken a few wandering animals from among the rotted tenements in the HalfAcre, picking only those that looked thin or diseased, but that was all. He discovered, however, that the refrigerator near the dump had gotten an oddly powerful hold over him. He began to draw pictures of it in school when he was bored. He sometimes dreamed of it at night, and in his dreams the Amana was perhaps seventy feet tall, a whited sepulchre, a ponderous crypt iced in chilly moonlight. In these dreams the giant door would swing open and he would see huge eyes staring out at him. He would awake in a cold sweat, but he found he could not give up the joys of the refrigerator entirely. Today he had finally found out who had suspected. Bowers. Knowing that Henry Bowers held the secret of his killingbottle in his hands left Patrick as close to panic as he was ever apt to get. This was not very close at all, in truth, but he still found thisnot fear exactly, but mental unrestoppressive and unpleasant. Henry knew. Knew that Patrick sometimes broke the rules. His latest victim had been a pigeon he discovered on Jackson Street two days ago. The pigeon had been struck by a car and couldnt fly. Patrick went home, got his box out of the garage, and put the pigeon inside. The pigeon pecked the back of Patricks hand several times, leaving shallow, bloody digs. Patrick didnt mind. When he checked the refrigerator the next day, the pigeon had been quite dead, but Patrick hadnt removed the corpse then. Now, following Henrys threat to tell, Patrick decided he better get rid of the pigeons body right away. Perhaps he would even get a bucket of water and some rags and scrub out the interior of the refrigerator. It didnt smell very good. If Henry told and Mr. Nell came down to check, he might be able to tell that somethingseveral somethings, in facthad died in there. If he tells, Patrick thought, standing in the grove of pines and looking at the rusty Amana, Ill tell that he broke Eddie Kaspbraks arm. Of course they probably knew that already, but they couldnt prove anything because all of them said they had been playing out at Henrys house that day and Henrys crazy father had backed them up. But if he tells, Ill tell. Tit for tat. Never mind that now. What he had to do now was get rid of the bird. He would leave the refrigerator door open and then come back with the rags and the water and clean it up. Good. Patrick opened the refrigerator door on his own death. At first he was simply puzzled, unable to cope in any way with what he was seeing. It meant nothing to him at all. It had no context. Patrick merely stared, his head cocked to one side, his eyes wide. The pigeon was nothing but a skeleton surrounded by a ragged fall of feathers. There was no flesh left on its body at all. And around it, stuck on the refrigerators inner walls, hanging from the underside of the freezer compartment, dangling from the wire shelves, were dozens of fleshcolored objects that looked like big macaroni shells. Patrick saw that they were moving slightly, fluttering, as if in a breeze. Except there was no breeze. He frowned. Suddenly one of the shelllike things unfurled insectile wings. Before Patrick could do more than register the fact, it had flown across the space between the refrigerator and Patricks left arm. It struck with a smacking sound. There was an instant of heat. It faded and Patricks arm felt just like always again ... but the shelllike creatures pale flesh turned first pink, and then, with shocking suddenness, rosered. Although Patrick was afraid of almost nothing in the commonly understood sense of the word (its hard to be afraid of things that arent real), there was at least one thing that filled him with wretched loathing. He had come out of Brewster Lake one warm August day when he was seven to discover four or five leeches clinging to his stomach and legs. He had screamed himself hoarse until his father had pulled them off. Now, in a deadly burst of inspiration, he realized that this was some weird kind of flying leech. They had infested his refrigerator. Patrick began to scream and beat at the thing on his arm. It had swelled to nearly the size of a tennis ball. At the third blow it broke open with a sickening squtt sound. Bloodhis bloodsprayed his arm from elbow to wrist, but the things jellylike eyeless head held on. In a way, it was like a birds narrow head, ending in a beaklike structure, but this beak was not flat or pointed; it was tubular and blunt, like the proboscis of a mosquito. This proboscis was buried in Patricks arm. Still screaming, he pinched the splattered creature between his fingers and pulled it off. The proboscis came out cleanly, followed by a watery flow of blood mixed with some yellowishwhite liquid like pus. It had made a painless dimesized hole in his arm. And the creature, although exploded, was still twisting and moving and seeking in his fingers. Patrick threw it away, turned ... and more of them flew out of the refrigerator, lighting on him even as he groped for the Amanas handle. They landed on his hands, his arms, his neck. One touched down on his forehead. When Patrick raised his hand to pick it off, he saw four others on his hand, trembling minutely, turning first pink and then red. There was no pain ... but there was a hideous draining sensation. Screaming, whirling, beating at his head and neck with his leechencrusted hands, Patrick Hockstetters mind yammered It isnt real, its just a bad dream, dont worry, its not real, nothing is real But the blood pouring from the smashed leeches seemed real enough, the sound of their buzzing wings seemed real enough ... and his own terror seemed real enough. One of them fell down inside his shirt and settled on his chest. While he was beating frantically at it and watching the bloodstain spread above the place where it had taken its hold, another settled on his right eye. Patrick closed it, but that did no good; he felt a brief hot flare as the things sucker poked through his eyelid and began to suck the fluid out of his eyeball. Patrick felt his eye collapse in its socket and he screamed again. A leech flew into his mouth when he did and roosted on his tongue. It was all almost painless. Patrick went staggering and flapping up the path toward the junked cars. Parasites hung all over him. Some of them drank to capacity and then burst like balloons; when this happened to the bigger ones, they drenched Patrick with almost half a pint of his own hot blood. He could feel the leech inside his mouth swelling up and he opened his jaws because the only coherent thought he had left was that it must not burst in there; it must not, must not. But it did. Patrick ejected a huge spray of blood and parasiteflesh like vomit. He fell down in the gravelly dirt and began to roll over and over, still screaming. Little by little the sound of his own screams began to seem faint, faraway. Just before he passed out, he saw a figure step from behind the last of the junked cars. At first Patrick thought he was a guy, Mandy Fazio perhaps, and he would be saved. But as the figure drew closer, he saw its face was running like wax. Sometimes it began to harden and look like somethingor someoneand then it would start to run again, as if it couldnt make up its mind who or what it wanted to be. Hello and goodbye, a bubbling voice said from inside the running tallow of its features, and Patrick tried to scream again. He didnt want to die; as the only real person, he wasnt supposed to die. If he did, everyone else in the world would die with him. The manshape laid hold of his leechencrusted arms and began to drag him away toward the Barrens. His bloodstained bookcarrier bumped and thumped along beside him, its strap still twisted about his neck. Patrick, still trying to scream, lost consciousness. He awoke only once when, in some dark, smelly, drippy hell where no light shone, no light at all, It began to feed. 6 At first Beverly was not entirely sure what she was seeing or what was happening ... only that Patrick Hockstetter had begun to thrash and dance and scream. She got up warily, holding the slingshot in one hand and two of the ballbearings in the other. She could hear Patrick blundering off down the path, still yelling his head off. In that moment, Beverly looked every inch the lovely woman she was going to become, and if Ben Hanscom had been around to see her just then, his heart might not have been able to stand it. She was standing fully upright, her head cocked to the left, her eyes wide, her hair done in braids that had been tied off with two small red velvet bows which she had bought in Dahlies for a dime. Her posture was one of total attention and concentration; it was feline, lynxlike. She had shifted forward on her left foot, her body halfturned as if to go after Patrick, and the legs of her faded shorts had pulled up enough to show the edging on her yellow cotton panties. Below them, her legs were already smoothly muscled, beautiful in spite of the scabs, bruises, and smutches of dirt. Its a trick. He saw you and he knows he probably cant catch you in a fair chase, so hes trying to get you to come out. Dont go, Bevvie! But another part of her thought there was too much pain and fear in those screams. She wished she had seen whatever had happened to Patrickif anything hadmore clearly. She wished more than anything else that she had come into the Barrens a different way and missed the whole crazy shenanigans. Patricks screams stopped. A moment later Beverly heard someone speakbut she knew that had to be her imagination. She heard her father say, Hello and goodbye. Her father wasnt even in Derry that day he had set off for Brunswick at eight oclock. He and Joe Tammerly were going to pick up a Chevy truck in Brunswick. She shook her head as if to clear it. The voice didnt speak again. Her imagination, obviously. She walked out of the bushes to the path, ready to run the instant she saw Patrick charging at her, her reactions on triggers as delicate as a cats whiskers. She looked down at the path and her eyes widened. There was blood here. Quite a lot of it. Fake blood, her mind insisted. You can buy a bottle of it at Dahlies for fortynine cents. Be careful, Bevvie! She knelt and quickly touched the blood with her fingers. She looked at them closely. It wasnt fake blood. There was a flash of heat in her left arm, just below the elbow. She looked down and saw something that she first thought was some kind of burr. Nonot a burr. Burrs didnt twitch and flutter. This thing was alive. A moment after that she realized it was biting her. She struck it hard with the back of her right hand and it spattered, spraying blood. She backed up a step, getting ready to scream now that it was over ... and then she saw that it wasnt over at all. The things featureless head was still on her arm, its snout buried in her flesh. With a shrill cry of disgust and fear, she picked it off and saw its proboscis come out of her arm like a small dagger, dripping with blood. She understood the blood on the path now, oh yes, and her eyes went to the refrigerator. The door had swung closed and latched again, but a number of the parasites had been left outside and were crawling sluggishly over the rustywhite porcelain. As Beverly looked, one of them unfurled its membranous flylike wings and buzzed toward her. She acted without thinking, loading one of the steel ballbearings into the cup of the Bullseye and pulling the sling back. As the muscles of her left arm flexed smoothly, she saw loose blood squirt from the hole the thing had made in her arm. She let fly anyway, unconsciously leading the flying thing. Shit! Missed! she thought as the Bullseye snapped and the ballbearing flew, a glittering chunk of light in the hazy sun. And she would later tell the other Losers that she knew she had missed it, the same way a bowler knows he has missed the strike as soon as a bad ball leaves his hand. But then she saw the ballbearing curve. It happened in a splitsecond, but the impression was very clear it had curved. It struck the flying thing and splattered it to mush. There was a shower of yellowish droplets which pattered on the path. Beverly backed up slowly at first, her eyes huge, her lips trembling, her face a shocked grayishwhite. Her gaze was pinned to the front of the discarded refrigerator, waiting to see if any of the other things would smell or sense her. But the parasites only crawled slowly back and forth, like autumn flies drugged with the cold. At last she turned and ran. Panic beat darkly against her thoughts, but she would not give in to it entirely. She held the Bullseye in her left hand and looked back over her shoulder from time to time. There was still blood dappled brightly on the path and on the leaves of some of the bushes bordering it, as if Patrick had woven from side to side as he ran. Beverly burst out into the area of the junked cars again. Ahead of her there was a bigger splash of blood, just beginning to soak into the gravelly earth. The ground looked disturbed, darker streaks of earth lined into the powderywhite surface. As if there had been a struggle there. Two grooves, about two and a half feet apart, led away from this spot. Beverly halted, panting. She looked at her arm and was relieved to see that the flow of blood was finally slowing, although her lower forearm and the palm of her hand were streaked and tacky with it. The pain had begun now, a low steady throb. It felt the way her mouth felt about an hour after the dentists, when the novocaine began to wear off. She looked behind again, saw nothing, then looked back at those grooves leading away from the junked cars, away from the dump, and into the Barrens. Those things were in the refrigerator. They got all over himsure they did, look at all the blood. He got this far, and then (hello and goodbye) something else happened. What? She was terribly afraid she knew. The leeches were a part of It, and they had driven Patrick into another part of It much as a panicmaddened steer is driven down the chute and into the slaughteringpen. Get out of here! Get out, Bevvie! Instead she followed the grooves in the earth, holding the Bullseye tightly in her sweating hand. At least get the others! I will ... in a little while. She walked on, following the grooves as the ground sloped down and became softer. She followed them into heavy foliage again. Somewhere a cicada burred loudly and then unwound into silence. Mosquitoes lighted on her bloodstreaked arm. She waved them away. Her teeth were clenched on her lower lip. There was something lying on the ground ahead. She picked it up and looked at it. It was a handmade wallet, the sort of thing a kid might make as a crafts project at Community House. Except it was obvious to Bev that the kid who made this hadnt been much of a craftsman; the wide plastic stitching was already coming unravelled and the bill compartment flapped like a loose mouth. She found a quarter in the change compartment. The only other thing in the wallet was a library card, made out in the name of Patrick Hockstetter. She tossed the wallet aside, library card and all. She wiped her fingers on her shorts. Fifty feet farther on she found a sneaker. The underbrush was now too dense for her to be able to follow the grooves in the earth, but you didnt have to be the Pathfinder to follow the splashes and drips of blood on the bushes. The trail wound down through a steep brake. Bev lost her footing once, slid, and was raked by thorns. Fresh lines of blood appeared on her upper thigh. She was breathing fast now, her hair sweaty and matted to her skull. The spots of blood led out onto one of the faint paths through the Barrens. The Kenduskeag was nearby. Patricks other sneaker, its laces bloody, lay marooned on the path. She approached the river with the Bullseyes sling halfdrawn. The grooves in the earth had reappeared. They were shallower nowthats because he lost his sneakers, she thought. She came around a final bend and faced the river. The grooves went down the bank and led ultimately to one of those concrete cylindersone of the pumpingstations. There they stopped. The iron cover capping the top of this cylinder was a little ajar. As she stood above it, looking down, a thick and monstrous chuckle suddenly issued from beneath. It was too much. The panic which had threatened now descended. Beverly turned and fled toward the clearing and clubhouse, her bloody left arm up to shield her face from the branches which whipped and slapped her. Sometimes I worry too, Daddy, she thought wildly. Sometimes I worry a LOT. 7 Four hours later all of the Losers except Eddie crouched in the bushes near the spot where Beverly had hidden and watched Patrick Hockstetter go to the refrigerator and open it. The sky overhead had darkened with thunderheads, and the smell of rain was in the air again. Bill was holding the end of a long length of clothesline in his hands. The six of them had pooled their available cash and bought the line and a Johnsons firstaid kit for Beverly. Bill had carefully affixed a gauze pad over the bloody hole in her arm. TTell your puhpuhharents you ggot a scruhhape when you were skuhskuhskating, Bill said. My skates! Beverly cried, dismayed. She had forgotten all about them. There, Ben said, and pointed. They were lying in a heap not far away, and she went to retrieve them before Ben or Bill or any of the others could offer. She remembered now that she had put them aside before urinating. She didnt want any of the others over there. Bill himself had tied one end of the clothesline to the handle of the Amana refrigerator, although they had all cautiously approached it together, ready to bolt at the first sign of movement. Bev had offered to give the Bullseye back to Bill; he had insisted she keep it. As it turned out, nothing had moved. Although the area on the path in front of the refrigerator was splattered with blood, the parasites were gone. Perhaps they had flown away. You could bring Chief Borton and Mr. Nell and a hundred other cops down here and it still wouldnt matter, Stan Uris said bitterly. Nope. They wouldnt see a frockin thing, Richie agreed. Hows your arm, Bev? Hurts. She paused, looking from Bill to Richie and back to Bill again. Would my mom and dad see the hole that thing made in my arm? I dddont ththink ssso, Bill said. Get rehready to ruhruhrun. Im gonna ttttie it uhuhon. He looped the end of the clothesline around the refrigerators rustflecked chrome handle, working with the care of a man defusing a live bomb. He tied a grannyknot and then stepped back, paying out the clothesline. He grinned a small shaky grin at the others when they had made some distance. Whooo, he said. GGlad thats ohover. Now, a safe (they hoped) distance from the refrigerator, Bill told them again to get ready to run. Thunder boomed directly overhead and they all jumped. The first scattered drops began to fall. Bill jerked the clothesline as hard as he could. His grannyknot popped off the handle, but not before it had pulled the refrigerator door open again. An avalanche of orange pompoms fell out, and Stan Uris uttered a painful groan. The others only stared, openmouthed. The rain began to come harder. Thunder whipcracked above them, making them cringe, and purplishblue lightning flared as the refrigerator door swung all the way open. Richie saw it first and screamed, a high, hurt sound. Bill uttered some sort of angry, frightened cry. The others were silent. Written on the inside of the door, written in drying blood, were these words Hail mixed with the driving rain. The refrigerator door shuddered back and forth in the rising wind, the letters painted there beginning to drip and run now, taking on the draggling ominous look of a horrormovie poster. Bev was not aware that Bill had gotten up until she saw him advancing across the path toward the refrigerator. He was shaking both fists. Water streamed down his face and plastered his shirt to his back. WWere going to kkkill you! Bill screamed. Thunder whacked and cracked. Lightning flashed so brightly that she could smell it, and not far away there was a splintering, rending sound as a tree fell. Bill, come back! Richie was yelling. Come back, man! He started to get up and Ben hauled him back down again. |
You killed my brother George! You son of a bitch! You bastard! You whoremaster! Lets see you now! Lets see you now! Hail came in a spate, stinging them even through the screening bushes. Beverly held her arm up to protect her face. She could see red welts on Bens streaming cheeks. Bill, come back! she screamed despairingly, and another thundercrack drowned her out; it rolled across the Barrens below the low black clouds. Lets see you come out now, you fucker! Bill kicked wildly at the heap of pompoms that had spilled out of the refrigerator. He turned away and began to walk back toward them, his head down. He seemed not to feel the hail, although it now covered the ground like snow. He blundered into the bushes, and Stan had to grab his arm to keep him from going into the prickerbushes. He was crying. Thats okay, Bill, Ben said, putting a clumsy arm around him. Yeah, Richie said. Dont worry. Were not gonna chicken out. He stared around at them, his eyes looking wildly out of his wet face. Is there anyone here whos gonna chicken out? They shook their heads. Bill looked up, wiping his eyes. They were all soaked to the skin and looked like a litter of pups that had just forded a river. IhIts scuhscuhhared of uuus, you know, he said. I can fuhfeel ththat. I swear to GuhGod I cccan. Bev nodded soberly. I think youre right. HHHelp mmme, Bill said. PPPlPlease. HHHelp mmme. We will, Beverly said. She took Bill in her arms. She had not realized how easily her arms would go around him, how thin he was. She could feel his heart racing under his shirt; she could feel it next to hers. She thought that no touch had ever seemed so sweet and strong. Richie put his arms around both of them and laid his head on Beverlys shoulder. Ben did the same from the other side. Stan Uris put his arms around Richie and Ben. Mike hesitated, and then slipped one arm around Beverlys waist and the other over Bills shivering shoulders. They stood that way, hugging, and the sleet turned back to driving pouring rain, rain so heavy it seemed almost like a new atmosphere. The lightning walked and the thunder talked. No one spoke. Beverlys eyes were tightly shut. They stood in the rain in a huddled group, hugging each other, listening to it hiss down on the bushes. That was what she remembered best the sound of the rain and their own shared silence and a vague sorrow that Eddie was not there with them. She remembered those things. She remembered feeling very young and very strong. CHAPTER 18 The Bullseye 1 Okay, Haystack, Richie says. Your turn. The redheads smoked all of her cigarettes and most of mine. The hour groweth late. Ben glances up at the clock. Yes, its late nearly midnight. Just time for one more story, he thinks. One more story before twelve. Just to keep us warm. What should it be? But that, of course, is only a joke, and not a very good one; there is only one story left, at least only one he remembers, and that is the story of the silver slugshow they were made in Zack Denbroughs workshop on the night of July 23rd and how they were used on the 25th. Ive got my own scars, he says. Do you remember? Beverly and Eddie shake their heads; Bill and Richie nod. Mike sits silent, his eyes watchful in his tired face. Ben stands up and unbuttons the workshirt he is wearing, spreading it open. An old scar in the shape of the letter H shows there. Its lines are brokenthe belly was much bigger when that scar was put therebut its shape still identifiable. The heavy scar depending downward from the crossbar of the H is much clearer. It looks like a twisted white hangrope from which the noose has been cut. Beverlys hand goes to her mouth. The werewolf! In that house! Oh Jesus Christ! And she turns to the windows, as if to see it lurking outside in the darkness. Thats right, Ben said. And you want to know something funny? That scar wasnt there two nights ago. Henrys old callingcard was; I know, because I showed it to a friend of mine, a bartender named Ricky Lee back in Hemingford Home. But this one He laughs without much humor and begins buttoning his shirt again. This one just came back. Like the ones on our hands. Yeah, Mike says as Ben buttons his shirt up again. The werewolf. We all saw It as the werewolf that time. Because thats how RRRichie saw IhIt before, Bill murmurs. Thats it, isnt it? Yes, Mike says. We were close, werent we? Beverly says. Her voice is softly marvelling. Close enough to read each others minds. Ole Big Hairy damn near had your guts for garters, Ben, Richie says, and he is not smiling as he says it. He pushes his mended glasses up on his nose and behind them his face looks white and haggard and ghostly. Bill saved your bacon, Eddie says abruptly. I mean, Bev saved us all, but if it hadnt been for you, Bill Yes, Ben agrees. You did, Big Bill. I was, like, lost in the funhouse. Bill points briefly at the empty chair. I had some help from Stan Uris. And he paid for it. Maybe died for it. Ben Hanscom is shaking his head. Dont say that, Bill. But its ttrue. And if its yuhyour ffault, its my fault, too, and eeeveryone elses here, because we went on. Even after Patrick, and what was written on that rrefrigerator, we went on. It would be my fault mmost of all, I guess, because I wuhwuhwanted us to go on. Because of JuhGeorge. Maybe even because I thought that if I killed whatever kkilled George, my puhharents would have to luhluhluh Love you again? Beverly asks gently. Yes. Of course. But I dddont think it was aaanyones fuhhault, Ben. It was just the wwway Stan was built. He couldnt face it, Eddie says. He is thinking of Mr. Keenes revelation about his asthma medicine, and how he could still not give it up. He is thinking that he might have been able to give up the habit of being sick; it was the habit of believing he had been unable to kick. As things had turned out, maybe that habit had saved his life. He was great that day, Ben says. Stan and his birds. A chuckle stirs through them, and they look at the chair where Stan would have been in a rightful sane world where all the good guys won all of the time. I miss him, Ben thinks. God, how I miss him! He says, You remember that day, Richie, when you told him you heard somewhere he killed Christ, and Stan says, totally deadpan, I think that was my father? I remember, Richie says in a voice almost too low to hear. He takes his handkerchief out of his back pocket, removes his glasses, wipes his eyes, then puts his glasses back on. He puts away the handkerchief and without looking up from his hands he says, Why dont you just tell it, Ben? It hurts, doesnt it? Yeah, Richie says, his voice so thick it is hard to understand him. Why, sure. It hurts. Ben looks around at them, then nods. All right, then. One more story before twelve. Just to keep us warm. Bill and Richie had the idea of the bullets No, Richie demurs. Bill thought of it first, and he got nervous first. I just started to wuhwuhworry Doesnt really matter, I guess, Ben says. The three of us spent some heavy library time that July. We were trying to find out how to make silver bullets. I had the silver; four silver dollars that were my fathers. Then Bill got nervous, thinking about what kind of shape wed be in if we had a misfire with some kind of monster coming down our throats. And when we saw how good Beverly was with that slingshot of his, we ended up using one of my silver dollars to make slugs instead. We got the stuff together and all of us we went down to Bills place. Eddie, you were there I told my mother we were going to play Monopoly, Eddie says. My arm was really hurting, but I had to walk. Thats how pissed she was at me. And every time I heard someone behind me on the sidewalk Id whip around, thinking it was Bowers. It didnt help the pain. Bill grins. And what we did was stand around and watch Ben make the ammo. I think Ben rreally could have made sihsilver bullets. Oh, Im not so sure of that, Ben says, although he still is. He remembers how the dusk was drawing down outside (Mr. Denbrough had promised them all rides home), the sound of the crickets in the grass, the first lightningbugs blinking outside the windows. Bill had carefully set up the Monopoly board in the dining room, making it look as if the game had been going on for an hour or more. He remembers that, and the clean pool of yellow light falling on Zacks worktable. He remembers Bill saying, We gotta be cc 2 careful. I dont want to leave a muhmuhmess. My dadll be He spat out a number of ps, and finally managed to say pissed off. Richie made a burlesque of wiping his cheek. Do you serve towels with your showers, Stuttering Bill? Bill made as if to hit him. Richie cowered, shrieking in his Pickaninny Voice. Ben took very little notice of them. He watched Bill lay out the implements and tools one by one in the light. Part of his mind was wishing that someday he might have such a nice worktable as this himself. Most of it was centered directly on the job ahead. Not as difficult as making silver bullets would have been, but he would still be careful. There was no excuse for sloppy workmanship. This was not something he had been taught or told, just something he knew. Bill had insisted that Ben make the slugs, just as he continued to insist that Beverly would be the one carrying the Bullseye. These things could have and had been discussed, but it was only twentyseven years later, telling the story, that Ben realized no one had even suggested that a silver bullet or slug might not stop a monsterthey had the weight of what seemed like a thousand horror movies on their side. Okay, Ben said. He cracked his knuckles and then looked at Bill. You got the molds? Oh! Bill jumped a little. HHHere. He reached into his pants pocket and brought out his handkerchief. He put it on the workbench and unfolded it. There were two dull steel balls inside, each with a small hole in it. They were bearing molds. After deciding on slugs instead of bullets, Bill and Richie had gone back to the library and had researched how bearings were made. You boys are so busy, Mrs. Starrett had said. Bullets one week and bearings the next! And its summer vacation, too! We like to stay sharp, Richie said. Right, Bill? RuhRuhRight. It turned out that making bearings was a cinch, once you had the molds. The only real question was where to get them. A couple of discreet questions to Zack Denbrough had taken care of that ... and none of the Losers were too surprised to find that the only machineshop in Derry where such molds might be obtained was Kitchener Precision Tool Die. The Kitchener who owned and ran it was a greatgreatgrandnephew of the brothers who had owned the Kitchener Ironworks. Bill and Richie had gone over together with all the cash the Losers had been able to raise on short noticeten dollars and fiftynine centsin Bills pocket. When Bill asked how much a couple of twoinch bearing molds might cost, Carl Kitchenerwho looked like a veteran boozehound and smelled like an old horseblanketasked what a couple of kids wanted with bearing molds. Richie let Bill speak, knowing things would probably go easier that waychildren made fun of Bills stutter; adults were embarrassed by it. Sometimes this was surprisingly helpful. Bill got halfway through the explanation he and Richie had worked out on the way oversomething about a model windmill for next years science projectwhen Kitchener waved for him to shut up and quoted them the unbelievable price of fifty cents per mold. Hardly able to believe their good fortune, Bill forked over a single dollar bill. Dont expect me to give you a bag, Carl Kitchener said, eying them with the bloodshot contempt of a man who believes he has seen everything the world holds, most of it twice. You dont get no bag unless you spend at least five bucks. Thats oookay, suhsir, Bill said. And dont hang around out front, Kitchener said. You both need haircuts. Outside Bill said YYYou ever nuhhotice, RuhRichie, how guhguhgrownups wwwont sell you aaanything except ccandy or cuhcuhhomic books or mmaybe movie tttickets without first they wwant to know what yyou want it ffor? Sure, Richie said. WWhy? Why ihis that? Because they think were dangerous. YYeah? You thuhthuhthink sso? Yeah, Richie said, and then giggled. Lets hang around out front, want to? Well put up our collars and sneer at people and let our hair grow. Fuck yyou, Bill said. 3 Okay, Ben said, looking at the molds carefully and then putting them down. Good. Now They gave him a little more room, looking at him hopefully, the way a man with engine trouble who knows nothing about cars will look at a mechanic. Ben didnt notice their expressions. He was concentrating on the job. Gimme that shell, he said, and the blowtorch. Bill handed a cutdown mortar shell to him. It was a war souvenir. Zack had picked it up five days after he and the rest of General Pattons army had crossed the river into Germany. There had been a time, when Bill was very young and George was still in diapers, that his father had used it as an ashtray. Later he had quit smoking, and the mortar shell had disappeared. Bill had found it in the back of the garage just a week ago. Ben put the mortar shell into Zacks vise, tightened it, and then took the blowtorch from Beverly. He reached into his pocket, brought out a silver dollar, and dropped it into the makeshift crucible. It made a hollow sound. Your father gave you that, didnt he? Beverly asked. Yes, Ben said, but I dont remember him very well. Are you sure you want to do this? He looked at her and smiled. Yes, he said. She smiled back. It was enough for Ben. If she had smiled at him twice, he would gladly have made enough silver bearings to shoot a platoon of werewolves. He looked hastily away. Okay. Here we go. No problem. Easy as pie, right? They nodded hesitantly. Years later, recounting all of this, Ben would think These days a kid could just run out and buy a propane torch ... or his dad would have one in the workshop. There had been no such things in 1958, however; Zack Denbrough had a tankjob, and it made Beverly nervous. Ben could tell she was nervous, wanted to tell her not to worry, but was afraid his voice would tremble. Dont worry, he said to Stan, who was standing next to her. Huh? Stan said, looking at him and blinking. Dont worry. Im not. Oh. I thought you were. And I just wanted you to know this is perfectly safe. If you were. Worrying, I mean. Are you okay, Ben? Fine, Ben muttered. Gimme the matches, Richie. Richie gave him a book of matches. Ben twisted the valve on the tank and lit a match under the nozzle of the torch. There was a flump! and a bright blueorange glare. Ben tuned the flame to a blue edge and began to heat the base of the mortar shell. You got the funnel? he asked Bill. RRRight here. Bill handed over a homemade funnel that Ben had made earlier. The tiny hole at its base fit the hole in the bearing molds almost exactly. Ben had done this without taking a single measurement. Bill had been amazed almost flabbergastedbut did not know how to say so without embarrassing Ben. Absorbed in what he was doing, Ben could talk to Beverlyhe spoke with the dry precision of a surgeon addressing a nurse. Bev, you got the steadiest hands. Stick the funnel in the hole. Use one of those gloves so you dont get burned. Bill handed her one of his fathers work gloves. Beverly put the tin funnel in the mold. No one spoke. The hissing of the blowtorch flame seemed very loud. They watched it, eyes squinted almost shut. Wuhwuhwait, Bill said suddenly, and dashed into the house. He came back a minute later with a pair of cheap Turtle wraparound sunglasses that had been languishing in a kitchen drawer for a year or more. Better pput these uhon, HHHaystack. Ben took them, grinned, and slipped them on. Shit, its Fabian! Richie said. Or Frankie Avalon, or one of those Bandstand wops. Fuck you, Trashmouth, Ben said, but he started giggling in spite of himself. The idea of him being Fabian or someone like that was just too weird. The flame wavered and he stopped laughing; his concentration narrowed to a point again. Two minutes later he handed the torch to Eddie, who held it gingerly in his good hand. Its ready, he said to Bill. Gimme that other glove. Fast! Fast! Bill gave it to him. Ben put it on and held the mortar shell with the gloved hand while he turned the vise lever with the other. Hold it steady, Bev. Im ready, dont wait for me, she rapped back at him. Ben tilted the shell over the funnel. The others watched as a rivulet of molten silver flowed between the two receptacles. Ben poured precisely; not a drop was spilled. And for a moment, he felt galvanized. He seemed to see everything magnified through a strong white glow. For that one moment he did not feel like plain fat old Ben Hanscom, who wore sweatshirts to disguise his gut and his tits; he felt like Thor, working thunder and lightning at the smithy of the gods. Then the feeling was gone. Okay, he said. Im gonna have to reheat the silver. Someone shove a nail or something up the spout of the funnel before the goop hardens in there. Stan did it. Ben clamped the mortar shell in the vise again and took the torch from Eddie. Okay, he said, number two. And went back to work. 4 Ten minutes later it was done. Now what? Mike asked. Now we play Monopoly for an hour, Ben said, while they harden in the molds. Then I clip em open with a chisel along the cutlines and were done. Richie looked uneasily at the cracked face of his Timex, which had taken a great many lickings and kept on ticking. When will your folks be back, Bill? NNNot until tuhten or tenthuhthuhhirty, Bill said. Its a double ffffeature at the UhUhUh Aladdin, Stan said. Yeah. And theyll stop in for a slice of pppizza after. They aalmost always ddo. So we have plenty of time, Ben said. Bill nodded. Then lets go in, Bev said. I want to call home. I promised I would. And dont any of you talk. He thinks Im at Community House and that Im getting a ride home from there. What if he wants to come down and pick you up early? Mike asked. Then, Beverly said, Im going to be in a lot of trouble. Ben thought Id protect you, Beverly. In his minds eye, an instant daydream unfolded, one with an ending so sweet he shivered. Bevs father started to give her a hard time; to bawl her out and all that (even in his daydream he did not imagine how bad all that could get with Al Marsh). Ben threw himself in front of her and told Marsh to lay off. If you want trouble, fat boy, you just keep protecting my daughter. Hanscom, usually a quiet bookish type, can be a ravening tiger when you get him mad. He speaks to Al Marsh with great sincerity. If you want to get to her, youll have to come through me first. Marsh starts forward ... and then the steely glint in Hanscoms eyes stops him. Youll be sorry, he mumbles, but its clear all the fight has gone out of him. Hes just a paper tiger after all. Somehow I doubt that, Hanscom says with a tight Gary Cooper smile, and Beverlys father slinks away. Whats happened to you, Ben? Bev cries, but her eyes are shining and full of stars. You looked ready to kill him! Kill him? Hanscom says, the Gary Cooper smile still lingering on his lips. No way, baby. He may be a creep, but hes still your father. I might have roughed him up a little, but thats only because when someone talks wrong to you I get a little hot under the collar. You know? She throws her arms around him and kisses him (on the lips! on the LIPS!). I love you, Ben! she sobs. He can feel her small breasts pressing firmly against his chest and He shivered a little, throwing this bright, terribly clear picture off with an effort. Richie stood in the doorway, asking him if he was coming, and Ben realized he was all alone in the workroom. Yeah, he said, starting a little. Sure I am. Youre goin senile, Haystack, Richie said as Ben went though the door, but he clapped Ben on the shoulder. Ben grinned and hooked an elbow briefly around Richies neck. 5 There was no problem with Beverlys dad. He had come home late from work, Bevs mother told her over the phone, fallen asleep in front of the TV, and waked up just long enough to get himself into bed. You got a ride home, Bewie? Yes. Bill Denbroughs dad is going to take a whole bunch of us home. Mrs. Marsh sounded suddenly alarmed. Youre not on a date, are you, Bewie? No, of course not, Bev said, looking through the arched doorway between the darkened hall where she was and the dining room, where the others were sitting down around the Monopoly board. But I sure wish I was. Boys, uck. But they have a signup sheet down here, and every night a different dad or mom takes kids home. That much, at least, was true. The rest was a lie so outrageous that she could feel herself blushing hotly in the dark. All right, her mom said. I just wanted to be sure. Because if your dad caught you going on dates at your age, hed be mad. Almost as an afterthought she added I would be, too. Yeah, I know, Bev said, still looking into the dining room. She did know; yet here she was, not with one boy but six of them, in a house where the parents were gone. She saw Ben looking at her anxiously, and she sketched a smiling little salute at him. He blushed but gave her the little salute right back. Are any of your girlfriends there? What girlfriends, Mamma? Um, Patty OHaras here. And Ellie Geiger, I think. Shes playing shuffleboard downstairs. The facility with which the lies came from her lips made her ashamed. She wished she were talking to her father; she would have been more scared but less ashamed. She supposed she really wasnt a very good girl. I love you, Mamma, she said. Same goes back to you, Bev. Her mother paused briefly and added Be careful. The paper says there may be another one. A boy named Patrick Hockstetter. Hes missing. Did you know him, Bewie? She closed her eyes briefly. No, Mom. Well ... goodbye, then. Bye. She joined the others at the table and for an hour they played Monopoly. Stan was the big winner. Jews are very good at making money, Stan said, putting a hotel on Atlantic Avenue and two more green houses on Ventnor Avenue. Everybody knows that. Jesus, make me Jewish, Ben said promptly, and everyone laughed. Ben was almost broke. Beverly glanced across the table from time to time at Bill, noting his clean hands, his blue eyes, the fine red hair. As he moved the little silver shoe he was using as a marker around the board, she thought, If he held my hand, I think Id be so glad Id probably die. A warm light seemed to glow briefly in her chest and she smiled secretly down at her hands. 6 The evenings finale was almost anticlimactic. Ben took one of Zacks chisels from the shelf and used a hammer to strike the molds on the cutlines. They opened easily. Two small silver balls fell out. In one they could faintly see part of a date 925. In the other, wavery lines Beverly thought were the remnants of Lady Libertys hair. They looked at them without speaking for a moment, and then Stan picked one up. Pretty small, he said. So was the rock in Davids sling when he went up against Goliath, Mike said. They look powerful to me. Ben found himself nodding. They did to him, as well. Were all dddone? Bill asked. All done, Ben said. Here. He tossed the second slug to Bill, who was so surprised he almost fumbled it. The slugs went around the circle. Each of them looked closely at both, marvelling at their roundness, weight, actuality. When they came back to Ben, he held them in his hand and then looked at Bill. What do we do with them now? GGGive them to BBeverly. No! He looked at her. His face was kind enough, but stern. BBBev, weve been thruhthrough this aaalready, and Ill do it, she said. Ill shoot the goddamned things when the time comes. If it comes. Ill probably get us all killed, but Ill do it. I dont want to take them home, though. One of my (father) parents might find them. Then Id be in dutch. Dont you have a secret hiding place? Richie asked. Criminy, I got four or five. Ive got a place, Beverly said. There was a small slit in the bottom of her boxspring where she sometimes stashed cigarettes, comic books, and, just lately, film and fashion magazines. But nothing Id trust for something like this. You keep them, Bill. Until its time, anyway, you keep them. Okay, Bill said mildly, and just then lights splashed into the driveway. Holy cruhcrow, theyre eeearly. LLets get out of hhere. They were just sitting down around the Monopoly board again when Sharon Denbrough opened the kitchen door. Richie rolled his eyes and mimed wiping sweat from his forehead; the others laughed heartily. Richie had Gotten Off A Good One. A moment later she came in. Your dads waiting for your friends in the car, Bill. OOOkay, MMom, Bill said. WWe were juhjust fffinishing, aanyway. Who won? Sharon asked, smiling brighteyed at Bills little friends. The girl was going to be very pretty, she thought. She supposed in another year or two the children would have to be chaperoned if there were going to be girls instead of just the regular gang of boys. But surely it was still too soon to worry about sex rearing its ugly head. StStan wuhwuhwon, Bill said. Juhjuhjews are very gggood at mmaking money. Bill! She cried, horrified and blushing ... and then she looked around at them, amazed, as they roared with laughter, Stan included. Amazement turned to something like fear (although she said nothing of this to her husband later, in bed). There was a feeling in the air, like static electricity, only somehow much more powerful, much more scary. She felt that if she touched any of them, she would receive a walloping shock. Whats happened to them? she thought, dismayed, and perhaps she even opened her mouth to say something like that. Then Bill was saying he was sorry (but still with that devilish glint in his eye), and Stan was saying that was all right, it was just a joke they laid on him from time to time, and she found herself too confused to say anything at all. But she felt relieved when the children were gone and her own puzzling, stuttering son had gone to his room and turned off the light. 7 The day that the Losers Club finally met It in facetoface combat, the day It almost had Ben Hanscoms guts for garters, was July 25th, 1958. It was hot and muggy and still. Ben remembered the weather clearly enough; it had been the last day of the hot weather. After that day, a long spell of cool and cloudy had come in. They arrived at 29 Neibolt Street around ten that morning, Bill riding Richie double on Silver, Ben with his ample buttocks spilling over either side of the sagging seat on his Raleigh. Beverly came down Neibolt Street on her girls Schwinn, her red hair held back from her forehead by a green band. It streamed out behind her. Mike came by himself, and about five minutes later Stan and Eddie walked up together. HHHows your aaarm, EhEhEddie? Aw, not too bad. Hurts if I roll over on that side while Im sleeping. Did you bring the stuff? There was a canvaswrapped bundle in Silvers bikebasket. Bill took it out and unwrapped it. He handed the slingshot to Beverly, who took it with a little grimace but said nothing. There was also a tin Sucrets box in the bundle. Bill opened it and showed them the two silver balls. They looked at them silently, gathered close together on the balding lawn on 29 Neibolt Streeta lawn where only weeds seemed to grow. Bill, Richie, and Eddie had seen the house before; the others hadnt, and they looked at it curiously. The windows look like eyes, Stan thought, and his hand went to the paperback book in his back pocket. He touched it for luck. He carried the book with him almost everywhereit was M. K. Handeys Guide to North American Birds. They look like dirty blind eyes. It stinks Beverly thought. I can smell itbut not with my nose, not exactly. Mike thought, Its like that time out where the Ironworks used to be. It has the same feel ... as if its telling us to step on in. This is one of Its places, all right, Ben thought. One of the places like the Morlock holes, where It goes out and comes back in. And It knows were out here. Its waiting for us to come in. Yuhyuhyou all still want to? Bill asked. They looked back at him, pale and solemn. No one said no. Eddie fumbled his aspirator out of his pocket and took a long whooping gasp at it. Gimme some of that, Richie said. Eddie looked at him, surprised, waiting for the punchline. Richie held out his hand. No fake, Jake. Can I have some? Eddie shrugged with his good shoulderan oddly disjointed movementand handed it over. Richie triggered the aspirator and breathed deep. Needed that, he said, and handed it back. He was coughing a little, but his eyes were sober. Me too, Stan said. Okay? So one after another they used Eddies aspirator. When it came back to him, Eddie jammed it in his back pocket, where the nozzle stuck out. They turned to look at the house again. Does anybody live on this street? Beverly asked in a low voice. Not this end of it, Mike said. Not anymore. Just the bums that stay for awhile and then go out on the freights. They wouldnt see anything, Stan said. Theyd be safe. Most of them, anyway. He looked at Bill. Can any grownups at all see It, do you think, Bill? I dont nuhknow, Bill said. There must be suhsuhsome. I wish we could meet one, Richie said glumly. This really isnt a job for kids, you know what I mean? Bill knew. Whenever the Hardy Boys got into trouble, Fenton Hardy was around to bail them out. Same with Rick Brants dad Hartson in the Rick Brant Science Adventures. Shit, even Nancy Drew had a father who would show up in the nick of time if the bad guys tied her up and threw her into an abandoned mine or something. Ought to be a grownup along, Richie said, looking at the closed house with its peeling paint, its dirty windows, its shadowy porch. He sighed tiredly. For a moment, Ben felt their resolution falter. Then Bill said, Cuhcuhhome aaaaround hhere. Look at ththis. They walked around to the left side of the porch, where the skirting was torn off. The brambly, runtothewild roses were still there ... and those Eddies leper had touched when it climbed out were still black and dead. It just touched them and it did that? Beverly asked, horrified. Bill nodded. Are you guhhuys sssure? For a moment nobody replied. They werent sure; even though all of them knew by Bills face that he would go on without them, they werent sure. There was also a species of shame on Bills face. As he had told them before, George hadnt been their brother. But all the other kids, Ben thought. Betty Ripsom, Cheryl Lamonica, that Clements kid, Eddie Corcoran (maybe), Ronnie Grogan ... even Patrick Hockstetter. It kills kids, goddammit, kids! Ill go, Big Bill, he said. Shit, yeah, Beverly said. Sure, Richie said. You think were gonna let you have all the fun, mushmouth? Bill looked at them, his throat working, and then he nodded. He handed the tin box to Beverly. Are you sure, Bill? ShShSure. She nodded, at once horrified by the responsibility and bewitched by his trust. She opened the box, took out the slugs, and slipped one into the right front pocket of her jeans. The other she socketed in the Bullseyes rubber cup, and it was by the cup that she carried the slingshot. She could feel the ball tightly enclosed in her fist, cold at first and then warming. Lets go, she said, her voice not quite steady. Lets go before I chicken out. Bill nodded, then looked sharply at Eddie. CuhCan you dddo this, EhEhEddie? Eddie nodded. Sure I can. I was alone last time. This time Im with my friends. Right? He looked at them and grinned a little. His expression was shy, fragile, and quite beautiful. Richie clapped him on the back. Thass right, senhorr. Anywhunn tries to steal your assipirator, we keel heem. But we keel heem slow. Thats terrible, Richie, Bev said, giggling. UhUhunder the pporch, Bill said. AAll of you bbbehind me. |
Then into the suhsuhcellar. If you go first and that thing jumps you, what do I do? Beverly asked. Shoot through you? If yyou have to, Bill said. But I suhsuhsuggest yyyou try guhhoing aaround, first. Richie laughed wildly at this. Well gggo through the whole puhpuhplace, if we have tto. He shrugged. Maybe we wont find aaanything. Do you believe that? Mike asked. No, Bill said briefly. Its hhhere. Ben believed he was right. The house at 29 Neibolt Street seemed to be encased in a poisonous envelope. It could not be seen . . . but It could be felt. He licked his lips. You ruhruhready? Bill asked them. They all looked back at him. Ready, Bill, Richie said. Cuhcome on, ththen, Bill said. Stay cluhclose behind me, BBeverly. He dropped to his knees, crawled through the blighted rosebushes and under the porch. 8 They went this way Bill, Beverly, Ben, Eddie, Richie, Stan, Mike. The leaves under the porch crackled and puffed up a sour old smell. Ben wrinkled his nose. Had he ever smelled fallen leaves like these? He thought not. And then an unpleasant idea struck him. They smelled the way he imagined a mummy would smell, just after its discoverer had levered open its coffin all dust and bitter ancient tannic acid. Bill had reached the broken cellar window and was looking into the cellar. Beverly crawled up beside him. You see anything? Bill shook his head. But that ddoesnt mmmean nuhhuthins there. LLook; theres the ccoalpile me and RRRichie used to get owout. Ben, who was looking between them, saw it. He was becoming excited as well as afraid now, and he welcomed the excitement, instinctively recognizing that it could be a tool. Seeing the coalpile was a little like seeing a great landmark about which you had only read or heard from others. Bill turned around and slipped through the window. Beverly gave Ben the Bullseye, folding his hand over the cup and ball nestled in it. Give it to me the second Im down, she said. The second. Got you. She slipped down easily and lithely. There wasfor Ben, at leastone heartstopping instant when her blouse pulled out of her jeans and he saw her flat white belly. Then there was the thrill of her hands over his as he handed the slingshot down. Okay, Ive got it. Come on. Ben turned around himself and began to wriggle through the window. He should have foreseen what happened next; it was really inevitable. He got stuck. His fanny bound up against the rectangular cellar window and he couldnt go in any farther. He started to pull himself out and realized, horrified, that he could do it, but was very apt to yank his pantsand perhaps his underpants as welldown to his knees when he did. And there he would be, with his extremely large ass practically in his beloveds face. Hurry up! Eddie said. Ben pushed grimly with both hands. For a moment he still couldnt move, and then his butt popped through the windowhole. His bluejeans dragged painfully up into his crotch, squashing his balls. The top of the window rucked his shirt all the way up to his shoulderblades. Now his gut was stuck. Suck in, Haystack, Richie said, giggling hysterically. You better suck in or well have to send Mike after his dads chainfall to pull you out again. Beepbeep, Richie, Ben said through gritted teeth. He sucked his belly in as much as he could. He moved a little farther, then stopped again. He turned his head as far as he could, fighting panic and claustrophobia. His face had gone a bright sweaty red. The sour smell of the leaves was heavy in his nostrils, cloying. Bill! Can you guys pull me? He felt Bill grasp one of his ankles, Beverly the other. He sucked his belly in again, and a moment later he came tumbling through the window. Bill grabbed him. Both of them almost fell over. Ben couldnt look at Bev. He had never in his life been as embarrassed as he was at that moment. YYYou okay, mmman? Yeah. Bill laughed shakily. Beverly joined him, and then Ben was able to laugh a little too, although it would be years before he could see anything remotely funny in what had happened. Hey! Richie called down. Eddie needs help, okay? OOOkay. Bill and Ben took up positions below the window. Eddie came through on his back. Bill got his legs just above the knees. Watch what youre doing, Eddie said in a querulous, nervous voice. Im ticklish. Ramon ees plenny teekeleesh, senhorr, Richies voice called down. Ben got Eddie around the waist, trying to keep his hand away from the cast and the sling. He and Bill manhandled Eddie through the cellar window like a corpse. Eddie cried out once, but that was all. EhEhEddie? Yeah, Eddie said, okay. No big deal. But large drops of sweat stood out on his forehead and he was breathing in quick rasps. His eyes darted around the cellar. Bill stepped back again. Beverly stood near him, now holding the Bullseye by the shaft and the cup, ready to fire if necessary. Her eyes swept the cellar constantly. Richie came through next, followed by Stan and Mike, all of them moving with a smooth grace that Ben deeply envied. Then they were all down, down in the cellar where Bill and Richie had seen It only a month before. The room was dim, but not dark. Dusky light shafted in through the windows and pooled on the dirt floor. The cellar seemed very big to Ben, almost too big, as if he were witnessing an optical illusion of some sort. Dusty rafters crisscrossed overhead. The furnacepipes were rusty. Some sort of dirty white cloth hung from the waterpipes in dirty strings and strands. The smell was down here too. A dirty yellow smell. Ben thought Its here, all right. Oh yeah. Bill started toward the stairs. The others fell in behind him. He halted at their foot and glanced underneath. He reached under with one foot and kickpawed something out. They looked at it wordlessly. It was a white clownglove, now streaked with dirt and dust. Uhuhupstairs, he said. They went up and emerged into a dirty kitchen. One plain straightbacked chair stood marooned in the center of the humped hillocky linoleum. That was it for furniture. There were empty liquor bottles in one corner. Ben could see others in the pantry. He could smell boozewine, mostlyand old stale cigarettes. Those smells were dominant, but that other smell was there, too. It was getting stronger all the time. Beverly went to the cupboards and opened one of them. She screamed piercingly as a blackishbrown Norway rat tumbled out almost into her face. It struck the counter with a plop and glared around at them with its black eyes. Still screaming, Beverly raised the Bullseye and pulled the sling back. NO! Bill roared. She turned toward him, pale and terrified. Then she nodded and relaxed her arm, the silver ball unfiredbut Ben thought she had been very, very close. She backed up slowly, ran into Ben, jumped. He put an arm around her, tight. The rat scurried down the length of the counter, jumped to the floor, ran into the pantry, and was gone. It wanted me to shoot at it, Beverly said in a faint voice. Use up half of our ammunition on it. Yes, Bill said. Its 11like the FBI training rrange at QuhQuhQuantico, in a wwway. They sehsend yyou down this ffhake street and ppop up tuhhargets. If you shuhshoot any honest citizens ihinstead of just cruhcrooks, you tlose puhhoints. I cant do this, Bill, she said. Ill mess it up. Here. You. She held the Bullseye out, but Bill shook his head. You hhhave to, BBeverly. There was a mewling from another cupboard. Richie walked toward it. Dont get too close! Stan barked. It might Richie looked inside and an expression of sick disgust crossed his face. He slammed the cupboard shut with a bang that produced a dead echo in the empty house. A litter. Richie sounded ill. Biggest litter I ever saw ... anyone ever saw, probably. He rubbed the back of his hand across his mouth. Theres hundreds of them in there. He looked at them, his mouth twitching a little on one side. Their tails ... they were all tangled up, Bill. Knotted together. He grimaced. Like snakes. They looked at the cupboard door. The mewling was muffled but still audible. Rats, Ben thought, looking at Bills white face and, over Bills shoulder, at Mikes ashygray one. Everyones ascared of rats. It knows it, too. CCCome on, Bill said. HHere on NuhNuhNeibolt Street, the fffun just nehhever stops. They went down the front hall. Here the unlovely smells of rotting plaster and old urine were intermixed. They were able to look out at the street through dirty panes of glass and see their bikes. Bevs and Bens were heeled over on their kickstands. Bills leaned against a stunted maple tree. To Ben the bikes looked a thousand miles away, like things seen through the wrong end of a telescope. The deserted street with its casual patchings of asphalt, the faded humid sky, the steady dingdingding of a locomotive running on a siding ... these things seemed like dreams to him, hallucinations. What was real was this squalid hallway with its stinks and shadows. There was a shatter of broken brown glass in one cornerRheingold bottles. In the other corner, wet and swollen, was a digestsized girlybook. The woman on the cover was bent over a chair, her skirt up in the back to show the tops of her fishnet hose and her black panties. The picture did not look particularly sexy to Ben, nor did it embarrass him that Beverly had also glanced at it. Moisture had yellowed the womans skin and humped the cover in ripples that became wrinkles on her face. Her salacious gaze had become the leer of a dead whore. (Years later, as Ben recounted this, Bev suddenly cried out, startling all of themthey were not so much listening to the story as reliving it. It was her! Bev yelled. Mrs. Kersh! It was her!) As Ben looked, the youngold crone on the girlybook cover winked at him. She wiggled her fanny in an obscene comeon. Cold all over, yet sweating, Ben looked away. Bill pushed open a door on the left and they followed him into a vaultlike room that might once have been a parlor. A crumpled pair of green pants was hung over the lightfixture which depended from the ceiling. Like the cellar, this room seemed much too big to Ben, almost as long as a freightcar. Much too long for a house as small as this one had appeared from the outside Oh, but that was outside, a new voice spoke inside his mind. It was a jocular, squealing voice, and Ben realized with sudden certainty that he was hearing Pennywise Itself; Pennywise was speaking to him on some crazy mental radio. Outside, things always look smaller than they really are, dont they, Ben? Go away, he whispered. Richie turned to look at him, his face still strained and pale. You say something? Ben shook his head. The voice was gone. That was an important thing, a good thing. Yet (outside) he had understood. This house was a special place, a kind of station, one of the places in Derry, one of the many, perhaps, from which It was able to find Its way into the overworld. This stinking rotted house where everything was somehow wrong. It wasnt just that it seemed too big; the angles were wrong, the perspective crazy. Ben was standing just inside the door between the parlor and the hallway and the others were moving away from him across a space that now looked almost as big as Bassey Park ... but as they moved away, they seemed to grow larger instead of smaller. The floor seemed to slope, and Mike turned. Ben! he called, and Ben saw alarm on his face. Catch up! Were losing you! He could barely hear the last word. It trailed away as if the others were being swept off on a fast train. Suddenly terrified, he began to run. The door behind him swept shut with a muffled bang. He screamed ... and something seemed to sweep through the air just behind him, ruffling his shirt. He looked back, but there was nothing there. That did not change his belief, however, that something had been. He caught up with the others. He was panting, out of breath, and would have sworn he had run half a mile at least ... but when he looked back, the parlors far wall was not ten feet away. Mike grasped his shoulder hard enough to hurt. You scared me, man, he said. Richie, Stan, and Eddie were looking at Mike questioningly. He looked small, Mike said. Like he was a mile away. Bill! Bill looked back. We gotta make sure everybody stays close, Ben panted. This place ... its like the funhouse in a carnival, or something. Well get lost. I think It wants us to get lost. To get separated. Bill looked at him for a moment, lips thin. All right, he said. We aall stay cluhcluhhose. No ssstragglers. They nodded back, frightened, clustered outside the hall door. Stans hand groped at the birdbook in his back pocket. Eddie was holding his aspirator in one hand, crunchng it, loosening up, then crunching it again, like a ninetyeightpound weakling trying to build up his muscles with a tennis ball. Bill opened the door and here was another, narrower hall. The wallpaper, which showed runners of roses and elves wearing green caps, was falling away from the spongy plaster in draggling leaves. Yellow waterstains spread in senile rings on the ceiling overhead. A scummy wash of light fell through a dirty window at the end of the hall. Abruptly the corridor seemed to elongate. The ceiling rose and then began to diminish above them like some weird rocket. The doors grew with the ceiling, pulled up like taffy. The faces of the elves grew long and became alien, their eyes bleeding black holes. Stan shrieked and clapped his hands to his eyes. IhIhhits not ruhruhruhREAL! Bill screamed. It is! Stan screamed back, his small closed fists plugging his eyes. Its real, you know it is, God, Im going crazy, this is crazy, this is crazy WuhwuhWATCH! Bill bellowed at Stan, at all of them, and Ben, his head reeling, watched as Bill bent down, coiled, and suddenly flung himself upward. His closed left fist struck nothing, nothing at all, but there was a heavy crrrack! sound. Plaster dust puffed from a place where there was no longer any ceiling ... and then there was. The hallway was just a hallway againnarrow, lowceilinged, dirty, but the walls no longer stretched up into forever. There was only Bill, looking at them and nursing his bleeding hand, which was floury with plasterdust. Overhead was the clear mark his fist had made in the soft plaster of the ceiling. NNNot ruhruhreal, he said to Stan, to all of them. Just a fffalse ffuhface. Like a HuhHuhHuhHalloween muhmuhhask. To you, maybe, Stan said dully. His face was shocked and horrified. He looked around as if no longer sure where he was. Looking at him, smelling the sour reek coming out of his pores, Ben, who had been overjoyed at Bills victory, got scared all over again. Stan was close to cracking up. Soon he would go into hysterics, begin to scream, perhaps, and what would happen then? To you, Stan said again. But if Id tried that, nothing would have happened. Because ... youve got your brother, Bill, but I dont have anything. He looked aroundfirst back toward the parlor, which had taken on a somber brown atmosphere, so thick and smoggy they could barely see the door through which they had entered it, to this hall, which was bright but somehow dark, somehow filthy, somehow utterly mad. Elves capered on the decaying wallpaper under runners of roses. Sun glared on the panes of the window at the end of the hall, and Ben knew that if they went down there they would see dead flies ... more broken glass ... and then what? The floorboards spreading apart, spilling them into a dead darkness where grasping fingers waited to catch them? Stan was right; God, why had they come into Its lair with nothing but their two stupid silver slugs and a frocking slingshot? He saw Stans panic leap from one of them to the next to the nextlike a grassfire driven by a hot wind, it widened in Eddies eyes, dropped Bevs mouth into a wounded gasp, made Richie push his glasses up with both hands and stare around as if followed from close behind by a fiend. They trembled on the brink of flight, Bills warning to stay together almost forgotten. They were listening to galeforce panicwinds blowing between their ears. As if in a dream Ben heard Miss Davies, the assistant librarian, reading to the little ones Who is that triptrapping upon my bridge? And he saw them, the little ones, the babies, leaning forward, their faces still and solemn, their eyes reflecting the eternal fascination of the fairystory would the monster be bested ... or would It feed? I dont have anything! Stan Uris wailed, and he seemed very small, almost small enough to slip through one of the cracks in the hallways plank flooring like a human letter. You got your brother, man, but I dont have anything! You duhduhduhdo! Bill yelled back. He grabbed Stan and Ben felt sure he was going to bust him one and his thoughts moaned, No, Bill, please, thats Henrys way, if you do that Itll kill us all right now! But Bill didnt hit Stan. He turned him around with rough hands and tore the paperback from the back pocket of Stans jeans. Gimme it! Stan screamed, beginning to cry. The others stood stunned, shrinking away from Bill, whose eyes now seemed to actually burn. His forehead glowed like a lamp, and he held the book out to Stan like a priest holding out a cross to ward off a vampire. You guhguhgot your bbbibirbir He turned his head up, the cords in his neck standing out, his adams apple like an arrowhead buried in his throat. Ben was filled with both fear and pity for his friend Bill Denbrough; but there was also a strong sense of wonderful relief. Had he doubted Bill? Had any of them? Oh Bill, say it, please, cant you say it? And somehow, Bill did. You got your BUHBUHBUHBIRDS! Your BUHBUHBIRDS! He thrust the book at Stan. Stan took it, and looked at Bill dumbly. Tears glimmered on his cheeks. He held the book so tightly that his fingers were white. Bill looked at him, then at the others. Cuhcuhhome on, he said again. Will the birds work? Stan asked. His voice was low, husky. They worked in the Standpipe, didnt they? Bev asked him. Stan looked at her uncertainly. Richie clapped him on the shoulder. Come on, Stankid, he said. Is you a man or is you a mouse? I must be a man, Stan said shakily, and wiped tears from his face with the heel of his left hand. So far as I know, mice dont shit their pants. They laughed and Ben could have sworn he felt the house pulling away from them, from that sound. Mike turned. That big room. The one we just came through. Look! They looked. The parlor was now almost black. It was not smoke, or any kind of gas; it was just blackness, a nearly solid blackness. The air had been robbed of its light. The blackness seemed to roll and flex as they stared into it, to almost coalesce into faces. Come ohohon. They turned away from the black and walked down the hall. Three doors opened off it, two with dirty white porcelain doorknobs, the third with only a hole where the knobs shaft had been. Bill grabbed the first knob, turned it, and pushed the door open. Bev crowded up next to him, raising the Bullseye. Ben drew back, aware that the others were doing the same, crowding behind Bill like frightened quail. It was a bedroom, empty save for one stained mattress. The rusty ghosts of the coils in a boxspring long departed were tattooed into the mattresss yellow hide. Outside the rooms one window, sunflowers dipped and nodded. Theres nothing Bill began, and then the mattress began to bulge in and out rhythmically. It suddenly ripped straight down the middle. A black sticky fluid began to spill out, staining the mattress and then running over the floor toward the doorway. It came in long ropy tendrils. Shut it, Bill! Richie shouted. Shut the fuckin door! Bill slammed it shut, looked around at them, and nodded. Come on. He had barely touched the knob of the second doorthis one on the other side of the narrow hallwhen the buzzing scream began behind the cheap wood. 9 Even Bill drew back from that rising, inhuman cry. Ben felt the sound might drive him mad; his mind visualized a giant cricket behind the door, like something from a movie where radiation made all the bugs get bigThe Beginning of the End, maybe, or The Black Scorpion, or that one about the ants in the Los Angeles stormdrains. He could not have run even if that buzzing rugose horror had splintered the panels of the door and begun caressing him with its great hairy legs. Beside him, he was dimly aware that Eddie was breathing in hacking gasps. The scream rose in pitch, never losing that buzzing, insectile quality. Bill fell back another step, no blood in his face now, his eyes bulging, his lips only a purple scar below his nose. Shoot it, Beverly! Ben heard himself cry. Shoot it through the door, shoot it before it can get us! And the sun fell through the dirty window at the end of the hall, a heavy feverish weight. Beverly raised the Bullseye like a girl in a dream as the buzzing scream rose louder, louder, louder But before she could pull the sling back, Mike was shouting No! No! Dont, Bev! Oh gosh! Ill be dipped! And incredibly, Mike was laughing. He pushed forward, grabbed the knob, turned it, and shoved the door open. It came free of the swollen jamb with a brief grinding noise. Its a mooseblower! Just a mooseblower, thats all, something to scare the crows! The room was an empty box. Lying on the floor was a Sterno can with both ends cut off. In the middle, strung tight and knotted outside holes punched in the cans sides, was a waxed length of string. Although there was no breeze in the roomthe one window was shut and indifferently boarded over, letting light pass only in chinks and raysthere could be no doubt that the buzzing was coming from the can. Mike walked to it and fetched it a solid kick. The buzzing stopped as the can tumbled into a far corner. Just a mooseblower, he said to the others, as if apologizing. We put em on the scarecrows. Its nothing. Only a cheap trick. But I aint a crow. He looked at Bill, not laughing anymore but smiling still. Im still scared of ItI guess we all arebut Its scared of us, too. Tell you the truth, I think Its scared pretty bad. Bill nodded. II do, too, he said. They went down to the door at the end of the hall, and as Ben watched Bill hook his finger into the hole where the doorknobs shaft had been, he understood that this was where it was going to end; there would be no trick behind this door. The smell was worse now, and that thundery feeling of two opposing powers swirling around them was much stronger. He glanced at Eddie, one arm in a sling, his good hand clutching his aspirator. He looked at Bev on his other side, whitefaced, holding the slingshot up like a wishbone. He thought If we have to run, Ill try to protect you, Beverly. I swear Ill try. She might have sensed his thought, because she turned toward him and offered him a strained smile. Ben smiled back. Bill pulled the door open. Its hinges uttered a dull scream and then were silent. It was a bathroom ... but something was wrong with it. Someone broke something in here was all that Ben could make out at first. Not a booze bottle ... what? White chips and shards, glimmering wickedly, lay strewn everywhere. Then he understood. It was the crowning insanity. He laughed. Richie joined him. Somebody must have let the granddaddy of all farts, Eddie said, and Mike began to giggle and nod his head. Stan was smiling a little. Only Bill and Beverly remained grim. The white pieces littered across the floor were shards of porcelain. The toiletbowl had exploded. The tank stood drunkenly at an angle in a puddle of water, saved from falling over by the fact that the toilet had been placed in one corner of the room and the tank had landed kittycorner. They crowded in behind Bill and Beverly, their feet gritting on bits of porcelain. Whatever it was, Ben thought, it blew that poor toilet right to hell. He had a vision of Henry Bowers dropping two or three of his M80s into it, slamming the lid down, then bugging out in a hurry. He couldnt think of anything else short of dynamite that would have done such a cataclysmic job. There were a few chunks, but damned few; most of what was left were tiny sharp slivers like blowgun darts. The wallpaper (roserunners and capering elves, as in the hall) was peppered with holes all the way around the room. It looked like shotgun blasts but Ben knew it was more porcelain, driven into the walls by the force of the explosion. There was a bathtub standing on claw feet with generations of grimy toejam between the blunt talons. Ben peeked into it and saw a tidalflat of silt and grit on the bottom. A rusty showerhead glared down from above. There was a basin and a medicine cabinet standing ajar above it, disclosing empty shelves. There were small rustrings on these shelves, where bottles had once stood. I wouldnt get too close to that, Big Bill! Richie said sharply, and Ben looked around. Bill was approaching the mouth of the drainhole in the floor, over which the toilet had once sat. He leaned toward it ... and then turned back to the others. I can hhhear the puhpumping muhmuhmachinery ... just like in the BuhBuhharrens! Bev drew closer to Bill. Ben followed her, and yes, he could hear it that steady thrumming noise. Except, echoing up through the pipes, it didnt sound like machinery at all. It sounded like something alive. ThThThis is wwwhere It cuhcuhhame frfrom, Bill said. His face was still deadly pale, but his eyes were alight with excitement. This is wwhere It cuhhame from that ddday, and thhats wwwhere It aaalways comes frrom! The druhdruhdrains! Richie was nodding. We were in the cellar, but that isnt where It wasIt came down the stairs. Because this is where It could get out. And It did this? Beverly asked. IhIt was in a hhhurry, I ththink, Bill said gravely. Ben looked into the pipe. It was about three feet in diameter and dark as a mineshaft. The inner ceramic surface of the pipe was crusted with stuff he didnt want to know about. That thrumming sound floated up hypnotically ... and suddenly he saw something. He did not see it with his physical eyes, not at first, but with one buried deep in his mind. It was rushing toward them, moving at expresstrain speed, filling the throat of this dark pipe from side to side; It was in Its own form now, whatever that might be; It would take some shape from their minds when It got here. It was coming, coming up from Its own foul runs and black catacombs under the earth, Its eyes glowing a feral yellowish green, coming, coming; It was coming. And then, at first like sparks, he saw Its eyes down in that darkness. They took shapeflaring and malignant. Over the thrumming sound of the machinery, Ben could now hear a new noiseWhoooooooo.... A fetid smell belched from the ragged mouth of the drainpipe and he fell back, coughing and gagging. Its coming! he screamed. Bill, I saw It, Its coming! Beverly raised the Bullseye. Good, she said. Something exploded out of the drainpipe. Ben, trying to recall that first confrontation later, could only remember a silveryorange shifting shape. It was not ghostly; it was solid, and he sensed some other shape, some real and ultimate shape, behind It ... but his eyes could not grasp what he was seeing, not precisely. Then Richie was stumbling backward, his face a scrawl of terror, screaming over and over again The Werewolf! Bill! Its the Werewolf! The Teenage Werewolf! And suddenly the shape locked into reality, for Ben, for all of them. The Werewolf stood poised over the drainpipe, one hairy foot on either side of where the toilet had once been. Its green eyes glared at them from Its feral face. Its muzzle wrinkled back and yellowishwhite foam seeped through Its teeth. It uttered a shattering growl. Its arms pistoned out toward Beverly, the cuffs of Its highschool letter jacket pulling back from Its furcovered arms. Its smell was hot and raw and murderous. Beverly screamed. Ben grabbed the back of her blouse and yanked so hard that the seams under the arms tore. One clawed hand swept through the air where she had been only a moment before. Beverly went stumbling backward against the wall. The silver ball popped out of the cup of the Bullseye. For a moment it glimmered in the air. Mike, quicker than quick, snatched it and gave it back to her. Shoot It, baby, he said. His voice was perfectly calm; almost serene. You shoot It right now. The Werewolf uttered a shattering roar that became a fleshfreezing howl, Its snout turned up toward the ceiling. The howl became a laugh. It lunged at Bill as Bill turned to look at Beverly. Ben shoved him aside and Bill went sprawling. Shoot It, Bev! Richie screamed. For Gods sake, shoot It! The Werewolf sprang forward, and there was no question in Bens mind, then or later, that It knew exactly who was in charge here. Bill was the one It was after. Beverly drew and fired. The ball flew and again it was off the mark but this time there was no saving curve. It missed by more than a foot, punching a hole in the wallpaper above the tub. Bill, his arms peppered with bits of porcelain and bleeding in a dozen places, uttered a screaming curse. The Werewolfs head snapped around; Its gleaming green eyes considered Beverly. Not thinking, Ben stepped in front of her as she groped in her pocket for the other silver slug. The jeans she wore were too tight. She had donned them with no thought of provocation; it was just that, as with the shorts she had worn on the day of Patrick Hockstetter and the refrigerator, she was still wearing last years model. Her fingers closed on the ball but it squirted away. She groped again and got it. She pulled it, turning her pocket inside out and spilling fourteen cents, the stubs of two Aladdin tickets, and a quantity of pocketlint onto the floor. The Werewolf lunged at Ben, who was standing protectively in front of her ... and blocking her field of fire. Its head was cocked at the predators deadly questing angle, Its jaws snapping. Ben reached blindly for It. There seemed to be no room in his reactions now for terrorhe felt a clearheaded sort of anger instead, mixed with bewilderment and a sense that somehow time had come to a sudden unexpected screechhalt. He snagged his hands in tough matted hairthe pelt, he thought, Ive got Its peltand he could feel the heavy bone of Its skull beneath. He thrust at that wolfish head with all of his force, but although he was a big boy, it did no good at all. If he had not stumbled back and struck the wall, the thing would have torn his throat open with Its teeth. It came after him, Its greenishyellow eyes flaring, growling with each breath. It smelled of the sewer and something else, some wild yet unpleasant odor like rotten hazelnuts. One of Its heavy paws rose and Ben skittered aside as best he could. The paw, tipped with heavy claws, ripped bloodless wounds through the wallpaper and into the cheesy plaster beneath. He could dimly hear Richie bellowing something, Eddie howling at Beverly to shoot It, shoot It. But Beverly did not. This was her only other chance. That didnt matter; she intended that it be the only one she would need. A clear coldness she never saw again in her life fell over her sight. In it everything stood out and forward; never again would she see the three dimensions of reality so clearly defined. She possessed every color, every angle, every distance. Fear departed. She felt the hunters simple lust of certainty and oncoming consummation. Her pulse slowed. The hysterical trembling grip in which she had been holding the Bullseye loosened, then firmed and became natural. She drew in a deep breath. It seemed to her that her lungs would never fill completely. Dimly, faintly, she heard popping sounds. Didnt matter, whatever they were. She tracked left, waiting for the Werewolfs improbable head to fall with cool perfection into the wishbone beyond the extended V of the drawnback sling. The Werewolfs claws descended again. Ben tried to duck under them, but suddenly he was in Its grip. |
It jerked him forward as if he had been no more than a ragdoll. Its jaws snapped open. Bastard He thrust a thumb into one of Its eyes. It bellowed with pain, and one of those clawtipped paws ripped through his shirt. Ben sucked his stomach in, but one of the claws pulled a sizzling line of pain down his torso. Blood gushed out of him and splattered on his pants, his sneakers, the floor. The Werewolf threw him into the bathtub. He thumped his head, saw stars, struggled into a sitting position, and saw his lap was full of blood. The Werewolf whirled around. Ben observed with that same lunatic clarity that It was wearing faded Levi Strauss bluejeans. The seams had split open. A snotcaked red bandanna, the sort a trainman might carry, hung from one back pocket. Written on the back of Its blackandorange highschool jacket were the words DERRY HIGH SCHOOL KILLING TEAM. Below this, the name PENNYWISE. And in the center, a number 13. It went for Bill again. He had gotten to his feet and now stood with his back to the wall, looking at It steadily. Shoot It, Beverly! Richie screamed again. Beepbeep, Richie, she heard herself reply from roughly a thousand miles away. The Werewolfs head was suddenly there, in the wishbone. She covered one of Its green eyes with the cup and released. There was no shake in either of her hands; she fired as smoothly and naturally as she had fired at the cans in the dump on the day they had all taken turns to see who was the best. There was time for Ben to think Oh Beverly if you miss this time were all dead and I dont want to die in this dirty bathtub but I cant get out. There was no miss. A round eyenot green but dead blacksuddenly appeared high up in the center of Its snout she had aimed for the right eye and missed by less than half an inch. Its screaman almost human scream of surprise, pain, fear, and ragewas deafening. Bens ears rang with it. Then the perfect round hole in Its snout was gone, obscured by freshets of blood. It was not flowing; it gouted from the wound in a highpressure torrent. The freshet drenched Bills face and hair. Doesnt matter, Ben thought hysterically. Dont worry, Bill. Nobody will be able to see it anyway when we get out of here. If we ever do. Bill and Beverly advanced on the Werewolf, and behind them, Richie cried out hysterically Shoot It again, Beverly ! Kill It! Kill It! Mike screamed. Thats right, kill It! Eddie chimed in. Kill It! Bill cried, his mouth drawn down in a quivering bow. There was a whitishyellow streak of plaster dust in his hair. Kill It, Beverly, dont let It get away! No ammo left, Ben thought incoherently, were slugged out. What are you talking about, kill It? But he looked at Beverly and understood. If his heart had never been hers before that moment, it would have flown to her then. She had pulled the sling back again. Her fingers were closed over the cup, hiding its emptiness. Kill It! Ben screamed, and flopped clumsily over the edge of the tub. His jeans and underwear were soaked against his skin with blood. He had no idea if he was hurt badly or not. Following the original hot sizzle there hadnt been much pain, but there sure was an awful lot of blood. The Werewolfs greenish eyes flickered among them, now filled with uncertainty as well as pain. Blood poured down the front of Its jacket in sheets. Bill Denbrough smiled. It was a gentle, rather lovely smile ... but it did not touch his eyes. You shouldnt have started with my brother, he said. Send the fucker to hell, Beverly. The uncertainty left the creatures eyesIt believed. With lithe smooth grace, It turned and dived into the drain. As It went, It changed. The Derry High jacket melted into Its pelt and the color ran out of both. The shape of Its skull elongated, as if It had been made of wax which was now softening and beginning to run. Its shape changed. For one instant Ben believed he had nearly seen what shape It really was, and his heart froze inside his chest, leaving him gasping. Ill kill you all! a voice roared from inside the drainpipe. It was thick, savage, not in the least human. Kill you all ... kill you all ... kill you all . . . The words faded back and back, diminishing, washing out, growing distant ... at last joining the low throbbing hum of the pumping machinery floating through the pipes. The house seemed to settle with a heavy subaudible thud. But it wasnt settling, Ben realized; in some strange way it was shrinking, coming back to its normal size. Whatever magic It had used to make the house at 29 Neibolt Street seem bigger was now withdrawn. The house snapped back like an elastic. It was only a house now, smelling damp and a little rotten, an unfurnished house where winos and hobos sometimes came to drink and talk and sleep out of the rain. It was gone. In Its wake the silence seemed very loud. 10 WWWe guhgot to ggget owowout of this pplace, Bill said. He walked over to where Ben was trying to get up and grabbed one of his outstretched hands. Beverly was standing near the drain. She looked down at herself and that coldness disappeared in a flush that seemed to turn all her skin into one warm stocking. It must have been a deep breath indeed. The dim popping sounds had been the buttons on her blouse. They were gone, every single one of them. The blouse hung open and her small breasts were clearly revealed. She snatched the blouse closed. RuhRuhRichie, Bill said. Help me with BBBen. Hes hhh Richie joined him, then Stan and Mike. The four of them got Ben to his feet. Eddie had gone to Beverly and put his good arm awkwardly around her shoulders. You did great, he said, and Beverly burst into tears. Ben took two big staggering steps to the wall and leaned against it before he could fall over again. His head felt light. Color kept washing in and out of the world. He felt decidedly pukey. Then Bills arm was around him, strong and comforting. How bbbad ihihis it, HHHaystack? Ben forced himself to look down at his stomach. He found performing two simple actionsbending his neck and spreading apart the slit in his shirttook more courage than he had needed to enter the house in the first place. He expected to see half his insides hanging down in front of him like grotesque udders. Instead he saw that the flow of blood had slowed to a sluggish trickle. The Werewolf had slashed him long and deep, but apparently not mortally. Richie joined them. He looked at the cut, which ran a twisting course down Bens chest and petered out on the upper bulge of his stomach, then soberly into Bens face. It just about had your guts for suspenders, Haystack. You know it? No fake, Jake, Ben said. He and Richie stared at each other for a long, considering moment, and then they broke into hysterical giggles at the same instant, spraying each other with spittle. Richie took Ben into his arms and pounded his back. We beat It, Haystack! We beat It! WWWe dihdihdihdidnt beat It, Bill said grimly. We got IIlucky. Lets gget out bbbefore IhIhIt dddecides to come buhback. Where? Mike asked. The BuhBuhBarrens, Bill said. Beverly made her way over to them, still holding her blouse closed. Her cheeks were bright red. The clubhouse? Bill nodded. Can I have someones shirt? Beverly asked, blushing more furiously than ever. Bill glanced down at her, and the blood came into his own face, all in a rush. He turned his eyes away hastily, but in that instant Ben felt a rush of knowledge and dismal jealousy. In that instant, that one bare second, Bill had become aware of her in a way that only Ben himself had been before. The others had also looked and then looked away. Richie coughed against the back of his hand. Stan turned red. And Mike Hanlon dropped back a step or two as if actually frightened by the sideswell of that one small white breast, visible below her hand. Beverly threw her head up, shaking her tangled hair back behind her. She was still blushing, but her face was lovely. I cant help it that Im a girl, she said, or that Im starting to get big on top.... Now cant I please have someones shirt? Shshsure, Bill said. He pulled his white teeshirt over his head, baring his narrow chest, the visible rack of his ribs, his sunburned, freckled shoulders. HHHere. Thank you, Bill, she said, and for one hot, smoking moment their eyes locked directly. Bill did not look away this time. His gaze was firm, adult. WWWWelcome, he said. Good luck, Big Bill, Ben thought, and he turned away from that gaze. It was hurting him, hurting him in a deeper place than any vampire or werewolf would ever be able to reach. But all the same, there was such a thing as propriety. The word he didnt know; on the concept he was very clear. Looking at them when they were looking at each other that way would be as wrong as looking at her breasts when she let go of the front of her blouse to pull Bills teeshirt over her head. If thats the way it is. But youll never love her the way I do. Never. Bills teeshirt came down almost to her knees. If not for the jeans poking out from beneath its hem, she would have looked as if she were wearing a short slip. LLLets guhguhgo, Bill repeated. I duhdont nuhknow about you gguys, but Ive hhhad eeeeenough for wuhwuhone dday. Turned out they all had. 11 The passage of an hour found them in the clubhouse, both the window and the trapdoor open. It was cool inside, and the Barrens was blessedly silent that day. They sat without talking much, each lost in his or her own thoughts. Richie and Bev passed a Marlboro back and forth. Eddie took a brief snort from his aspirator. Mike sneezed several times and apologized. He said he was catching a cold. Thass the oney theeng you could catch, senhorr, Richie said, companionably enough, and that was all. Ben kept expecting the mad interlude in the house on Neibolt Street to take on the hues of a dream. Itll recede and fall apart, he thought, the way that bad dreams do. You wake up gasping and sweating all over, but fifteen minutes later you cant remember what the dream was even about. But that didnt happen. Everything that had happened, from the time he had forced his way in through the cellar window to the moment Bill had used the chair in the kitchen to break a window so they could get out, remained bright and clearly fixed in his memory. It had not been a dream. The clotted wound on his chest and belly was not a dream, and it didnt matter if his mom could see it or not. At last Beverly stood up. I have to go home, she said. I want to change before my mom gets home. If she sees me wearing a boys shirt, shell kill me. Keel you, senhorrita, Richie agreed, but she weel keel you slow. Beepbeep, Richie. Bill was looking at her gravely. Ill return your shirt, Bill. He nodded and waved a hand to show that this wasnt important. Will you get in trouble? Coming home without it? NNo. They hhhardly nuhhotice when Im aaaround, anyway. She nodded, bit her full underlip, a girl of eleven who was tall for her age and simply beautiful. What happens next, Bill? I dddont nuhnuhknow. Its not over, is it? Bill shook his head. Ben said, Itll want us more than ever now. More silver slugs? she asked him. He found he could barely stand to meet her glance. I love you, Beverly . . . just let me have that. You can have Bill, or the world, or whatever you need. Just let me have that, let me go on loving you, and I guess itll be enough. I dont know, Ben said. We could, but ... He trailed off vaguely, shrugged. He could not say what he felt, was somehow not able to bring it outthat this was like being in a monster movie, but it wasnt. The mummy had looked different in some ways ... ways that confirmed its essential reality. The same was true of the Werewolfhe could testify to that because he had seen it in a paralyzing closeup no film, not even one in 3D, allowed, he had had his hands in the wiry underbrush of Its tangled pelt, he had seen a small, balefulorange firespot (like a pompom!) in one of Its green eyes. These things were ... well . . . they were dreamsmadereal. And once dreams became real, they escaped the power of the dreamer and became their own deadly things, capable of independent action. The silver slugs had worked because the seven of them had been unified in their belief that they would. But they hadnt killed It. And next time It would approach them in a new shape, one over which silver wielded no power. Power, power, Ben thought, looking at Beverly. It was okay now; her eyes had met Bills again and they were looking at each other as if lost. It was only for a moment, but to Ben it seemed very long. It always comes back to power. I love Beverly Marsh and shehaspower over me. She loves Bill Denbrough and so he has power over her. ButI thinkhe is coming to love her. Maybe it was her face, how it looked when she said she couldnt help being a girl. Maybe it was seeing one breast for just a second. Maybe just the way she looks sometimes when the light is right, or her eyes. Doesnt matter. But if hes starting to love her, shes starting to have power over him. Superman has power, except when theres Kryptonite around. Batman has power, even though he cant fly or see through walls. My mom has power over me, and her boss down in the mill has power over her. Everyone has some ... except maybe for little kids and babies. Then he thought that even little kids and babies had power; they could cry until you had to do something to shut them up. Ben? Beverly asked, looking back at him. Cat got your tongue? Huh? No. I was thinking about power. The power of the slugs. Bill was looking at him closely. I was wondering where that power came from, Ben said. IhIhIt Bill began, and then shut his mouth. A thoughtful expression drifted over his face. I really have to go, Beverly said. Ill see you all, huh? Sure, come on down tomorrow, Stan said. Were going to break Eddies other arm. They all laughed. Eddie pretended to throw his aspirator at Stan. Bye, then, Beverly said, and boosted herself up and out. Ben looked at Bill and saw that he hadnt joined in the laughter. That thoughtful expression was still on his face, and Ben knew you would have to call his name two or three times before he would answer. He knew what Bill was thinking about; he would be thinking about it himself in the days ahead. Not all the time, no. There would be clothes to hang out and take in for his mother, games of tag and guns in the Barrens, and, during a rainy spell the first four days of August, the seven of them would go on a mad Parcheesi jag at Richie Toziers house, making blockades, sending each other back with great abandon, deliberating exactly how to split the roll of the dice while rain dripped and ran outside. His mother would announce to him that she believed Pat Nixon was the prettiest woman in America, and be horrorstruck when Ben opted for Marilyn Monroe (except for the color of her hair, he thought that Bev looked like Marilyn Monroe). There would be time to eat as many Twinkies and RingDings and Devil Dogs as he could get his hands on, and time to sit on the back porch reading Lucky Starr and the Moons of Mercury. There would be time for all of those things while the wound on his chest and belly healed to a scab and began to itch, because life went on and at eleven, although bright and apt, he held no real sense of perspective. He could live with what had happened in the house on Neibolt Street. The world was, after all, full of wonders. But there would be odd moments of time when he pulled the questions out again and examined them The power of the silver, the power of the slugswhere does power like that come from? Where does any power come from? How do you get it? How do you use it? It seemed to him that their lives might depend on those questions. One night as he was falling asleep, the rain a steady lulling patter on the roof and against the windows, it occurred to him that there was another question, perhaps the only question. It had some real shape; he had nearly seen It. To see the shape was to see the secret. Was that also true of power? Perhaps it was. For wasnt it true that power, like It, was a shapechanger? It was a baby crying in the middle of the night, it was an atomic bomb, it was a silver slug, it was the way Beverly looked at Bill and the way Bill looked back. What, exactly what, was power, anyway? 12 Nothing much happened for the next two weeks. DERRY THE FOURTH INTERLUDE You got to lose You cant win all the time. You got to lose You cant win all the time, whatd I say? I know, pretty baby, I see trouble comin down the line. John Lee Hooker, You Got to Lose April 6th, 1985 Tell you what, friends and neighborsIm drunk tonight. Fuckdrunk. Rye whiskey. Went down to Wallys and got started, went to the greenfront down on Center Street half an hour before they closed and bought a fifth of rye. I know what Im up to. Drink cheap tonight, pay dear tomorrow. So here he sits, one drunk nigger in a public library after closing, with this book open in front of me and the bottle of Old Kentucky on my left. Tell the truth and shame the devil, my mom used to say, but she forgot to tell me that sometimes you cant shame Mr. Splitfoot sober. The Irish know, but of course theyre Gods white niggers and who knows, maybe theyre a step ahead. Want to write about drink and the devil. Remember Treasure Island? The old seadog at the Admiral Benbow. Well do em yet, Jacky! I bet the bitter old fuck even believed it. Full of rumor ryeyou can believe anything. Drink and the devil. Okay. Amuses me sometimes to think how long Id last if I actually published some of this stuff I write in the dead of night. If I flashed some of the skeletons in Derrys closet. There is a library Board of Directors. Eleven of them. One is a seventyyearold writer who suffered a stroke two years ago and who now often needs help to find his place on each meetings printed agenda (and who has sometimes been observed picking large dry boogers out of his hairy nostrils and placing them carefully in his ear, as if for safekeeping). Another is a pushy woman who came here from New York with her doctor husband and who talks in a constant, whiny monologue about how provincial Derry is, how no one here understands THE JEWISH EXPERIENCE and how one has to go to Boston to buy a skirt one would care to be seen in. Last time this anorexic babe spoke to me without the services of an intermediary was during the Boards Christmas party about a year and a half ago. She had consumed a pretty large amount of gin, and asked me if anyone in Derry understood THE BLACK EXPERIENCE. I had also consumed a pretty large amount of gin, and answered Mrs. Gladry, Jews may be a great mystery, but niggers are understood the whole world round. She choked on her drink, turned around so sharply that her panties were momentarily visible under her flaring skirt (not a very interesting view; would that it had been Carole Danner!), and so ended my last informal conversation with Mrs. Ruth Gladry. No great loss. The other members of the Board are the descendants of the lumber barons. Their support of the library is an act of inherited expiation they raped the woods and now care for these books the way a libertine might decide, in his middle age, to provide for the gaily gotten bastards of his youth. It was their grandfathers and greatgrandfathers who actually spread the legs of the forests north of Derry and Bangor and raped those greengowned virgins with their axes and peaveys. They cut and slashed and striptimbered and never looked back. They tore the hymen of those great forests open when Grover Cleveland was President and had pretty well finished the job by the time Woodrow Wilson had his stroke. These laceruffled ruffians raped the great woods, impregnated them with a litter of slash and junk spruce, and changed Derry from a sleepy little shipbuilding town into a booming honkytonk where the ginmills never closed and the whores turned tricks all night long. One old campaigner, Egbert Thoroughgood, now ninetythree, told me of taking a slatthin prostitute in a crib on Baker Street (a street which no longer exists; middleclass apartment housing stands quietly where Baker Street once boiled and brawled). I only realized after I spent mspunk in her that she was laying in a pool of jizzum maybe an inch deep. Stuff had just about gone to jelly. Girl, I says, aint you never cared for yself? She looks down and says, Ill put on a new sheet if you want to go again. Theres two in the cubud down the hall, I think. I knows pretty much what Im layin in until nine or ten, but by midnight my cunts so numb it mights well be in Ellsworth. So that was Derry right through the first twenty or so years of the twentieth century all boom and booze and balling. The Penobscot and the Kenduskeag were full of floating logs from iceout in April to icein in November. The business began to slack off in the twenties without the Great War or the hardwoods to feed it, and it staggered to a stop during the Depression. The lumber barons put their money in those New York or Boston banks that had survived the Crash and left Derrys economy to liveor dieon its own. They retreated to their gracious houses on West Broadway and sent their children to private schools in New Hampshire, Massachusetts, and New York. And lived on their interest and political connections. Whats left of their supremacy seventysome years after Egbert Thoroughgood spent his love with a dollar whore in a spermy Baker Street bed are empty wildwoods in Penobscot and Aroostook Counties and the great Victorian houses which stand for two blocks along West Broadway ... and my library, of course. Except those good folks from West Broadway would take my library away from me in jig time (pun definitely intended) if I published anything about the Legion of Decency, the fire at the Black Spot, the execution of the Bradley Gang ... or the affair of Claude Heroux and the Silver Dollar. The Silver Dollar was a beerjoint, and what may have been the queerest mass murder in the entire history of America took place there in September of 1905. There are still a few oldtimers in Derry who claim to remember it, but the only account that I really trust is Thoroughgoods. He was eighteen when it happened. Thoroughgood now lives in the Paulson Nursing Home. Hes toothless, and his Saint Johns Valley FrancoDowneast accent is so thick that probably only another old Mainer could understand what he was saying if his talk were written down phonetically. Sandy Ives, the folklorist from the University of Maine whom I have mentioned previously in these wild pages, helped me to translate my audio tapes. Claude Heroux was, according to Thoroughgood, Un bat Cannuck sonofawhore widdin eye thatd roll adju like a marts in dem oonlight. (Translation One bad Canuck son of a whore with an eye that would roll at you like a mares in the moonlight.) Thoroughgood said that heand everyone else who had worked with Herouxbelieved the man was as sly as a chickenstealing dog . . . which made his hatchetwielding foray into the Silver Dollar all the more startling. It was not in character. Up until then, lumbermen in Derry had believed Herouxs talents ran more to lighting fires in the woods. The summer of 05 was long and hot and there had been many fires in the woods. The biggest of them, which Heroux later admitted he set by simply putting a lighted candle in the middle of a pile of woodchips and kindling, happened in Havens Big Injun Woods. It burned twenty thousand acres of prime hardwood, and you could smell the smoke of it thirtyfive miles away as the horsedrawn trollies breasted UpMile Hill in Derry. In the spring of that year there had been some brief talk about unionizing. There were four lumbermen involved in organizing (not that there was much to organize; Maine workingmen were antiunion then and are mostly antiunion now), and one of the four was Claude Heroux, who probably saw his union activities as a chance to talk big and spend a lot of time drinking down on Baker and Exchange Streets. Heroux and the other three called themselves organizers; the lumber barons called them ringleaders. A proclamation nailed to the cooksheds in lumber camps from Monroe to Haven Village to Sumner Plantation to Millinocket informed lumbermen that any man overheard talking union would be fired off the job immediately. In May of that year there was a brief strike up near Trapham Notch, and although the strike was broken in short order, both by scabs and by town constables (and that was rather peculiar, you understand, since there were nearly thirty town constables swinging axehandles and creasing skulls, but before that day in May, there hadnt been so much as a single constable in Trapham Notchwhich had a population of seventynine in the census of 1900so far as anyone knew), Heroux and his organizing friends considered it a great victory for their cause. Accordingly, they came down to Derry to get drunk and to do some more organizing ... or ringleading, depending on whose side you favored. Whichever, it must have been dry work. They hit most of the bars in Hells HalfAcre, finishing up in the Sleepy Silver Dollar, arms around each others shoulders, pissingdownyourleg drunk, alternating union songs with bathetic tunes like My Mothers Eyes Are Looking Down from Heaven, although I myself think any mother looking down from there and seeing her son in such a state might well have been excused for turning away. According to Egbert Thoroughgood, the only reason anyone could figure for Herouxs being in the movement at all was Davey Hartwell. Hartwell was the chief organizer or ringleader, and Heroux was in love with him. Nor was he the only one; most of the men in the movement loved Hartwell deeply and passionately, with that proud love men save for those of their own sex who possess a magnetism that seems to approach divinity. Dawey Ardwell wadda main who walk lak e ohn heffa de worl an haddim a daylah on de resp, Thoroughgood said. (Translation Davey Hartwell was a man who walked like he owned half of the world and had him a deadlock on the rest.) Heroux followed Hartwell into the organizing business the way he would have followed him if he had decided to go for a shipbuilder up in Brewer or down in Bath, or building the Seven Trestles over in Vermont, or trying to bring back the Pony Express out west, for that matter. Heroux was sly and he was mean, and I suppose that in a novel that would preclude any good qualities at all. But sometimes, when a man has spent a life being distrusted and distrustful, being a loner (or a Loser) both by choice and by reason of societys opinions of him, he can find a friend or a lover and simply live for that person, the way a dog lives for its master. Thats the way it seems to have been between Heroux and Hartwell. Anyway, there were four of them who spent that night in the Brentwood Arms Hotel, which was then called the Floating Dog by the lumbermen (the reason why is lost in obscurity, as defunct as the hotel itself). Four checked in; none checked out. One of them, Andy DeLesseps, was never seen again. For all history tells, he might have spent the rest of his life living in pleasant ease in Portsmouth, but somehow I doubt it. Two of the other ringleaders, Amsel Bickford and Davey Hartwell himself, were found floating facedown in the Kenduskeag. Bickford was missing his head; someone had taken it off with the swipe of a woodsmans twohander. Both of Hartwells legs were gone, and those who found him swore that they had never seen such an expression of pain and horror on a human face. Something had distended his mouth, stuffing out his cheeks, and when his discoverers turned him over and spread his lips, seven of his toes fell out onto the mud. Some thought he might have lost the other three during his years working in the woods; others held the opinion that he might have swallowed them before he died. Pinned to the back of each mans shirt was a paper with the word UNION on it. Claude Heroux was never brought to trial for what happened in the Silver Dollar on the night of September 9th, 1905, so theres no way of knowing exactly how he escaped the fate of the others that night in May. We could make assumptions; he had been on his own a long time, had learned how to jump fast, had perhaps developed the knack some curdogs have of getting out just before real trouble develops. But why didnt he take Hartwell with him? Or was he perhaps taken into the woods with the rest of the agitators? Maybe they were saving him for last, and he was able to get away even while Hartwells screams (which would have grown muffled as they jammed his toes into his mouth) were echoing in the dark and scaring birds off their roosts. Theres no way of knowing, not for sure, but that last feels right to my heart. Claude Heroux became a ghostman. He would come strolling into a camp in the Saint Johns Valley, line up at the cookshed with the rest of the loggers, get a bowl of stew, eat it, and be gone before anyone realized he wasnt one of the topping gang. Weeks after that hed show up in a Winterport beerjoint, talking union and swearing hed have his revenge on the men that had murdered his friendsHamilton Tracker, William Mueller, and Richard Bowie were the names he mentioned the most frequently. All of them lived in Derry, and their gabled gambrelled cupolaed houses stand on West Broadway to this day. Years later, they and their descendants would fire the Black Spot. That there were people who would have liked Claude Heroux put out of the way cannot be doubted, particularly after the fires started in June of that year. But although Heroux was seen frequently, he was quick and had an animals awareness of danger. So far as I have been able to find out, no official warrant was ever sworn out against him, and the police never took a hand. Maybe there were fears about what Heroux might say if he was brought to trial for arson. Whatever the reasons, the woods around Derry and Haven burned all that hot summer. Children disappeared, there were more fights and murders than usual, and a pall of fear as real as the smoke you could smell from the top of UpMile Hill lay over the town. The rains finally came on September 1st, and it rained for a solid week. Downtown Derry was flooded out, which was not unusual, but the big houses on West Broadway were high above downtown, and in some of those big houses there must have been sighs of relief. Let the crazy Canuck hide out in the woods all winter, if thats what he wants, they might have said. His works done for this summer, and well get him before the roots dry next June. Then came September 9th. I cannot explain what happened; Thoroughgood cannot explain it; so far as I know, no one can. I can only relate the events which occurred. The Sleepy Silver Dollar was full of loggers drinking beer. Outside, it was drawing down toward misty dark. The Kenduskeag was high and silversullen, filling its channel from bank to bank, and according to Egbert Thoroughgood, a fallish wind was blowinthe kine dat allus fine de hole in ypaints and blow strayduppa cracka yo ais. The streets were quagmires. There was a card game going on at one of the tables in the back of the room. They were William Muellers men. Mueller was part owner of the GSWM rail line as well as a lumber potentate who owned millions of acres of prime timber, and the men who were playing poker in the Dollar that night were parttime lumbermen, parttime railroad bulls, and fulltime trouble. Two of them, Tinker McCutcheon and Floyd Calderwood, had done jailtime. With them were Lathrop Rounds (his nickname, as obscure as the Floating Dog Hotel, was El Katook), David Stugley Grenier, and Eddie Kinga bearded man whose spectacles were almost as fat as his gut. It seems very likely that they were at least some of the men who had spent the last two and a half months keeping an eye out for Claude Heroux. |
It seems just as likelyalthough there is not a shred of proofthat they were in on the little cutting party ;n May when Hartwell and Bickford were laid low. The bar was crowded, Thoroughgood said; dozens of men were bellied up there, drinking beer and eating bar lunches and dripping onto the sawdustcovered dirt floor. The door opened and in came Claude Heroux. He had a woodsmans doublebitted axe in his hand. He stepped up to the bar and elbowed himself a place. Egbert Thoroughgood was standing on his left; he said that Heroux smelled like a polecat stew. The barman brought Heroux a schooner of beer, two hardcooked eggs in a bowl, and a shaker of salt. Heroux paid him with a twodollar bill and put his changea dollareightyfiveinto one of the flap pockets of his lumbermans jacket. He salted his eggs and ate them. He salted his beer, drank it off, and uttered a belch. More room out than there is in, Claude, Thoroughgood said, just as if half the enforcers in northern Maine hadnt been on the prod for Heroux all that summer. You know thats the truth, Heroux said, except, being a Canuck, what he probably said came out sounding more like You know dat da troot. He ordered himself another schooner, drank up, and belched again. Talk at the bar went on. Several people called to Claude, and Claude nodded and waved, but he didnt smile. Thoroughgood said he looked like a man who was half in a dream. At the table in back, the poker game went on. El Katook was dealing. No one bothered to tell any of the players that Claude Heroux was in the bar . . . although, since their table was no more than twenty feet away, and since Claudes name was hollered more than once by people who knew him, it is hard to know how they could have gone on playing, unaware of his potentially murderous presence. But that is what occurred. After he finished his second schooner of beer, Heroux excused himself to Thoroughgood, picked up his twohander, and went back to the table where Muellers men were playing fivecard stud. Then he started cutting. Floyd Calderwood had just poured himself a glass of rye whiskey and was setting the bottle back down when Heroux arrived and chopped Calderwoods hand off at the wrist. Calderwood looked at his hand and screamed; it was still holding the bottle but all of a sudden wasnt attached to anything but wet gristle and trailing veins. For a moment the severed hand clutched the bottle even tighter, and then it fell off and lay on the table like a dead spider. Blood spouted from his wrist. At the bar, somebody called for more beer and someone else asked the bartender, whose name was Jonesy, if he was still dyeing his hair. Never dyed it, Jonesy said in an illtempered way; he was vain of his hair. Met a whore down at Ma Courtneys who said what grows around your pecker is just as white as snow, the fellow said. She was a liar, Jonesy replied. Drop your pants and lets us see, said a lumberman named Falkland, with whom Egbert Thoroughgood had been matching for drinks before Heroux came in. This provoked general laughter. Behind them, Floyd Calderwood was shrieking. A few of the men leaning against the bar took a casual look around in time to see Claude Heroux bury his woodsmans axe in Tinker McCutcheons head. Tinker was a big man with a black beard going gray. He got halfway up, blood pouring down his face, then sat down again. Heroux pulled the axe out of his head. Tinker started to get up again, and Heroux slung the axe sideways, burying it in his back. It made a sound, Thoroughgood said, like a load of laundry being dropped on a rug. Tinker flopped over the table, his cards spraying out of his hand. The others players were hollering and bellowing. Calderwood, still shrieking, was trying to pick up his right hand with his left as his lifes blood ran out of his stump of a wrist in a steady stream. Stugley Grenier had what Thoroughgood called a clutchpistol (meaning a gun in a shoulderholster) and he was grabbing for it with no success whatsoever. Eddie King tried to get up and fell right out of his chair on his back. Before he could get up, Heroux was standing astride him, the axe slung up over his head. King screamed and held up both hands in a wardingoff gesture. Please, Claude, I just got married last month! King screamed. The axe came down, its head almost disappearing in Kings ample gut. Blood sprayed all the way up to the Dollars beamed roof. Eddie began to crawfish on the floor. Claude pulled the axe out of him the way a good woodsman will pull his axe out of a softwood tree, kind of rocking it back and forth to loosen the clinging grip of the sappy wood. When it was free he slung it up over his head. He brought it down again and Eddie King stopped screaming. Claude Heroux wasnt done with him, however; he began to chop King up like kindlingwood. At the bar, conversation had turned to what sort of winter lay ahead. Vernon Stanchfield, a farmer from Palmyra, claimed it would be a mild onefall rain uses up winter snow was his scripture. Alfie Naugler, who had a farm out on the Naugler Road in Derry (it is gone now; where Alfie Naugler once grew his peas and beans and beets, the Interstate extension now runs its 8.8mile, sixlane course), begged to disagree. Alfie claimed the coming winter was going to be a jeezer. He had seen as many as eight rings on some of the mohair caterpillars, he said, an unheardof number. Another man held out for ice; another for mud. The Blizzard of 01 was duly recalled. Jonesy sent schooners of beer and bowls of hardcooked eggs skidding down the bar. Behind them the screaming went on and the blood flowed in rivers. At this point in my questioning of Egbert Thoroughgood, I turned off my cassette recorder and asked him How did it happen? Are you saying you didnt know it was going on, or that you knew but you let it go on, or just what? Thoroughgoods chin sank down to the top button of his foodspotted vest. His eyebrows drew together. The silence in Thoroughgoods room, small, cramped, and medicinalsmelling, spun out so long that I was about to repeat my question when he replied We knew. But it didnt seem to matter. It was like politics, in a way. Ayuh, like that. Like town business. Best let people who understand politics take care of that and people who understand town business take care of that. Such things be best done if working men dont mix in. Are you really talking about fate and just afraid to come out and say so? I asked suddenly. The question was simply jerked out of me, and I certainly did not expect Thoroughgood, who was old and slow and unlettered, to answer it ... but he did, with no surprise at all. Ayuh, he said. Mayhap I am. While the men at the bar went on talking about the weather, Claude Heroux went on cutting. Stugley Grenier had finally managed to clear his clutchpistol. The axe was descending for another chop at Eddie King, who was by then in pieces. The bullet Grenier fired struck the head of the axe and ricocheted off with a spark and a whine. El Katook got to his feet and started backing away. He was still holding the deck he had been dealing from; cards were fluttering off the bottom and onto the floor. Claude came after him. El Katook held out his hands. Stugley Grenier got off another round, which didnt come within ten feet of Heroux. Stop, Claude, El Katook said. Thoroughgood said it appeared like Katook was trying to smile. I wasnt with them. I didnt mix in at all. Heroux only growled. I was in Millinocket, El Katok said, his voice starting to rise toward a scream. I was in Millinocket, I swear it on my mothers name! Ask anybody if you dont believe meeeee. . . . Claude raised the dripping axe, and El Katook sprayed the rest of the cards into his face. The axe came down, whistling. El Katook ducked. The axehead buried itself in the planking that formed the Silver Dollars back wall. El Katook tried to run. Claude hauled the axe out of the wall and poked it between his ankles. El Katook went sprawling. Stugley Grenier shot at Heroux again, this time having a bit more luck. He had been aiming at the crazed lumbermans head; the bullet struck home in the fleshy part of Herouxs thigh. Meantime, El Katook was crawling busily toward the door with his hair hanging in his face. Heroux swung the axe again, snarling and gibbering, and a moment later Katooks severed head was rolling across the sawduststrewn floor, the tongue popped bizarrely out between the teeth. It rolled to a stop by the booted foot of a lumberman named Varney, who had spent most of the day in the Dollar and who, by then, was so exquisitely slopped that he didnt know if he was on land or at sea. He kicked the head away without looking down to see what it was, and hollered for Jonesy to run him down another beer. El Katook crawled another three feet, blood spraying from his neck in a hightension jet, before he realized he was dead and collapsed. That left Stugley. Heroux turned on him, but Stugley had run into the outhouse and locked the door. Heroux chopped his way in, hollering and blabbering and raving, slobber falling from his jaws. When he got in, Stugley was gone, although the cold, leaky little room was windowless. Heroux stood there for a moment, head lowered, powerful arms slimed and splattered with blood, and then, with a roar, he flipped up the lid of the threeholer. He was just in time to see Stugleys boots disappearing under the ragged board skirting of the outhouse wall. Stugley Grenier ran screaming down Exchange Street in the rain, beshitted from top to toe, crying that he was being murdered. He survived the cutting party in the Silver Dollarhe was the only one who didbut after three months of listening to jokes about his method of escape, he quitted the Derry area forever. Heroux stepped out of the toilet and stood in front of it like a bull after a charge, head down, his axe held in front of him. He was puffing and blowing and covered with gore from head to foot. Shut the door, Claude, that shitpot stinks to high heaven, Thoroughgood said. Claude dropped his axe on the floor and did as he had been asked. He walked over to the cardstrewn table where his victims had been sitting, kicking one of Eddie Kings severed legs out of his way. Then he simply sat down and put his head in his arms. The drinking and conversation at the bar went on. Five minutes later more men began to pile in, three or four sheriffs deputies among them (the one in charge was Lal Machens father, and when he saw the mess he had a heart attack and had to be taken away to Dr. Shratts office). Claude Heroux was led away. He was docile when they took him, more asleep than awake. That night the bars all up and down Exchange and Baker Streets boomed and hollered with news of the slaughter. A righteous drunken sort of fury began to build up, and when the bars closed better than seventy men headed downtown toward the jail and the courthouse. They had torches and lanterns. Some were carrying guns, some had axes, some had peaveys. The County Sheriff wasnt due from Bangor until the noon stage the next day, so he wasnt there, and Goose Machen was laid up in Dr. Shratts infirmary with his heart attack. The two deputies who were sitting in the office playing cribbage heard the mob coming and got out of there fast. The drunks broke in and dragged Claude Heroux out of his cell. He didnt protest much; he seemed dazed, vacant. They carried him on their shoulders like a football hero; down to Canal Street they carried him, and there they lynched him from an old elm that overhung the Canal. He was so far gone that he didnt kick but twice, Egbert Thoroughgood said. It was, so far as the town records show, the only lynching to ever take place in this part of Maine. And almost needless to say, it was not reported in the Derry News. Many of those who had gone on drinking unconcernedly while Heroux went about his business in the Silver Dollar were in the necktie party that strung him up. By midnight their mood had changed. I asked Thoroughgood my final question had he seen anyone he didnt know during that days violence? Someone who struck him as strange, out of place, funny, even clownish? Someone who would have been drinking at the bar that afternoon, someone who had maybe turned into one of the rabblerousers that night as the drinking went on and the talk turned to lynching? Mayhap there was, Thoroughgood replied. He was tired by then, drooping, ready for his afternoon nap. It were a long time ago, mister. Long and long. But you remember something, I said. I remember thinkin that there must be a county fair up Bangor way, Thoroughgood said. I was having a beer in the Bloody Bucket that night. The Bucket was about six doors from the Silver Dollar. There was a fella in there . . . comical sort of fella . . . doing flips and rollovers . . . jugglin glasses . . . tricks . . . put four dimes on his forrid and theyd stay right there . . . comical, you know. . . . His bony chin had sunk to his chest again. He was going to sleep right in front of me. Spittle began to bubble at the corners of his mouth, which had as many tucks and wrinkles as a ladys changepurse. Seen him a few nown thens since, Thoroughgood said. Figure maybe he had such a good time that night . . . that he decided to stick around. Yeah. Hes been around a long time, I said. His only response was a weak snore. Thoroughgood had gone to sleep in his chair by the window, with his medicines and nostrums lined up beside him on the sill, soldiers of old age at muster. I turned off my taperecorder and just sat looking at him for a moment, this strange timetraveller from the year 1890 or so, who remembered when there were no cars, no electric lights, no airplanes, no state of Arizona. Pennywise had been there, guiding them down the path toward another gaudy sacrificejust one more in Derrys long history of gaudy sacrifices. That one, in September of 1905, ushered in a heightened period of terror that would include the Eastertide explosion of the Kitchener Ironworks the following year. This raises some interesting (and, for all I know, vitally important) questions. What does It really eat, for instance? I know that some of the children have been partially eatenthey show bitemarks, at leastbut perhaps it is we who drive It to do that. Certainly we have all been taught since earliest childhood that what the monster does when it catches you in the deep wood is eat you. That is perhaps the worst thing we can conceive. But its really faith that monsters live on, isnt it? I am led irresistibly to this conclusion food may be life, but the source of power is faith, not food. And who is more capable of a total act of faith than a child? But theres a problem kids grow up. In the church, power is perpetuated and renewed by periodic ritualistic acts. In Derry, power seems to be perpetuated and renewed by periodic ritualistic acts, too. Can it be that It protects Itself by the simple fact that, as the children grow into adults, they become either incapable of faith or crippled by a sort of spiritual and imaginative arthritis? Yes. I think thats the secret here. And if I make the calls, how much will they remember? How much will they believe? Enough to end this horror once and for all, or only enough to get them killed? They are being calledI know that much. Each murder in this new cycle has been a call. We almost killed It twice, and in the end we drove it deep in Its warren of tunnels and stinking rooms under the city. But I think It knows another secret although It may be immortal (or almost so), we are not. It had only to wait until the act of faith, which made us potential monsterkillers as well as sources of power, had become impossible. Twentyseven years. Perhaps a period of sleep for It, as short and refreshing as an afternoon nap would be for us. And when It awakes, It is the same, but a third of our lives has gone by. Our perspectives have narrowed; our faith in the magic, which makes magic possible, has worn off like the shine on a new pair of shoes after a hard days walking. Why call us back? Why not just let us die? Because we nearly killed It, because we frightened It, I think. Because It wants revenge. And now, now that we no longer believe in Santa Claus, the Tooth Fairy, Hansel and Gretel, or the troll under the bridge, It is ready for us. Come on back, It says. Come on back, lets finish our business in Derry. Bring your jacks and your marbles and your yoyos! Well play! Come on back and well see if you remember the simplest thing of all how it is to be children, secure in belief and thus afraid of the dark. On that one at least, I score a thousand percent I am frightened. So goddam frightened. PART 5 THE RITUAL OF CHD It is not to be done. The seepage has rotted out the curtain. The mesh is decayed. Loosen the flesh from the machine, build no more bridges. Through what air will you fly to span the continents? Let the words fall any way at allthat they may hit love aslant. It will be a rare visitation. They want to rescue too much, the flood has done its work William Carlos Williams, Paterson Look and remember. Look upon this land, Far, far across the factories and the grass. Surely, there, surely they will let you pass. Speak then and ask the forest and the loam. What do you hear? What does the land command? The earth is taken this is not your home. Karl Shapiro, Travelogue for Exiles CHAPTER 19 In the Watches of the Night 1 The Derry Public Library 115 A.M. When Ben Hanscom finished the story of the silver slugs, they wanted to talk, but Mike told them he wanted them all to get some sleep. Youve had enough for now, he said, but Mike was the one who looked as if he had had enough; his face was tired and drawn, and Beverly thought he looked physically ill. But were not done, Eddie said. What about the rest of it? I still dont remember Mikes rrright, Bill said. Either well remember or we wwont. I think we wwill. Weve remembered all that we nuhneed to. Maybe all thats good for us? Richie suggested. Mike nodded. Well meet tomorrow. Then he glanced at the clock. Later today, I mean. Here? Beverly asked. Mike shook his head slowly. I suggest we meet on Kansas Street. Where Bill used to hide his bike. Were going down into the Barrens, Eddie said, and suddenly shivered. Mike nodded again. There was a moment of quiet while they looked around at each other. Then Bill got to his feet, and the others rose with him. I want you all to be careful for the rest of the night, Mike said. Its been here; It can be wherever you are. But this meeting has made me feel better. He looked at Bill. Id say it still can be done, wouldnt you, Bill? Bill nodded slowly. Yes. I think it still can be done. It will know that, too, Mike said, and It will do whatever It can to slug the odds in Its favor. What do we do if It shows up? Richie asked. Hold our noses, shut our eyes, turn around three times, and think good thoughts? Puff some magic dust in Its face? Sing old Elvis Presley songs? What? Mike shook his head. If I could tell you that, there would be no problem, would there? All I know is that theres another forceat least there was when we were kidsthat wanted us to stay alive and to do the job. Maybe its still there. He shrugged. It was a weary gesture. I thought two, maybe as many as three of you would be gone by the time we started our meeting tonight. Missing or dead. Just seeing you turn up gave me reason to hope. Richie looked at his watch. Quarter past one. How the time flies when youre having fun, right, Haystack? Beepbeep, Richie, Ben said, and smiled wanly. You want to walk back to the TuhTuhTown House with me, Beverly? Bill asked. All right. She was putting on her coat. The library seemed very silent now, shadowy, frightening. Bill felt the last two days catching up with him all at once, piling up on his back. If it had just been weariness, that would have been okay, but it was more a feeling that he was cracking up, dreaming, having delusions of paranoia. A sensation of being watched. Maybe Im really not here at all, he thought. Maybe Im in Dr. Sewards lunatic asylum, with the Counts crumbling townhouse next door and Renfield just across the hall, him with his flies and me with my monsters, both of us sure the party is really going on and dressed to the nines for it, not in tuxedos but in straitwaistcoats. What about you, RRichie? Richie shook his head. Im going to let Haystack and Kaspbrak lead me home, he said. Right, fellers? Sure, Ben said. He looked briefly at Beverly, who was standing close to Bill, and felt a pain he had almost forgotten. A new memory trembled, almost within his grasp, then floated away. What about you, MMMike? Bill asked. Want to walk with Bev and mme? Mike shook his head. Ive got to That was when Beverly screamed, a highpitched sound in the stillness. The vaulted dome overhead picked it up, and the echoes were like the laughter of banshees, flying and flapping around them. Bill turned toward her; Richie dropped his sportcoat as he was taking it off the back of his chair; there was a crash of glass as Eddies arm swept an empty gin bottle onto the floor. Beverly was backing away from them, her hands held out, her face as white as good bond paper. Her eyes, deep in duskypurple sockets, bulged. My hands! She screamed. My hands! What Bill began, and then he saw the blood dripping slowly between her shaking fingers. He started forward and felt sudden lines of painful warmth cross his own hands. The pain was not sharp; it was more like the pain one sometimes feels in an old healed wound. The old scars on his palm, the ones which had reappeared in England, had broken open and were bleeding. He looked sideways and saw Eddie Kaspbrak peering stupidly down at his own hands. They were also bleeding. So were Mikes. And Richies. And Bens. Were in it to the end, arent we? Beverly said. She had begun to cry. This sound was also magnified in the librarys still emptiness; the building itself seemed to be weeping with her. Bill thought that if he had to listen to that sound for long, he would go mad. God help us, were in it to the end. She sobbed, and a runner of snot depended from one of her nostrils. She wiped it off with the back of one shaking hand, and more blood dripped on the floor. QuhQuhQuick! Bill said, and seized Eddies hand. What Quick! He held out his other hand, and after a moment Beverly took it. She was still crying. Yes, Mike said. He looked dazedalmost drugged. Yes, thats right, isnt it? Its starting again, isnt it, Bill? Its all starting to happen again. YYYes, I ththink Mike took Eddies hand and Richie took Beverlys other hand. For a moment Ben only looked at them, and then, like a man in a dream, he raised his bloody hands to either side and stepped between Mike and Richie. He grasped their hands. The circle closed. (Ah Chd this is the Ritual of Chd and the Turtle cannot help us) Bill tried to scream but no sound came out. He saw Eddies head tilt back, the cords on his neck standing out. Bevs hips bucked twice, fiercely, as if in an orgasm as short and sharp as the crack of a .22 pistol. Mikes mouth moved strangely, seeming to laugh and grimace at the same time. In the silence of the library, doors banged open and shut, the sound rolling like bowling balls. In the Periodicals Room, magazines flew in a windless hurricane. In Carole Danners office, the librarys IBM typewriter whirred into life and typed hethrusts hisfistsagainst thepostsandstillinsistsheseestheghosts hethrustshisfistsagainstthe The typeball jammed. The typewriter sizzled and uttered a thick electronic belch as everything inside overloaded. In Stack Two, the shelf of occult books suddenly tipped over, spilling Edgar Cayce, Nostradamus, Charles Fort, and the Apocrypha everywhere. Bill felt an exalting sense of power. He was dimly aware that he had an erection, and that every hair on his head was standing up straight. The sense of force in the completed circle was incredible. All the doors in the library slammed shut in unison. The grandfather clock behind the checkout desk chimed once. Then it was gone, as if someone had flicked off a switch. They dropped their hands, looking at each other, dazed. No one said anything. As the sense of power ebbed, Bill felt a terrible sense of doom creep over him. He looked at their white, strained faces, and then down at his hands. Blood was smeared there, but the wounds which Stan Uris had made with a jagged piece of Coke bottle in August 1958 had closed up again, leaving only crooked white lines like knotted twine. He thought That was the last time the seven of us were together ... the day Stan made those cuts in the Barrens. Stans not here; hes dead. And this is the last time the six of us are going to be together. I know it, I feel it. Beverly was pressed against him, trembling. Bill put an arm around her. They all looked at him, their eyes huge and bright in the dimness, the long table where they had sat, littered with empty bottles, glasses, and overflowing ashtrays, a little island of light. Thats enough, Bill said huskily. Enough entertainment for one evening. Well save the ballroom dancing for another time. I remembered, Beverly said. She looked up at Bill, her eyes huge, her pale cheeks wet. I remembered everything. My father finding out about you guys. Running. Bowers and Criss and Huggins. How I ran. The tunnel ... the birds ... It ... I remember everything. Yeah, Richie said. I do, too. Eddie nodded. The pumpingstation Bill said, And how Eddie Go back now, Mike said. Get some rest. Its late. Walk with us, Mike, Beverly said. No. I have to lock up. And I have to write a few things down ... the minutes of the meeting, if you like. I wont be long. Go ahead. They moved toward the door, not talking much. Bill and Beverly were together, Eddie, Richie, and Ben behind them. Bill held the door for her and she murmured thanks. As she went out onto the wide granite steps, Bill thought how young she looked, how vulnerable.... He was dismally aware that he might be falling in love with her again. He tried to think of Audra, but Audra seemed far away. She would be sleeping in their house in Fleet now as the sun came up and the milkman began his rounds. Derrys sky had clouded over again, and a low groundfog lay across the empty street in thick runners. Farther up the street, the Derry Community House, narrow, tall, Victorian, brooded in blackness. Bill thought And whatever walked in Community House, walked alone. He had to stifle a wild cackle. Their footfalls seemed very loud. Beverlys hand touched his and Bill took it gratefully. It started before we were ready, she said. Would we ehehever have been rready? You would have been, Big Bill. The touch of her hand was suddenly both wonderful and necessary. He wondered what it would be like to touch her breasts for the second time in his life, and suspected that before this long night was over he would know. Fuller now, mature ... and his hand would find hair when he cupped the swelling of her mons veneris. He thought I loved you, Beverly ... I love you. Ben loved you ... he loves you. We loved you then ... we love you now. We better, because its starting. No way out now. He glanced behind and saw the library half a block away. Richie and Eddie were on the top step; Ben was standing at the bottom, looking after them. His hands were stuffed in his pockets, his shoulders were slumped, and seen through the drifting lens of the low fog, he might almost have been eleven again. If he had been able to send Ben a thought, Bill would have sent this one It doesnt matter, Ben. The love is what matters, the caring ... its always the desire, never the time. Maybe thats all we get to take with us when we go out of the blue and into the black. Cold comfort, maybe, but better than no comfort at all. My father knew, Beverly said suddenly. I came home one day from the Barrens and he just knew. Did I ever tell you what he used to say to me when he was mad? What? I worry about you, Bewie. Thats what he used to say. I worry a lot. She laughed and shivered at the same time. I think he meant to hurt me, Bill. I mean ... hed hurt me before, but that last time was different. He was ... well, in many ways he was a strange man. I loved him. I loved him very much, but She looked at him, perhaps wanting him to say it for her. He wouldnt; it was something she was going to have to say for herself, sooner or later. Lies and selfdeceptions had become a ballast they could not afford. I hated him, too, she said, and her hand bore down convulsively upon Bills for a long second. I never told that to anyone in my life before. I thought God would strike me dead if I ever said it out loud. Say it again, then. No, I Go on. Itll hurt, but maybe its festered in there long enough. Say it. I hated my dad, she said, and began to sob helplessly. I hated him, I was scared of him, I hated him, I could never be a good enough girl to suit him and I hated him, I did, but I loved him, too. He stopped and held her tight. Her arms went around him in a panicky grip. Her tears wet the side of his neck. He was very conscious of her body, ripe and firm. He moved his torso away from hers slightly, not wanting her to feel the erection he was getting ... but she moved against him again. Wed spent the morning down there, she said, playing tag or something like that. Something harmless. We hadnt even talked about It that day, at least not then ... we usually talked about It every day, at some point, though. Remember? Yes, he said. At some pppoint. I remember. It was overcast ... hot. We played most of the morning. I went home around eleventhirty. I thought Id have a sandwich and a bowl of soup after I took a shower. And then Id go back and play some more. My parents were both working. But he was there. He was home. He 2 Lower Main Street1130 A.M. threw her across the room before she had even gotten all the way through the door. A startled scream was jerked out of her and then cut off as she hit the wall with shouldernumbing force. She collapsed onto their sagging sofa, looking around wildly. The door to the front hall banged shut. Her father had been standing behind it. I worry about you, Bewie, he said. Sometimes I worry a lot. You know that. I tell you that, dont I? You bet I do. Daddy, what He was walking slowly toward her across the living room, his face thoughtful, sad, deadly. She didnt want to see that last, but it was there, like the blind shine of dirt on still water. He was nibbling reflectively on a knuckle of his right hand. He was dressed in his khakis, and when she glanced down she saw that his hightopped shoes were leaving tracks on her mothers carpet. Ill have to get the vacuum out, she thought incoherently. Vacuum that up. If he leaves me able to vacuum. If he It was mud. Black mud. Her mind sideslipped alarmingly. She was back in the Barrens with Bill, Richie, Eddie, and the others. There was black, viscous mud like the kind on Daddys shoes down there in the Barrens, in the swampy place where the stuff Richie called bamboo stood in a skeletal white grove. When the wind blew the stalks rattled together hollowly, producing a sound like voodoo drums, and had her father been down in the Barrens? Had her father WHAP! His hand rocketed down in a wide sweeping orbit and struck her face. Her head thudded back against the wall. He hooked his thumbs in his belt and looked at her with that expression of deadly disconnected curiosity. She felt a trickle of blood running warmly from the left corner of her lower lip. I have seen you getting big, he said, and she thought he would say something more, but for the time being that seemed to be all. Daddy, what are you talking about? she asked in a low trembling voice. |
If you lie to me, Ill beat you within an inch of your life, Bevvie, he said, and she realized with horror that he wasnt looking at her; he was looking at the Currier and Ives picture over her head, on the wall above the sofa. Her mind sideslipped crazily again and she was four, sitting in the bathtub with her blue plastic boat and her Popeye soap; her father, so big and so well loved, was kneeling beside her, dressed in gray twill pants and a strappy teeshirt, a washcloth in one hand and a glass of orange soda in the other, soaping her back and saying, Lemme see those ears, Bevvie; your ma needs taters for supper. And she could hear her small self giggling, looking up at his slightly grizzled face, which she had then believed must be eternal. I ... I wont lie, Daddy, she said. Whats wrong? Her view of him was gradually shivering apart as the tears came. You been down there in the Barns with a gang of boys? Her heart leaped; her eyes dropped to his mudcaked shoes again. That black, clingy mud. If you stepped into it too deep it would suck your sneaker or your loafer right off ... and both Richie and Bill believed that, if you went in all the way, it turned to quickmud. I play down there somet Whap! the hand, covered with hard calluses, rocketing down again. She cried out, hurt, afraid. That look on his face scared her, and the way he wouldnt look at her scared her, too. There was something wrong with him. He had been getting worse.... What if he meant to kill her? What if (oh stop it Beverly hes your FATHER and FATHERS dont kill DAUGHTERS) he lost control, then? What if What have you let them do to you? Do? What She had no idea what he meant. Take your pants off. Her confusion increased. Nothing he said seemed connected to anything else. Trying to follow him made her feel ill ... seasick, almost. What ... why ... ? His hand rose; she flinched back. Take them off, Bevvie. I want to see if you are intact. Now there was a new image, crazier than the rest she saw herself pulling her jeans off, and one of her legs coming off with them. Her father belting her around the room as she tried to hop away from him on her one good leg, Daddy shouting I knew you wasnt intact! I knew it! I knew it! Daddy, I dont know what His hand came down, not slapping this time but clutching. It bit into her shoulder with furious strength. She screamed. He pulled her up, and for the first time looked directly into her eyes. She screamed again at what she saw there. It was ... nothing. Her father was gone. And Beverly suddenly understood that she was alone in the apartment with It, alone with It on this dozey August morning. There was not the thick sense of power and untinctured evil she had felt in the house on Neibolt Street a week and a half agoIt had been diluted somehow by her fathers essential humanitybut It was here, working through him. He threw her aside. She struck the coffee table, tripped over it, and went sprawling on the floor with a cry. This is how it happens, she thought. Ill tell Bill so he understands. Its everywhere in Derry. It just ... It just fills the hollow places, thats all. She rolled over. Her father was walking toward her. She skidded away from him on the seat of her jeans, her hair in her eyes. I know you been down there, he said. I was told. I didnt believe it. I didnt believe my Bewie would be hanging around with a gang of boys. Then I seen you myself this morning. My Bewie with a bunch of boys. Not even twelve and hanging around with a bunch of boys! This latter thought seemed to send him into a fresh rage; it trembled through his scrawny frame like volts. Not even twelve years old! he shouted, and fetched a kick at her thigh that made her scream. His jaws snapped over this fact or concept or whatever it was to him like the jaws of a hungry dog worrying a piece of meat. Not even twelve! Not even twelve! Not even TWELVE! He kicked. Beverly scrambled away. They had worked their way into the kitchen area of the apartment now. His workboot struck the drawer under the stove, making the pots and pans inside jangle. Dont you run from me, Bewie, he said. You dont want to do that or itll be the worse for you. Believe me, now. Believe your dad. This is serious. Hanging around with the boys, letting them do God knows what to younot even twelvethats serious, Christ knows. He grabbed her and jerked her to her feet by her shoulder. Youre a pretty girl, he said. Theres plenty of people happy to roon a pretty girl. Plenty of pretty girls willing to be roont. You been a slutchild to them boys, Bevvie? At last she understood what It had put in his head ... except part of her knew the thought might almost have been there all along; that It might only have used the tools that had been there just lying around, waiting to be picked up. No Daddy. No Daddy I seen you smoking! he bellowed. This time he struck her with the palm of his hand, hard enough to send her reeling back in drunken strides to the kitchen table, where she sprawled, a flare of agony in the small of her back. The salt and pepper shakers fell to the floor. The pepper shaker broke. Black flowers bloomed and disappeared before her eyes. Sounds seemed too deep. She saw his face. Something in his face. He was looking at her chest. She was suddenly aware that her blouse had come untucked, and that she wasnt wearing a braas of yet she owned only one, a training bra. Her mind sideslipped back to the house at Neibolt Street, when Bill had given her his shirt. She had been aware of the way her breasts poked at the thin cotton material, but their occasional, skittering glances had not bothered her; these had seemed perfectly natural. And Bills look had seemed more than naturalit had seemed warm and wanted, if deeply dangerous. Now she felt guilt mix with her terror. Was her father so wrong? Hadnt she had (you been a slutchild to them) thoughts? Bad thoughts? Thoughts of whatever it was that he was talking about? Its not the same thing! Its not the same thing as the way (you been a slutchild) hes looking at me now! Not the same! She tucked her blouse back in. Bewie? Daddy, we just play. Thats all. We play ... we ... we dont do anything like ... anything bad. We I seen you smoking, he said again, walking toward her. His eyes moved across her chest and her narrow uncurved hips. He chanted suddenly, in a high schoolboys voice that frightened her even more A girl who will chew gum will smoke! A girl who will smoke will drink! And a girl who will drink, everyone knows what a girl like that will do! I DIDNT DO ANYTHING! she screamed at him as his hands descended on her shoulders. He was not pinching or hurting now. His hands were gentle. And that was somehow scariest of all. Beverly, he said with the inarguable, mad logic of the totally obsessed, I seen you with boys. Now you want to tell me what a girl does with boys down in all that trashwood if it aint what a girl does on her back? Let me alone! she cried at him. The anger flashed up from a deep well she had never suspected. The anger made a bluishyellow flame in her head. It threatened her thoughts. All the times he had scared her; all the times he had shamed her; all the times he had hurt her. You just let me alone! Dont talk to your daddy like that, he said, sounding startled. I didnt do what youre saying! I never did! Maybe. Maybe not. Im going to check and make sure. I know how. Take your pants off. No. His eyes widened, showing yellowed cornea all the way around the deepblue irises. What did you say? I said no. His eyes were fixed on hers and perhaps he saw the blazing anger there, the bright upsurge of rebellion. Who told you? Bewie Who told you we play down there? Was it a stranger? Was it a man dressed in orange and silver? Did he wear gloves? Did he look like a clown even if he wasnt a clown? What was his name? Bewie, you want to stop No you want to stop, she told him. He swung his hand again, not open but this time closed in a fist meant to break something. Beverly ducked. His fist whistled over her head and crashed into the wall. He howled and let go of her, putting the fist to his mouth. She backed away from him in quick mincing steps. You come back here! No, she said. You want to hurt me. I love you, Daddy, but I hate you when youre like this. You cant do it anymore. Its making you do it, but you let It in. I dont know what youre talking about, he said, but you better get over here to me. I am not going to ask you no more. No, she said, beginning to cry again. Dont make me come over there and collect you, Bewie. Youre going to be one sorry little girl if I have to do that. Come to me. Tell me who told you, she said, and I will. He leaped at her with such scrawny catlike agility that, although she suspected such a leap was coming, she was almost caught. She fumbled for the kitchen doorknob, pulled the door open just wide enough so she could slip though, and then she was running down the hall toward the front door, running in a dream of panic, as she would run from Mrs. Kersh twentyseven years later. Behind her, Al Marsh crashed against the door, slamming it shut again, cracking it down the center. YOU GET BACK HERE RIGHT NOW BEVVIE! he howled, yanking it open and coming after her. The front door was on the latch; she had come home the back way. One of her trembling hands worked at the lock while the other yanked fruitlessly at the knob. Behind, her father howled again; the sound of an (take those pants off slutchild) animal. She turned the lockknob and the front door finally swept open. Hot breath plunged up and down in her throat. She looked over her shoulder and saw him right behind her, reaching for her, grinning and grimacing, his yellow horsey teeth a beartrap in his mouth. Beverly bolted out through the screen door and felt his fingers skid down the back of her blouse without catching hold. She flew down the steps, overbalanced, and went sprawling on the concrete walkway, erasing the skin from both knees. YOU GET BACK HERE NOW BEWIE OR BEFORE GOD ILL WHIP THE SKIN OFF YOU! He came down the steps and she scrambled to her feet, holes in the legs of her jeans, (your pants off) her kneecaps sizzling blood, exposed nerveendings singing Onward Christian Soldiers. She looked back and here he came again, A1 Marsh, janitor and custodian, a gray man dressed in khaki pants and a khaki shirt with two flap pockets, a keyring attached to his belt by a chain, his hair flying. But he wasnt in his eyesthe essential he who had washed her back and punched her in the gut and had done both because he worried about her, worried a lot, the he who had once tried to braid her hair when she was seven, made a botch of it, and then got giggling with her about the way it stuck out everyway, the he who knew how to make cinnamon eggnogs on Sunday that tasted better than anything you could buy for a quarter at the Derry Ice Cream Bar, the fatherhe, maleman of her life, delivering a mixed post from that other sexual state. None of that was in his eyes now. She saw blank murder there. She saw It there. She ran. She ran from It. Mr. Pasquale looked up, startled, from where he was watering his crabgrassy lawn and listening to the Red Sox game on a portable radio sitting on his porch rail. The Zinnerman kids stood back from the old Hudson Hornet which they had bought for twentyfive dollars and washed almost every day. One of them was holding a hose, the other a bucket of soapsuds. Both were slackjawed. Mrs. Denton looked out of her secondfloor apartment, one of her six daughters dresses in her lap, more mending in a basket on the floor, her mouth full of pins. Little Lars Theramenius pulled his Red Ball Flyer wagon quickly off the cracked sidewalk and stood on Bucky Pasquales dying lawn. He burst into tears as Bevvie, who had spent a patient morning that spring showing him how to tie his sneakers so they would stay tied, flashed by him, screaming, her eyes wide. A moment later her father passed, hollering at her, and Lars, who was then three and who would die twelve years later in a motorcycle accident, saw something terrible and inhuman in Mr. Marshs face. He had nightmares for three weeks after. In them he saw Mr. Marsh turning into a spider inside his clothes. Beverly ran. She was perfectly aware that she might be running for her life. If her father caught her now, it wouldnt matter that they were on the street. People did crazy things in Derry sometimes; she didnt have to read the newspapers or know the towns peculiar history to understand that. If he caught her he would choke her, or beat her, or kick her. And when it was over, someone would come and collect him and he would sit in a cell the way Eddie Corcorans stepfather was sitting in a cell, dazed and uncomprehending. She ran toward downtown, passing more and more people as she went. They staredfirst at her, then at her pursuing fatherand they looked surprised, some of them even amazed. But what was on their faces went no further. They looked and then they went on toward wherever they had been going. The air circulating in her lungs was growing heavier now. She crossed the Canal, feet pounding on cement while cars rumbled over the heavy wooden slats of the bridge to her right. To her left she could see the stone semicircle where the Canal went under the downtown area. She cut suddenly across Main Street, oblivious to the honking horns and squealing brakes. She went right because the Barrens lay in that direction. It was still almost a mile away, and if she was to get there she would somehow have to outdistance her father on the gruelling slope of UpMile Hill (or one of the even steeper sidestreets). But that was all there was. COME BACK YOU LITTLE BITCH IM WARNING YOU! As she gained the sidewalk on the far side of the street she snatched another glance behind her, the heavy weight of her red hair shifting over her shoulder as she did. Her father was crossing the street, as heedless of the traffic as she had been, his face a bright sweaty red. She ducked down an alley that ran behind Warehouse Row. This was the rear of the buildings which fronted on UpMile Hill Star Beef, Armour Meatpacking, Hemphill Storage Warehousing, Eagle Beef Kosher Meats. The alley was narrow and cobbled, made narrower still by the bunches of fuming garbage cans and bins set out here. The cobbles were slimy with God knew what offal and ordure. There was a mixture of smells, some bland, some sharp, some simply titanic ... but all spoke of meat and slaughter. Flies buzzed in clouds. From inside some of the buildings she could hear the bloodcurdling whine of bonesaws. Her feet stuttered unevenly on the slick cobbles. One hip struck a galvanized garbage can and packages of tripe wrapped in newspaper fell out like great meaty jungle blossoms. YOU GET RIGHT THE HELL BACK HERE BEWIE! I MEAN IT NOW! DONT MAKE IT ANY WORSE THAN IT ALREADY IS GIRL! Two men lounged in the loading doorway of the Kirshner Packing Works, munching thick sandwiches, open dinnerbuckets near at hand. You in a woeful place, girl, one of them said mildly. Looks like you goin in the woodshed with your pa. The other laughed. He was gaining. She could hear his thundering footfalls and heavy respiration almost behind her now; looking to her right she could see the black wing of his shadow flying along the high board fence there. Then he yelled in surprise and fury as his feet slipped out from under him and he thumped to the cobblestones. He was up a moment later, no longer bellowing words but only shrieking out his incoherent fury while the men in the doorway laughed and slapped each other on the back. The alley zigged to the left ... and Beverly came to a skittering halt, her mouth opening in dismay. A city dumpster was parked across the alleys mouth. There was not even nine inches of clearance on either side. Its motor was idling. Under that sound, barely audible, she could hear the murmur of conversation from the dumpsters cab. More men on lunchbreak. It lacked no more than three or four minutes of noon; soon the courthouse clock would begin to chime the hour. She could hear him coming again, closing in. She threw herself down and hooked her way under the dumpster, using her elbows and wounded knees. The stink of exhaust and diesel fuel mixed with the smell of ripe meat and made her feel a kind of giddy nausea. In a way, the ease of her progress was worse she was skidding greasily over a coating of slime and garbagey crud. She kept moving, once rising too high off the cobbles so that her back came in contact with the dumpsters hot exhaustpipe. She had to bite back a scream. Beverly? You under there? Each word separated from the last by an outofbreath gasp for air. She looked back and met his eyes as he bent and peered under the truck. Leave ... me alone! she managed. You bitch, he replied in a thick, spitchoked voice. He threw himself flat, keys jingling, and began to crawl after her, using a grotesque swimming stroke to pull himself along. Beverly clawed her way from under the trucks cab, grabbed one of the huge tiresher fingers hooked their way into a tread up to the second knuckleand yanked herself up. She banged her tailbone on the dumpsters front bumper and then she was running again, heading up UpMile Hill now, her blouse and jeans smeared with goop and stinking to high heaven. She looked back and saw her fathers hands and freckled arms shoot out from under the dumpsters cab like the claws of some imagined childhood monster from under the bed. Quickly, hardly thinking at all, she darted between Feldmans Storage and the Tracker Brothers Annex. This covert, too narrow even to be called an alley, was filled with broken crates, weeds, sunflowers, and, of course, more garbage. Beverly dived behind a pile of crates and crouched there. A few moments later she saw her father pound by the mouth of the covert and on up the hill. Beverly got up and hurried to the far end of the covert. There was a chainlink fence here. She monkeyed to the top, got over, and worked her way down the far side. She was now on Derry Theological Seminary property. She ran up the manicured back lawn and around the side of the building. She could hear someone inside playing something classical on an organ. The notes seemed to engrave their pleasant, calm selves on the still air. There was a tall hedge between the seminary and Kansas Street. She peered through it and saw her father on the far side of the street, breathing hard, patches of sweat darkening his workshirt under the arms. He was peering around, hands on hips. His keyring twinkled brightly in the sun. Beverly watched him, also breathing hard, her heart beating rabbitfast in her throat. She was very thirsty, and her simmering smell disgusted her. If I was drawn in a comic strip, she thought distractedly, thered be all those wavy stinklines coming up from me. Her father crossed slowly to the seminary side. Beverlys breath stopped. Please God, I cant run anymore. Help me, God. Dont let him find me. Al Marsh walked slowly down the sidewalk, directly past where his daughter crouched on the far side of the hedge. Dear God, dont let him smell me! He didntperhaps because, after a tumble in the alleyway and crawling under the dumpster himself, Al smelled as bad as she did. He walked on. She watched him go back down UpMile Hill until he was out of sight. Beverly picked herself up slowly. Her clothes were covered with garbage, her face was dirty, her back hurt where she had burned it on the exhaustpipe of the dumpster. These physical things paled before the confused swirl of her thoughtsshe felt that she had sailed off the edge of the world, and none of the normal patterns of behavior seemed to apply. She could not imagine going home; but she could not imagine not going home. She had defied her father, defied him She had to push that thought away because it made her feel weak and trembly, sick to her stomach. She loved her father. Wasnt one of the Ten Commandments Honor thy mother and father that thy days may be long upon the earth? Yes. But he hadnt been himself. Hadnt been her father. Had, in fact, been someone completely different. An impostor. It Suddenly she went cold as a terrible question occurred to her Was this happening to the others? Or something like it? She ought to warn them. They had hurt It, and perhaps now It was taking steps to assure Itself they would never hurt It again. And, really, where else was there to go? They were the only friends she had. Bill. Bill would know what to do. Bill would tell her what to do, Bill would supply the what next. She stopped where the seminary walk joined the Kansas Street sidewalk and peered around the hedge. Her father was truly gone. She turned right and began to walk along Kansas Street toward the Barrens. Probably none of them would be there right now; they would be at home, eating their lunches. But they would be back. Meantime, she could go down into the cool clubhouse and try to get herself under some kind of control. She would leave the little window wide open so she could have some sunshine, and perhaps she would even be able to sleep. Her tired body and overstrained mind grasped eagerly at the thought. Sleep, yes, that would be good. Her head drooped as she plodded past the last bunch of houses before the land grew too steep for houses and plunged down into the Barrensthe Barrens where, as incredible as it seemed to her, her father had been lurking and spying. She certainly did not hear footfalls behind her. The boys there were at great pains to be quiet. They had been outrun before; they did not intend to be outrun again. They drew closer and closer to her, walking catsoft. Belch and Victor were grinning, but Henrys face was both vacant and serious. His hair was uncombed and snarly. His eyes were as unfocused as Al Marshs had been in the apartment. He held one dirty finger pressed over his lips in a shhh gesture as they closed the distance from seventy feet to fifty to thirty. Through that summer Henry had been edging steadily out over some mental abyss, walking on a bridge that had grown relentlessly more and more narrow. On the day when he had allowed Patrick Hockstetter to caress him, that bridge had narrowed to a tightrope. The tightrope had snapped this morning. He had gone out into the yard, naked except for his ragged, yellowing undershorts, and looked up into the sky. The ghost of last nights moon still lingered there, and as he looked at it the moon had suddenly changed into a skeletal grinning face. Henry had fallen on his knees before this face, exalted with terror and joy. Ghostvoices came from the moon. The voices changed, sometimes seemed to merge together in a soft babble that was barely understandable ... but he sensed the truth, which was simply that all these voices were one voice, one intelligence. The voice told him to hunt up Belch and Victor and be at the comer of Kansas Street and Costello Avenue around noon. The voice told him he would know what to do then. Sure enough, the cunt had come bopping along. He waited to hear what the voice would tell him to do next. The answer came as they continued to close the distance. The voice came not from the moon, but from the sewergrating they were passing. The voice was low but clear. Belch and Victor glanced toward the grating in a dazed, almost hypnotized way, then back at Beverly. Kill her, the voice from the sewer said. Henry Bowers reached into the pocket of his jeans and brought out a slim nineinchlong instrument with imitationivory inlays along its sides. A small chromium button glittered at one end of this dubious objet dart. Henry pushed it. A sixinch blade popped out of the slit at the end of the handle. He bounced the switchblade on his palm. He began to walk a little faster. Victor and Belch, still looking dazed, increased their own walking speed to keep up with him. Beverly did not hear them, precisely; that was not what made her turn her head as Henry Bowers closed the distance. Bentkneed, shuffling, a frozen grin on his face, Henry was as silent as an Indian. No; it was simply a feeling, too clear and direct and powerful to be denied, of 3 The Derry Public Library 155 A.M. being watched. Mike Hanlon laid his pen aside and looked across the shadowy inverted bowl of the librarys main room. He saw islands of light thrown by the hanging globes; he saw books fading into dimness; he saw the iron staircases making their graceful trellised spirals up to the stacks. He saw nothing out of place. All the same, he did not believe he was alone in here. Not anymore. After the others were gone, Mike had cleaned up with a care that was only habit. He was on autopilot, his mind a million milesand twentyseven yearsaway. He dumped ashtrays, threw away the empty liquor bottles (putting a layer of waste over them so that Carole wouldnt be shocked), and the returnable cans in a box behind his desk. Then he got the broom and swept up the remains of the gin bottle Eddie had broken. When the table was clean, he went into the Periodicals Room and picked up the scattered magazines. As he did these simple chores, his mind sifted the stories they had toldconcentrating the most, perhaps, on what they had left out. They believed they remembered everything; he thought that Bill and Beverly almost did. But there was more. It would come to them ... if It allowed them the time. In 1958 there had been no chance for preparation. They had talked endlesslytheir talk interrupted only by the rockfight and that one act of group heroism at 29 Neibolt Streetand might, in the end, have done no more than talk. Then August 14th had come, and Henry and his friends had simply chased them into the sewers. Maybe I should have told them, he thought, putting the last of the magazines back in their places. But something spoke strongly against the ideathe voice of the Turtle, he supposed. Perhaps that was part of it, and perhaps that sense of circularity was part of it, too. Maybe that last act was going to repeat itself, in some updated fashion, as well. He had put flashlights and miners helmets carefully by against tomorrow; he had the blueprints of the Derry sewer and drain systems neatly rolled up and held with rubber bands in that same closet. But, when they were kids, all their talk and all their plans, halfbaked or otherwise, had come to nothing in the end; in the end they had simply been chased into the drains, hurled into the confrontation which had followed. Was that going to happen again? Faith and power, he had come to believe, were interchangeable. Was the final truth even simpler? That no act of faith was possible until you were rudely pushed out into the screaming middle of things like a newborn child skydiving chutelessly out of his mothers womb? Once you were falling, you were forced to believe in the chute, into existence, werent you? Pulling the ring as you fell became your final statement on the subject, one way or the other. Jesus Christ, its Fulton Sheen in blackface, Mike thought, and laughed a little. Mike cleaned, neatened, and thought his thoughts, while another part of his brain expected that he would finish and find himself tired enough to go home and sleep for a few hours. But when he finally did finish, he found himself as wide awake as ever. So he went to the single closed stack behind his office, unlocking the wire gate with a key from his ring and letting himself in. This stack, supposedly fireproof when the vaulttype door was closed and locked, contained the librarys valuable first editions, books signed by writers long since dead (among the signed editions were Moby Dick and Whitmans Leaves of Grass), historical matter relating to the town, and the personal papers of a few of the few writers who had lived and worked in Derry. Mike hoped, if all of this ended well, to persuade Bill to leave his manuscripts to the Derry Public Library. Walking down the third aisle of the stack beneath tinshaded lightbulbs, smelling the familiar library scents of must and dust and cinnamony, aging paper, he thought When I die, I guess Ill go with a library card in one hand and an OVERDUE stamp in the other. Well, maybe theres worse ways. He stopped halfway down this third aisle. His dogeared steno notebook, which contained the jotted tales of Derry and his own troubled wanderings, was tucked between Frickes Old DerryTown and Michauds History of Derry. He had pushed the notebook so far back it was nearly invisible. No one would stumble across it unless he was looking for it. Mike took it and went back to the table where they had held their meeting, pausing to turn off the lights in the closed stack and to relock the wire mesh. He sat down and flipped through the pages he had written, thinking what a strange, crippled affidavit it was part history, part scandal, part diary, part confessional. He had not logged an entry since April 6th. Have to get a new book soon, he thought, thumbing the few blank pages that were left. He thought bemusedly for a moment of Margaret Mitchells first draft of Gone with the Wind, written in longhand in stacks and stacks and stacks of school composition books. Then he uncapped his pen and wrote May 31st two lines below the end of his last entry. He paused, looking vaguely across the empty library, and then began to write about everything that had happened during the last three days, beginning with his telephone call to Stanley Uris. He wrote quietly for fifteen minutes, and then his concentration began to come unravelled. He paused more and more frequently. The image of Stan Uriss severed head in the refrigerator tried to intrude, Stans bloody head, the mouth open and full of feathers, falling out of the refrigerator and rolling across the floor toward him. He banished it with an effort and went on writing. Five minutes later he jerked upright and looked around, convinced he would see that head rolling across the old blackandred tiles of the main floor, eyes as glassy and avid as those in the mounted head of a deer. There was nothing. No head, no sound except the muffled drum of his own heart. Got to get ahold of yourself, Mikey. Its the jimjams, thats all. Nothing else to it. But it was no use. The words began to get away from him, the thoughts seemed to dangle just out of reach. There was a pressure on the back of his neck, and it seemed to grow heavier. Being watched. He put his pen down and got up from the table. Is anyone here? he called, and his voice echoed back from the rotunda, giving him a jolt. He licked his lips and tried again. Bill? ... Ben? Billillill ... Benenen ... Suddenly Mike decided he wanted to be home. He would simply take the notebook with him. He reached for it ... and heard a faint, sliding footstep. He looked up again. Pools of light surrounded by deepening lagoons of shadow. Nothing else ... at least nothing he could see. He waited, heart beating hard. The footstep came again, and this time he pinpointed the location. The glassedin passageway that connected the adult library to the Childrens Library. In there. Someone. Something. Moving quietly, Mike walked across to the checkout desk. The double doors leading into the passageway were held open by wooden chocks, and he could see a little way in. He could see what looked like feet, and with sudden swooning horror he wondered if maybe Stan had come after all, if maybe Stan was going to step out of the shadows with his bird encyclopedia in one hand, his face white, his lips purple, his wrists and forearms cut open. I finally came, Stan would say. It took me awhile because I had to pull myself out of a hole in the ground, but I finally came.... There was another footstep and now Mike could see shoes for sureshoes and ragged denim pantlegs. Faded blue strings hung down against sockless ankles. And in the darkness almost six feet above those ankles, he could see glittering eyes. |
He groped over the surface of the semicircular checkout desk and felt along the other side without taking his gaze from those eyes. His fingers felt one wooden corner of a small boxthe overdue cards. A smaller boxpaper clips and rubber bands. They happened on something that was metal and seized it. It was a letteropener with the words JESUS SAVES stamped on the handle. A flimsy thing that had come in the mail from the Grace Baptist Church as part of a fundraising drive. Mike had not attended services in fifteen years, but Grace Baptist had been his mothers church and he had sent them five dollars he could not really afford. He had meant to throw the letteropener out but it had stayed here, amid the clutter on his side of the desk (Caroles side was always spotlessly clean) until now. He clutched it tightly and stared into the shadowy hallway. There was another step ... another. Now the ragged denim pants were visible up to the knees. He could see the shape these lower legs belonged to it was big, hulking. The shoulders were rounded. There was a suggestion of ragged hair. The figure was apelike. Who are you? The shape merely stood there, contemplating him. Although still afraid, Mike had gotten over the debilitating idea that it might be Stan Uris, returned from the grave, called back by the scars on his palms, some eldritch magnetism which had brought him back like a zombie in a Hammer horror film. Whoever this was, it wasnt Stan Uris, who had finished at fiveseven when he had his full growth. The shape took another step, and now the light from the globe closest to the passageway fell across the beltless loops of the jeans around the shapes waist. Suddenly Mike knew. Even before the shape spoke, he knew. Hello, nigger, the shape said. Been throwing rocks at anyone? Want to know who poisoned your fucking dog? The shape took another step forward and the light fell on the face of Henry Bowers. It had grown fat and sagging; the skin had an unhealthy tallowy hue; the cheeks had become hanging jowls that were specked with stubble, almost as much white in that stubble as black. Wavy linesthree of themwere engraved in the shelf of the forehead above the bushy brows. Other lines formed parentheses at the corners of the fulllipped mouth. The eyes were small and mean inside discolored pouches of fleshbloodshot and thoughtless. It was the face of a man being pushed into a premature age, a man who was thirtynine going on seventythree. But it was also the face of a twelveyearold boy. Henrys clothes were still green with whatever bushes he had spent the day hiding in. Aint you gonna say howdy, nigger? Henry asked. Hello, Henry. It occurred to him dimly that he had not listened to the radio for the last two days, and he had not even read the paper, which was a ritual with him. Too much going on. Too busy. Too bad. Henry emerged from the corridor between the Childrens Library and the adult library and stood there, peering at Mike with his piggy eyes. His lips parted in an unspeakable grin, revealing rotted backMaine teeth. Voices, he said. You ever hear voices, nigger? Which voices are those, Henry? He put both hands behind his back, like a schoolboy called upon to recite, and transferred the letteropener from his left hand to his right. The grandfather clock, given by Horst Mueller in 1923, ticked solemn seconds into the smooth pond of library silence. From the moon, Henry said. He put a hand in his pocket. Came from the moon. Lots of voices. He paused, frowned slightly, then shook his head. Lots but really only one. Its voice. Did you see It, Henry? Yep, Henry said. Frankenstein. Tore off Victors head. You should have heard it. Made a sound like a great big zipper going down. Then It went after Belch. Belch fought It. Did he? Yep. Thats how I got away. You left him to die. Dont you say that! Henrys cheeks flushed a dull red. He took two steps forward. The farther he walked from the umbilicus connecting the Childrens Library to the adult library, the younger he looked to Mike. He saw the same old meanness in Henrys face, but he saw something else as well the child who had been brought up by crazy Butch Bowers on a good farm that had gone to shitshack shambles over the years. Dont you say that! It would have killed me, too! It didnt kill us. Henrys eyes gleamed with rancid humor. Not yet. But It will. Less I dont leave any of you for It to get. He pulled his hand out of his pocket. In it was a slim nineinchlong instrument with imitationivory inlays along its sides. A small chromium button glittered at one end of this dubious objet dart. Henry pushed it. A sixinch steel blade popped out of the slit at the end of the handle. He bounced the switchblade on his palm and began to walk toward the checkout desk a little faster. Look what I found, he said. I knew where to look. Obscenely, one redrimmed eyelid drooped in a wink. The man in the moon told me. Henry revealed his teeth again. Hid today. Hitchhiked a ride tonight. Old man. Hit him. Killed him, I think. Ditched the car over in Newport. Just over the Derry town line, I heard that voice. I looked in a drain. There was these clothes. And the knife. My old knife. Youre forgetting something, Henry. Henry, grinning, only shook his head. We got away and you got away. If It wants us, It wants you, too. No. I think yes. Maybe you yoyos did Its work, but It didnt exactly play favorites, did It? It got both of your friends, and while Belch was fighting It, you got away. But now youre back. I think youre part of Its unfinished business, Henry. I really do. No! Maybe Frankensteins what youll see. Or the Werewolf? A Vampire? The Clown? Or, Henry! Maybe youll really see what It looks like, Henry. We did. Want me to tell you? Want me to You shut up! Henry screamed, and launched himself at Mike. Mike stepped aside and stuck out one foot. Henry tripped over it and went skidding over the footworn tiles like a shuffleboard weight. His head struck a leg of the table where the Losers had sat earlier that night, telling their tales. For a moment he was stunned; the knife hung loose in his hand. Mike went after him, went after the knife. In that moment he could have finished Henry; it would have been possible to plant the JESUS SAVES letteropener which had come in the mail from his mothers old church in the back of Henrys neck and then called the police. There would have been a certain amount of official nonsense, but not too much of itnot in Derry, where such weird and violent events were not entirely exceptional. What stopped him was a realization, almost too lightninglike to be conscious, that if he killed Henry he would be doing Its work as surely as Henry would be doing Its work by killing Mike. And something else that other look he had seen on Henrys face, the tired bewildered look of the badly used child who has been set on a poisonous path for some unknown purpose. Henry had grown up within the contaminated radius of Butch Bowerss mind; surely he had belonged to It even before he suspected It existed. So instead of planting the letteropener in Henrys vulnerable neck, he dropped to his knees and snatched at the knife. It twisted in his handseemingly of its own volitionand his fingers closed on the blade. There was no immediate pain; only red blood flowing down the first three fingers of his right hand and into his scarred palm. He pulled back. Henry rolled away and grabbed the knife again. Mike got to his knees and the two of them faced each other that way, each bleeding Mikes fingers, Henrys nose. Henry shook his head and droplets flew away into the darkness. Thought you were so smart! he cried hoarsely. Fucking sissies is all you were! We could have beat you in a fair fight! Put the knife down, Henry, Mike said quietly. Ill call the police. Theyll come and get you and take you back to Juniper Hill. Youll be out of Derry. Youll be safe. Henry tried to talk and couldnt. He couldnt tell this hateful jig that he wouldnt be safe in Juniper Hill, or Los Angeles, or the rainforests of Timbuktu. Sooner or later the moon would rise, bonewhite and snowcold, and the ghostvoices would start, and the face of the moon would change into Its face, babbling and laughing and ordering. He swallowed slickslimy blood. You never fought fair! Did you? Mike asked. You niggerboogienightfighterjunglebunnyapemancoon! Henry screamed, and leaped at Mike again. Mike leaned back to avoid his blundering, awkward rush, overbalanced, and went sprawling on his back. Henry struck the table again, rebounded, turned, and clutched Mikes arm. Mike swept the letteropener around and felt it go deep into Henrys forearm. Henry screamed, but instead of letting go, he tightened his grip. He pulled himself toward Mike, his hair in his eyes, blood flowing from his ruptured nose over his thick lips. Mike tried to get a foot in Henrys side and push him away. Henry swung the switchblade in a glittering arc. All six inches of it went into Mikes thigh. It went in effortlessly, as if into a warm cake of butter. Henry pulled it out, dripping, and with a scream of combined pain and effort, Mike shoved him away. He struggled to his feet but Henry was up more quickly, and Mike was barely able to avoid Henrys next blundering rush. He could feel blood pouring down his leg in an alarming flood, filling his loafer. He got my femoral artery, I think. Jesus, he got me bad. Blood everywhere. Blood on the floor. Shoes wont be any good, shit, just bought em two months ago Henry came again, panting and puffing like a bull in heat. Mike staggered aside and swept the letteropener at him again. It tore through Henrys ragged shirt and pulled a deep cut across his ribs. Henry grunted as Mike shoved him away again. You dirtyfighting nigger! He wailed. Look what you done! Drop the knife, Henry, Mike said. There was a titter from behind them. Henry looked ... and then screamed in utter horror, clapping his hands to his cheeks like an offended old maid. Mikes gaze jerked toward the circulation desk. There was a loud, vibrating kaspanggg! sound, and Stan Uriss head popped up from behind the desk. A spring corkscrewed up and into his severed, dripping neck. His face was livid with greasepaint. There was a feverspot of rouge on each cheek. Great orange pompoms flowered where the eyes had been. This grotesque Staninthebox head nodded back and forth at the end of its spring like one of the giant sunflowers beside the house on Neibolt Street. Its mouth opened and a squealing, laughing voice began to chant Kill him, Henry! Kill the nigger, kill the coon, kill him, kill him, KILL HIM! Mike wheeled back toward Henry, dismally aware that he had been tricked, wondering faintly whose head Henry had seen at the end of that spring. Stans? Victor Crisss? His fathers, perhaps? Henry shrieked and rushed at Mike, the switchblade plunging up and down like the needle of a sewing machine. Gaaaah, nigger! Henry was screaming. Gaaaah, nigger! Gaaaah, nigger! Mike backpedaled, and the leg Henry had stabbed buckled under him almost at once, spilling him to the floor. There was hardly any feeling at all left in that leg. It felt cold and distant. Looking down, he saw that his creamcolored slacks were now bright red. Henrys blade flashed by in front of his nose. Mike stabbed out with the JESUS SAVES letteropener as Henry turned back for another go. Henry ran into it like a bug onto a pin. Warm blood doused Mikes hand. There was a snap, and when he drew his hand back, he only had the haft of the letteropener. The rest was sticking out of Henrys stomach. Gaaah! Nigger! Henry screamed, clapping a hand over the protruding jag of blade. Blood poured through his fingers. He looked at it with bulging, unbelieving eyes. The head at the end of the creaking, dipping jackinthebox squealed and laughed. Mike, feeling sick and dizzy now, looked back at it and saw Belch Hugginss head, a human champagne cork wearing a New York Yankees baseball cap turned backward. He groaned aloud, and the sound was far away, echoey in his own ears. He was aware that he was sitting in a pool of warm blood. If I dont get a tourniquet on my leg, Im going to die. Gaaaaaaaaaah! Neeeeeeegaaaa! Henry screamed. Still holding his bleeding belly with one hand and the switchblade with the other, he staggered away from Mike and toward the library doors. He wove drunkenly from side to side, progressing across the echoing main room like a pinball in an electronic game. He struck one of the easy chairs and knocked it over. His groping hand spilled a rack of newspapers onto the floor. He reached the doors, straightarmed one of them, and plunged out into the night. Mikes consciousness was fading now. He worked at the buckle of his belt with fingers he could barely feel. At last he got it unhooked and managed to pull it free of its loops. He put it around his bleeding leg just below the groin and cinched it tight. Holding it with one hand, he began to crawl toward the circulation desk. The phone was there. He wasnt sure how he was going to reach it, but for now that didnt matter. The trick was just to get there. The world wavered, blurred, grew faint behind waves of gray. He stuck his tongue out and bit down on it savagely. The pain was immediate and exquisite. The world swam back into focus. He became aware that he was still holding the ragged haft of the letteropener, and he tossed it away. Here, at last, was the circulation desk, looking as tall as Everest. Mike got his good leg under him and pushed himself up, clutching at the edge of the desk with the hand that wasnt holding the belt tight. His mouth was drawn down in a trembling grimace, his eyes slitted. At last he managed to get all the way up. He stood there, storklike, and hooked the phone over to him. Taped to the side were three numbers fire, police, and hospital. With one shaking finger that looked at least ten miles away, Mike dialed the hospital 5553711. He closed his eyes as the phone began to ring ... and then they opened wide as the voice of Pennywise the Clown answered. Howdy nigger! Pennywise cried, and then screamed laughter as sharp as broken glass into Mikes ear. What do you say? How you doon? I think youre dead, what do you think? I think Henry did the job on you! Want a balloon, Mikey? Want a balloon? How you doon? Hello there! Mikes eyes turned up to the face of the grandfather clock, the Mueller clock, and saw with no surprise at all that its face had been replaced by his fathers face, gray and raddled with cancer. The eyes were turned up to show only bulging whites. Suddenly his father popped his tongue out and the clock began to strike. Mike lost his grip on the circulation desk. He swayed for a moment on his good leg and then he fell down again. The phone swung before him at the end of its cord like a mesmerists amulet. It was becoming very hard to hold onto the belt now. Hello dere, Amos! Pennywise cried brightly from the swinging telephone handset. Dis heres de Kingfish! I is de Kingfish in Derry, anyhow, and dats de troof. Wouldnt you say so, boy? If theres anyone there, Mike croaked, a real voice behind the one I am hearing, please help me. My name is Michael Hanlon and Im at the Derry Public Library. I am bleeding to death. If youre there, I cant hear you. Im not being allowed to hear you. If youre there, please hurry. He lay on his side, drawing his legs up until he was in a fetal position. He took two turns around his right hand with the belt and concentrated on holding it as the world drifted away in those cottony, balloonlike clouds of gray. Hello dere, howyadoon? Pennywise screamed from the dangling, swinging phone. Howyadoon, you dirty coon? Hello 4 Kansas Street l 1220 P.M. ... there, Henry Bowers said. Howyadoon, you little cunt? Beverly reacted instantly, turning to run. It was a quicker reaction than any of them had expected. She might actually have gotten a running start ... but for her hair. Henry snatched, caught part of its long flow, and pulled her back. He grinned into her face. His breath was thick and warm and stinking. Howyadoon? Henry Bowers asked her. Where ya goin? Back to play with your asshole friends some more? I think Ill cut off your nose and make you eat it. You like that? She struggled to get free. Henry laughed and shook her head back and forth by the hair. The knife flashed dangerously in the hazy August sunshine. Abruptly a carhorn honkeda long blast. Here! Here! What are you boys doing? Let that girl go! It was an old lady behind the wheel of a wellpreserved 1950 Ford. She had pulled up to the curb and was leaning across the blanketcovered seat to peer out the passengerside window. At the sight of her angry honest face, the dazed look left Victor Crisss eyes for the first time and he looked nervously at Henry. What Please! Bev cried shrilly. Hes got a knife! A knife! The old ladys anger now became concern, surprise, and fear as well. What are you boys doing? Let her alone! Across the streetBev saw this quite clearlyHerbert Ross got out of the lawnchair on his porch, approached the porch rail, and looked over. His face was as blank as Belch Hugginss. He folded his paper, turned, and went quietly into the house. Let her be! the old lady cried shrilly. Henry bared his teeth and suddenly ran at her car, dragging Beverly after him by the hair. She stumbled, went to one knee, was dragged. The pain in her scalp was excruciating, monstrous. She felt some of her hair rip out. The old lady screamed and cranked the passengerside window frantically. Henry stabbed down and the switchblade skated across glass. The womans foot came off the old Fords clutchpedal and it went down Kansas Street in three big jerks, bouncing up over the curb, where it stalled. Henry went after it, still pulling Beverly along. Victor licked his lips and looked around. Belch pushed the New York Yankees baseball cap he was wearing up on his forehead and then dug at his ear in a puzzled gesture. Bev saw the old womans white frightened face for one moment and then saw her pawing at the doorlocks, first on the passenger side, then on her own. The Fords engine ground and caught. Henry lifted one booted foot and kicked out a taillight. Get outta here, you driedup old bitch! The tires screamed as the old lady pulled back out in the street. An oncoming pickup truck swerved to avoid her; its horn blatted. Henry turned back toward Bev, beginning to smile again, and she hiked one sneakered foot directly into his balls. The smile on Henrys face turned into a grimace of agony. The switchknife dropped from his hand and clattered onto the sidewalk. His other hand left its nestingplace in the tangle of her hair (pulling once more, terribly, as it went) and then he sank to his knees, trying to scream, holding his crotch. She could see strands of her own coppery hair in one of his hands, and in that instant all of her terror turned to bright hate. She drew in a great, hitching breath and hocked a remarkably large looey onto the top of his head. Then she turned and ran. Belch lumbered three steps after her and stopped. He and Victor went to Henry, who threw them aside and staggered to his feet, both hands still cupping his balls; it was not the first time that summer that he had been kicked there. He leaned over and picked up the switchblade. ... on, he wheezed. What, Henry? Belch said anxiously. Henry turned a face toward him that was so full of sweating pain and sick, blazing hate that Belch fell back a step. I said ... come ... on! he managed, and began to stagger and lurch up the street after Beverly, holding his crotch. We cant catch her now, Henry, Victor said uneasily. Hell, you can hardly walk. Well catch her, Henry panted. His upper lip was rising and falling in an unconscious doglike sneer. Beads of sweat stood out on his forehead and ran down his hectic cheeks. Well catch her, all right. Because I know where shes going. Shes going down into the Barrens to be with her asshole 5 The Derry Town House200 A.M. friends, Beverly said. Hmmm? Bill looked at her. His thoughts had been far away. They had been walking handinhand, the silence between them companionable, and slightly charged with mutual attraction. He had caught only the last word of what she had said. A block ahead, the lights of the Town House shone through the low groundfog. I said, you were my best friends. The only friends I ever had back then. She smiled. Making friends has never been my strong suit, I guess, although Ive got a good one back in Chicago. A woman named Kay McCall. I think youd like her, Bill. Probably would. Ive never been real fast to make friends myself. He smiled. Back then, we were all we nuhnuhneeded. He saw beads of moisture in her hair, appreciated the way the lights made a nimbus around her head. Her eyes were turned gravely up to his. I need something now, she said. WWhats that? I need you to kiss me, she said. He thought of Audra, and for the first time it occurred to him that she looked like Beverly. He wondered if maybe that had been the attraction all along, the reason he had been able to find guts enough to ask Audra out near the end of the Hollywood party where they had met. He felt a pang of unhappy guilt ... and then he took Beverly, his childhood friend, in his arms. Her kiss was firm and warm and sweet. Her breasts pushed against his open coat and her hips moved against him ... away ... and then against him again. When her hips moved away a second time, he plunged both of his hands into her hair and moved against her. When she felt him growing hard, she uttered a little gasp and put her face against the side of his neck. He felt her tears on his skin, warm and secret. Come on, she said. Quick. He took her hand and they walked the rest of the way to the Town House. The lobby was old, festooned with plants, and still possessed of a certain fading charm. The decor was very much Nineteenth Century Lumberman. It was deserted at this hour except for the desk clerk, who could be dimly seen in the inner office, his feet cocked up on the desk, watching TV. Bill pushed the thirdfloor button with a finger that trembled just slightlyexcitement? nervousness? guilt? all of the above? Oh yeah, sure, and a kind of almost insane joy and fear as well. These feelings did not mix pleasantly, but they seemed necessary. He led her down the hallway toward his room, deciding in some confused way that if he were to be unfaithful, it should be a complete act of infidelity, consummated in his place and not hers. He found himself thinking of Susan Browne, his first bookagent and, when he was not quite twenty, his first lover. Cheating. Cheating on my wife. He tried to get this through his head, but it seemed both real and unreal at the same time. What seemed strongest was an unhappy sense of homesickness an oldfashioned feeling of falling away. Audra would be up by now, making coffee, sitting at the kitchen table in her robe, perhaps studying lines, perhaps reading a Dick Francis novel. His key rattled in the lock of room 311. If they had gone to Beverlys room on the fifth floor, they would have seen the messagelight on her phone blinking; the TVwatching desk clerk would have given her a message to call her friend Kay in Chicago (after Kays third frantic call, he had finally remembered to post the message), things might have taken a different course the five of them might not have been fugitives from the Derry police when that days light finally broke. But they went to hisas things had perhaps been arranged. The door opened. They were inside. She looked at him, eyes bright, cheeks flushed, her breast rising and falling rapidly. He took her in his arms and was overwhelmed by the feeling of rightnessthe feeling of the circle between past and present closing with a triumphant seamlessness. He kicked the door shut clumsily with one foot and she laughed her warm breath into his mouth. My heart she said, and put his hand on her left breast. He could feel it below that firm, almost maddening softness, racing like an engine. Your hhheart My heart. They were on the bed, still dressed, kissing. Her hand slipped inside his shirt, then out again. She traced a finger down the row of buttons, paused at his waist ... and then that same finger slipped lower, tracing down the stony thickness of his cock. Muscles he hadnt been aware of jumped and fluttered in his groin. He broke the kiss and moved his body away from hers on the bed. Bill? Got to stuhstuhstop for a mmminute, he said. Or else Im going to shoot in my pppants like a kkid. She laughed again, softly, and looked at him. Is it that? Or are you having second thoughts? Second thoughts, Bill said. I aaalways have those. I dont. I hate him, she said. He looked at her, the smile fading. I didnt know it all the way to the top of my mind until two nights ago, she said. Oh, I knew itsomewhereall along, I guess. He hits and he hurts. I married him because ... because my father always worried about me, I guess. No matter how hard I tried, he worried. And I guess I knew hed approve of Tom. Because Tom always worried, too. He worried a lot. And as long as someone was worrying about me, Id be safe. More than safe. Real. She looked at him solemnly. Her blouse had pulled out of the waistband of her slacks, revealing a white stripe of stomach. He wanted to kiss it. But it wasnt real. It was a nightmare. Being married to Tom was like going back into the nightmare. Why would a person do that, Bill? Why would a person go back into the nightmare of her own accord? Bill said, The ooonly reason I can ffigure is that ppeople go back to fffind themssselves. The nightmares here, Bev said. The nightmare is Derry. Tom looks small compared to that. I can see him better now. I loathe myself for the years I spent with him.... You dont know ... the things he made me do, and oh, I was happy enough to do them, you know, because he worried about me. Id cry ... but sometimes theres too much shame. You know? Dont, he said quietly, and put his hand over hers. She held it tightly. Her eyes were overbright, but the tears didnt fall. Everybody gggoofs it. But its not an ehehexam. You just go through it the bbbest you can. What I mean, she said, is that Im not cheating on Tom, or trying to use you to get my own back on him, or anything like that. For me, it would be like something ... sane and normal and sweet. But I dont want to hurt you, Bill. Or trick you into something youll be sorry for later. He thought about this, thought about it with a real and deep seriousness. But the odd little mnemoniche thrusts his fists, and so onbegan to circle back, breaking into his thoughts. It had been a long day. Mikes call and the invitation to lunch at Jade of the Orient seemed a hundred years ago. So many stories since then. So many memories, like photographs from Georges album. Friends dont tttrick each oother, he said, and leaned toward her on the bed. Their lips touched and he began to unbutton her blouse. One of her hands went to the back of his neck and held him closer while the other first unzipped her slacks and then pushed them down. For a moment his hand was on her stomach, warm; then her panties were gone in a whisper; then he nudged and she guided. As he entered her, she arched her back gently toward the thrust of his sex and muttered, Be my friend ... I love you, Bill. I love you too, he said, smiling against her bare shoulder. They began slowly and he felt sweat begin to flow out of his skin as she quickened beneath him. His consciousness began to drain downward, becoming focused more and more strongly on their connection. Her pores had opened, releasing a lovely musky odor. Beverly felt her climax coming. She moved toward it, working for it, never doubting it would come. Her body suddenly stuttered and seemed to leap upward, not orgasming but reaching a plateau far above any she had reached with Tom or the two lovers she had had before Tom. She became aware that this wasnt going to be just a come; it was going to be a tactical nuke. She became a little afraid ... but her body picked up the rhythm again. She felt Bills long length stiffen against her, his whole body suddenly becoming as hard as the part of him inside herself, and at that same moment she climaxedbegan to climax; pleasure so great it was nearly agony spilled out of unsuspected floodgates, and she bit down on his shoulder to stifle her cries. Oh my God, Bill gasped, and although she was never sure later, she believed he was crying. He pulled back and she thought he was going to withdraw from hershe tried to prepare for that moment, which always brought a fleeting, inexplicable sense of loss and emptiness, something like a footprintand then he thrust forward strongly again. Right away she had a second orgasm, something she hadnt known was possible for her, and the window of memory opened again and she saw birds, thousands of birds, descending onto every roofpeak and telephone line and RFD mailbox in Derry, spring birds against a white April sky, and there was pain mixed with pleasurebut mostly it was low, as a white spring sky seems low. Low physical pain mixed with low physical pleasure and some crazy sense of affirmation. She had bled ... she had ... had ... All of you? she cried suddenly, her eyes widening, stunned. He did pull back and out of her this time, but in the sudden shock of the revelation, she barely felt him go. What? Beverly? AAre you all r All of you? I made love to all of you? She saw shocked surprise on Bills face, the drop of his jaw ... and sudden understanding. But it was not her revelation; even in her own shock she saw that. It was his own. We Bill? What is it? That was yyyour way to get us oout, he said, and now his eyes blazed so brightly they frightened her. Beverly, duhduhdont you uhunderstand? That was yyyour way to get us out! We all ... but we were ... Suddenly he looked frightened, unsure. Do you remember the rest now? she asked. He shook his head slowly. Not the spuhspuhspecifics. But ... He looked at her, and she saw he was badly frightened. What it really cccame down to was, we wuhwuhwished our way out. And Im not shsure ... Beverly, Im not sure that grownups can do that. She looked at him without speaking for a long moment, then sat on the edge of the bed with no particular selfconsciousness. Her body was smooth and lovely, the line of her backbone barely discernible in the dimness as she bent to take off the kneehigh nylon stockings she had been wearing. Her hair was a sheaf coiled over one shoulder. He thought he would want her again before morning, and that feeling of guilt came again, tempered only by the shameful comfort of knowing that Audra was an ocean away. Put another nickel in the jukebox, he thought. This tune is called What She Dont Know Wont Hurt Her. But it hurts somewhere. In the spaces between people, maybe. Beverly got up and turned the bed down. Come to bed. We need sleep. Both of us. AAAll right. Because that was right, that was a big tenfour. More than anything else he wanted to sleep .. but not alone, not tonight. The latest shock was wearing offtoo quickly, perhaps, but he felt so tired now, so usedup. Secondtosecond reality had the quality of a dream, and in spite of his guilt he felt that this was a safe place. It would be possible to lie here for a little while, to sleep in her arms. He wanted her warmth and her friendliness. Both were sexually charged, but that could hurt neither of them now. He stripped off his socks and shirt and got in next to her. She pressed against him, her breasts warm, her long legs cool. Bill held her, aware of the differencesher body was longer than Audras, and fuller at the breast and the hip. But it was a welcome body. It should have been Ben with you, dear, he thought drowsily. I think that was the way it was really supposed to be. Why wasnt it Ben? Because it was you then and its you now, thats all. |
Because what goes around always comes around. I think Bob Dylan said that... or maybe it was Ronald Reagan. And maybe its me now because Bens the one whos supposed to see the lady home. Beverly wriggled against him, not in a sexual way (although, even as he fled toward sleep, she felt him stir again against her leg and was glad), but only wanting his warmth. She was already halfasleep herself. Her happiness here with him, after all these years, was real. She knew that because of its bitter undertaste. There was tonight, and perhaps there would be another time for them tomorrow morning. Then they would go down in the sewers as they had before, and they would find their It. The circle would close ever tighter, their present lives would merge smoothly with their own childhoods; they would become like creatures on some crazy Moebius strip. Either that, or they would die down there. She turned over. He slipped an arm between her side and her arm and cupped one breast gently. She did not have to lie awake, wondering if the hand might suddenly clamp down in a hard pinch. Her thoughts began to break up as sleep slid into her. As always, she saw brilliant wildflower patterns as she crossed overmasses and masses of them nodding brightly under a blue sky. These faded and there was a falling sensationthe sort of sensation that had sometimes snapped her awake and sweating as a child, a scream on the other side of her face. Childhood dreams of falling, she had read in her college psychology text, were common. But she didnt snap back this time; she could feel the warm and comforting weight of Bills arm, his hand cradling her breast. She thought that if she was falling, at least she wasnt falling alone. Then she touched down and was running this dream, whatever it was, moved fast. She ran after it, pursuing sleep, silence, maybe just time. The years moved fast. The years ran. If you turned around and ran after your own childhood, you had to really let out your stride and bust your buns. Twentynine, the year she had streaked her hair (faster). Twentytwo, the year she had fallen in love with a football player named Greg Mallory who had damn near raped her after a fraternity party (faster, faster). Sixteen, getting drunk with two of her girlfriends on the Bluebird Hill Overlook in Portland. Fourteen ... twelve ... ... faster, faster, faster ... She ran into sleep, chasing twelve, catching it, running through the barrier of memory that It had cast over all of them (it tasted like cold fog in her laboring dreamlungs), running back into her eleventh year, running, running like hell, running to beat the devil, looking back now, looking back 6 The Barrens1240 P.M. over her shoulder for any sign of them as she slipped and scrambled her way down the embankment. No sign, at least not yet. She had really fetched it to him, as her father sometimes said ... and just thinking of her father brought another wave of guilt and despondency washing over her. She looked under the rickety bridge, hoping to see Silver heeled over on his side, but Silver was gone. There was a cache of toy guns which they no longer bothered to take home, and that was all. She started down the path, looked back ... and there they were, Belch and Victor supporting Henry between them, standing on the edge of the embankment like Indian sentries in a Randolph Scott movie. Henry was horribly pale. He pointed at her. Victor and Belch began to help him down the slope. Dirt and gravel spilled from beneath their heels. Beverly looked at them for a long moment, almost hypnotized. Then she turned and sprinted through the trickle of brookwater that ran out from under the bridge, ignoring Bens steppingstones, her sneakers spraying out flat sheets of water. She ran down the path, the breath hot in her throat. She could feel the muscles in her legs trembling. She didnt have much left now. The clubhouse. If she could get there, she might still be safe. She ran along the path, branches whipping even more color into her cheeks, one striking her eye and making it water. She cut to the right, blundered through tangles of underbrush, and came out into the clearing. Both the camouflaged trapdoor and the slit window stood open; rock n roll drifted up. At the sound of her approach, Ben Hanscom popped up. He had a box of Junior Mints in one hand and an Archie comic book in the other. He got a good look at Bev and his mouth fell open. Under other circumstances it would have been almost funny. Bev, what the hell She didnt bother replying. Behind her, and not too far behind, either, she could hear branches snapping and whipping; there was a muffled shouted curse. It sounded as if Henry was getting livelier. So she just ran at the square trapdoor opening, her hair, tangled now with green leaves and twigs as well as the crud from her scramble under the garbage truck, streaming out behind her. Ben saw she was coming in like the 101st Airborne and disappeared as quickly as he had come out. Beverly jumped and he caught her clumsily. Shut everything, she panted. Hurry up, Ben, for heavens sake! Theyre coming! Who? Henry and his friends! Henrys gone crazy, hes got a knife That was enough for Ben. He dropped his Junior Mints and funnybook. He pulled the trapdoor shut with a grunt. The top was covered with sods; the TangleTrack was still holding them remarkably well. A few blocks of sod had gotten loose, but that was all. Beverly stood on tiptoe and closed the window. They were in darkness. She felt for Ben, found him, and hugged him with panicky tightness. After a moment he hugged her back. They were both on their knees. With sudden horror Beverly realized that Richies transistor radio was still playing somewhere in the blackness Little Richard singing The Girl Cant Help It. Ben ... the radio ... theyll hear ... Oh God! He bunted her with one meaty hip and almost knocked her sprawling in the dark. She heard the radio fall to the floor. The girl cant help it if the menfolks stop and stare, Little Richard informed them with his customary hoarse enthusiasm. Cant help it! the backup group testified, The girl cant help it! Ben was panting now, too. They sounded like a couple of steamengines. Suddenly there was a crunch ... and silence. Oh shit, Ben said. I just squashed it. Richies gonna have a bird. He reached for her in the dark. She felt his hand touch one of her breasts, then jerk away, as if burned. She groped for him, got hold of his shirt, and drew him close. Beverly, what Shhh! He quieted. They sat together, arms around each other, looking up. The darkness was not quite perfect; there was a narrow line of light down one side of the trapdoor, and three others outlined the slit window. One of these three was wide enough to let a slanted ray of sunlight fall into the clubhouse. She could only pray they wouldnt see it. She could hear them approaching. At first she couldnt make out the words ... and then she could. Her grip on Ben tightened. If she went into the bamboo, we can pick up her trail easy, Victor was saying. They play around here, Henry replied. His voice was strained, his words emerging in little puffs, as if with great effort. Boogers Taliendo said so. And the day we had that rockfight, they were coming from here. Yeah, they play guns and stuff, Belch said. Suddenly there were thudding footfalls right above them; the sodcovered cap vibrated up and down. Dirt sifted onto Beverlys upturned face. One, two, maybe even all three of them were standing on top of the clubhouse. A cramp laced her belly; she had to bite down against a cry. Ben put one big hand on the side of her face and pressed it against his arm as he looked up, waiting to see if they would guess ... or if they knew already and were just playing games. They got a place, Henry was saying. Thats what Boogers told me. Some kind of a treehouse or something. They call it their club. Ill club em, if they want a club, Victor said. Belch uttered a thunderous heehaw of laughter at this. Thump, thump, thump, overhead. The cap moved up and down a little more this time. Surely they would notice it; ordinary ground just didnt have that kind of give. Lets look down by the river, Henry said. I bet shes down there. Okay, Victor said. Thump, thump. They were moving off. Bev let a little sigh of relief trickle through her clamped teeth ... and then Henry said You stay here and guard the path, Belch. Okay, Belch said, and he began to march back and forth, sometimes leaving the cap, sometimes coming back across it. More dirt sifted down. Ben and Beverly looked at each other with strained, dirty faces. Bev became aware that there was more than the smell of smoke in the clubhousea sweaty, garbagey stink was rising as well. Thats me, she thought dismally. In spite of the smell, she hugged Ben even tighter. His bulk seemed suddenly very welcome, very comforting, and she was glad there was a lot of him to hug. He might have been nothing but a frightened fatboy when school let out for the summer, but he was more than that now; like all of them, he had changed. If Belch discovered them down here, Ben just might give him a surprise. Ill club em if they want a club, Belch said, and chuckled. A Belch Huggins chuckle was a low, trolllike sound. Club em if they want a club. Thats good. Thats pretty much okeydokey. She became aware that Bens upper body was heaving up and down in short, sharp movements; he was pulling air into his lungs and letting it out in little bursts. For one alarmed moment she thought he was starting to cry, and then she got a closer look at his face and realized he was struggling against laughter. His eyes, leaking tears, caught hers, rolled madly, and looked away. In the faint light which struggled in through the cracks around the closed trapdoor and the window, she could see his face was nearly purple with the strain of holding it in. Club em if they want an ole clubbydubby, Belch said, and sat down heavily right in the center of the cap. This time the roof trembled more alarmingly, and Bev heard a low but ominous crrrack from one of the supports. The cap had been meant to support the chunks of camouflaging sod laid on top of it ... but not the added one hundred and sixty pounds of Belch Hugginss weight. If he doesnt get up hes going to land in our laps, Bev thought, and she began to catch Bens hysteria. It was trying to boil out of her in rancid whoops and brays. In her minds eye she suddenly saw herself pushing the window up enough on its hinges for her hand to creep out and administer a really good goose to Belch Hugginss backside as he sat there in the hazy afternoon sunshine, muttering and giggling. She buried her face against Bens chest in a lastditch effort to keep it inside. Shhh, Ben whispered. For Christs sake, Bev Crrrrackk. Louder this time. Will it hold? she whispered back. It might, if he doesnt fart, Ben said, and a moment later Belch did cut onea loud and fruity trumpetblast that seemed to go on for at least three seconds. They held each other even tighter, muffling each others frantic giggles. Beverlys head hurt so badly that she thought she might soon have a stroke. Then, faintly, she heard Henry yelling Belchs name. What? Belch bellowed, getting up with a thump and a thud that sifted more dirt down on Ben and Beverly. What, Henry? Henry yelled something back; Beverly could only make out the words bank and bushes. Okay! Belch bawled, and his feet crossed the cap for the last time. There was a final cracking noise, this one much louder, and a splinter of wood landed in Bevs lap. She picked it up wonderingly. Five more minutes, Ben said in a low whisper. Thats all it would have taken. Did you hear him when he let go? Beverly asked, beginning to giggle again. Sounded like World War III, Ben said, also beginning to laugh. It was a relief to be able to let it out, and they laughed wildly, trying to do it in whispers. Finally, unaware she was going to say it at all (and certainly not because it had any discernible bearing on this situation), Beverly said Thank you for the poem, Ben. Ben stopped laughing all at once and regarded her gravely, cautiously. He took a dirty handkerchief from his back pocket and wiped his face with it slowly. Poem? The haiku. The haiku on the postcard. You sent it, didnt you? No, Ben said. I didnt send you any haiku. Cause if a kid like mea fat kid like medid something like that, the girl would probably laugh at him. I didnt laugh. I thought it was beautiful. I could never write anything beautiful. Bill, maybe. Not me. Bill will write, she agreed. But hell never write anything as nice as that. May I use your handkerchief? He gave it to her and she began to clean her face as best she could. How did you know it was me? he asked finally. I dont know, she said. I just did. Bens throat worked convulsively. He looked down at his hands. I didnt mean anything by it. She looked at him gravely. You better not mean that, she said. If you do, its really going to spoil my day, and Ill tell you, its going downhill already. He continued to look down at his hands and spoke at last in a voice she could barely hear. Well, I mean I love you, Beverly, but I dont want that to spoil anything. It wont, she said, and hugged him. I need all the love I can get right now. But you specially like Bill. Maybe I do, she said, but that doesnt matter. If we were grownups, maybe it would, a little. But I like you all specially. Youre the only friends I have. I love you too, Ben. Thank you, he said. He paused, trying, and brought it out. He was even able to look at her as he said it. I wrote the poem. They sat without saying anything for a little while. Beverly felt safe. Protected. The images of her fathers face and Henrys knife seemed less vivid and threatening when they sat close like this. That sense of protection was hard to define and she didnt try, although much later she would recognize the source of its strength she was in the arms of a male who would die for her with no hesitation at all. It was a fact that she simply knew it was in the scent that came from his pores, something utterly primitive that her own glands could respond to. The others were coming back, Ben said suddenly. What if they get caught out? She straightened up, aware that she had almost been dozing. Bill, she remembered, had invited Mike Hanlon home to lunch with him. Richie was going to go home with Stan and have sandwiches. And Eddie had promised to bring back his Parcheesi board. They would be arriving soon, totally unaware that Henry and his friends were in the Barrens. Weve got to get to them, Beverly said. Henrys not just after me. If we come out and they come back Yes, but at least we know theyre here. Bill and the other guys dont. Eddie cant even run, they already broke his arm. Jeezumcrow, Ben said. I guess well have to chance it. Yeah. She swallowed and looked at her Timex. It was hard to read in the dimness, but she thought it was a little past one. Ben... What? Henrys really gone crazy. Hes like that kid in The Blackboard Jungle. He was going to kill me and the other two were going to help him. Aw, no, Ben said. Henrys crazy, but not that crazy. Hes just ... Just what? Beverly said. She thought of Henry and Patrick in the automobile graveyard in the thick sunshine. Henrys blank eyes. Ben didnt answer. He was thinking. Things had changed, hadnt they? When you were inside the changes, they were harder to see. You had to step back to see them ... you had to try, anyway. When school let out hed been afraid of Henry, but only because Henry was bigger, and because he was a bullythe kind of kid who would grab a firstgrader, Indianrub his arm, and send him away crying. That was about all. Then he had engraved Bens belly. Then there had been the rockfight, and Henry had been chucking M80s at peoples heads. You could kill somebody with one of those things. You could kill somebody easy. He had started to look different ... haunted, almost. It seemed that you always had to be on watch for him, the way youd always have to be on watch for tigers or poisonous snakes if you were in the jungle. But you got used to it; so used to it that it didnt even seem unusual, just the way things were. But Henry was crazy, wasnt he? Yes. Ben had known that on the day school ended, and had willfully refused to believe it, or remember it. It wasnt the kind of thing you wanted to believe or remember. And suddenly a thoughta thought so strong it was almost a certaintycrept into his mind fullblown, as cold as October mud. Its using Henry. Maybe the others too, but Its using them through Henry. And if thats the truth, then shes probably right. Its not just Indian rubs or rabbitpunches in the back of the neck during studytime near the end of the schoolday while Mrs. Douglas reads her book at her desk, not just a push on the playground so that you fall down and skin your knee. If Its using him, then Henry will use the knife. An old lady saw them trying to beat me up, Beverly was saying. Henry went after her. He kicked her taillight out. This alarmed Ben more than anything else. He understood instinctively, as most kids did, that they lived below the sightlines, and hence the thoughtlines, of most adults. When a grownup was dittybopping down the street, thinking his grownup thoughts about work and appointments and buying cars and whatever else grownups thought about, he never noticed kids playing hopscotch or guns or kickthecan or ringalevio or hideandgoseek. Bullies like Henry could get away with hurting other kids quite a lot if they were careful to stay below that sightline. At the very most, a passing adult was apt to say something like Why dont you quit that? and then just continue dittybopping along without waiting to see if the bully stopped or not. So the bully would wait until the grownup had turned the corner ... and then go back to business as usual. It was like adults thought that real life only started when a person was five feet tall. If Henry had gone after some old lady, he had gone above that sightline. And that more than anything else suggested to Ben that he really was crazy. Beverly saw the belief in Bens face and felt relief sweep over her. She would not have to tell him about how Mr. Ross had simply folded his paper and walked into his house. She didnt want to tell him about that. It was too scary. Lets go up to Kansas Street, Ben said, and abruptly pushed open the trapdoor. Get ready to run. He stood up in the opening and looked around. The clearing was silent. He could hear the chuckling voice of the Kenduskeag close by, birdsong, the thumthudthumthud of a diesel engine snorting its way into the trainyards. He heard nothing else and that made him uneasy. He would have felt much better if hed heard Henry, Victor, and Belch cursing their way through the heavy undergrowth down by the stream. But he couldnt hear them at all. Come on, he said, and helped Beverly up. She also looked around uneasily, brushing her hair back with her hands and grimacing at its greasy feel. He took her hand and they pushed through a screen of bushes toward Kansas Street. Wed better stay off the path. No, she said, weve got to hurry. He nodded. All right. They got to the path and started toward Kansas Street. Once she stumbled over a rock in the path and 7 The Seminary Grounds1217 A.M. fell heavily on the moonsilvered sidewalk. A grunt was forced out of him, and a runner of blood came with the grunt, splatting onto the cracked concrete. In the moonlight it looked as black as beetleblood. Henry looked at it for a long dazed moment, then raised his head to look around. Kansas Street was earlymorning silent, the houses shut up and dark except for a scatter of nightlights. Ah. Here was a sewergrate. A balloon with a smileysmile face was tied to one of its iron bars. The balloon bobbed and dipped in the faint breeze. Henry got to his feet again, one sticky hand pressed to his belly. The nigger had stuck him pretty good, but Henry had gone him one better. Yessir. As far as the nigger was concerned, Henry felt like he was pretty much okeydokey. Kids a gone goose, Henry muttered, and made his shaky staggering way past the floating balloon. Fresh blood glimmered on his hand as it continued to flow from his stomach. Kids all done. Greased the sucker. Gonna grease them all. Teach them to throw rocks. The world was coming in slowrolling waves, big combers like the ones they used to show at the beginning of every Hawaii FiveO episode on the ward TV (book em Danno, haha Jack Fuckin Lord okay. Jack Fuckin Lord was pretty much okeydokey) and Henry could Henry could Henry could almost (hear the sound those Oahu big boys make as they rise curl and shake (shakeshakeshake (the reality of the world. Pipeline. Chantays. Remember Pipeline? Pipeline was pretty much okeydokey. WipeOut. Crazy laugh there at the start. Sounded like Patrick Hockstetter. Fucking queerboy. Got greased himself, and as far as I) he was concerned that was a (fuck of a lot better than okeydokey, that was just FINE, that was JUST AS FINE AS PAINT (okay Pipeline shoot the line dont back down not my boys catch a wave and (shoot (shootshootshoot (a wave and go sidewalk surfin with me shoot (the line shoot the world but keep) an ear inside his head it kept hearing that kaspanggg sound; an eye inside his head it kept seeing Victors head rising on the end of that spring, eyelids and cheeks and forehead tattooed with rosettes of blood. Henry looked blearily to his left and saw that the houses had been replaced with a tall black stand of hedge. Looming above it was the narrow, gloomily Victorian pile of the Theological Seminary. Not a window shone light. The seminary had graduated its last class in June of 1974. It had closed its doors that summer, and now whatever walked there walked alone ... and only by permission of the chattering womens club that called itself the Derry Historical Society. He came to the walk which led up to the front door. It was barred by a heavy chain from which a metal sign hung NO TRESPASSING THIS ORDER ENFORCED BY DERRY POLICE DEPT. Henrys feet tangled on this track and he fell heavily againwhap!to the sidewalk. Up ahead, a car turned onto Kansas Street from Hawthorne. Its headlights washed down the street. Henry fought the dazzle long enough to see the lights on top it was a fuzzmobile. He crawled under the chain and crabbed his way to the left so he was behind the hedge. The nightdew on his hot face was wonderful. He lay facedown, turning his head from side to side, wetting his cheeks, drinking what he could drink. The police car floated by without slowing. Then, suddenly, its bubblelights came on, washing the darkness with erratic blue pulses of light. There was no need for the siren on the deserted streets, but Henry heard its mill suddenly crank up to full revs. Rubber blistered a startled scream from the pavement. Caught, Im caught, his mind gibbered ... and then he realized that the police car was heading away from him, up Kansas Street. A moment later a hellish warbling sound filled the night, heading toward him from the south. He imagined some huge silky black cat loping through the dark, all green eyes and flexing pelt, It in a new shape, coming for him, coming to gobble him up. Little by little (and only as the warbling began to veer away) he realized it was an ambulance, heading in the direction the fuzzmobile had gone. He lay shuddering on the wet grass, too cold now, struggling (fuzzit cousin buzzit cousin rock it roll it we got chicken in the barn what barn whose barn my) not to vomit. He was afraid that if he vomited, all of his guts would come up ... and there were five of them still to get. Ambulance and police car. Where are they heading? The library, of course. The nigger. But theyre too late. I greased him. Might as well turn off your sireen, boys. He aint gonna hear it. Hes just as dead as a fencepost. He But was he? Henry licked his peeling lips with his arid tongue. If he was dead, there would be no warbling siren in the night. Not unless the nigger had called them. So maybejust maybethe nigger wasnt dead. No, Henry breathed. He rolled over on his back and stared up at the sky, at the billions of stars up there. It had come from there, he knew. From somewhere up in that sky. ... It (came from outer space with a lust for Earthwomen came to rob all the women and rape all the men say Frank dont you mean rob all the men and rape all the women whoth running this show, thilly man, you or Jesse? Victor used to tell that one and that was pretty much) came from the spaces between the stars. Looking up at that starry sky gave him the creeps it was too big, too black. It was all too possible to imagine it turning bloodred, all too possible to imagine a Face forming in lines of fire.... He closed his eyes, shivering and holding his arms crossed on his belly, and he thought The nigger is dead. Someone heard us fighting and sent the cops to investigate, thats all. Then why the ambulance? Shut up, shut up, Henry groaned. He felt the old baffled rage again; he remembered how they had beaten him again and again in the old daysold days that seemed so close and so vital nowhow every time he believed he had them they had somehow slipped through his fingers. It had been like that on the last day, after Belch saw the cooze running down Kansas Street toward the Barrens. He remembered that, oh yes, he remembered that clearly enough. When you got kicked in the balls, you remembered it. It had happened to him again and again that summer. Henry struggled to a sitting position, wincing at the deep dagger of pain in his guts. Victor and Belch had helped him down into the Barrens. He had walked as fast as he could in spite of the agony that griped and pulled at his groin and the root of his belly. The time had come to finish it. They had followed the path to a clearing from which five or six paths radiated like strands of a spiderweb. Yes, there had been kids playing around there; you didnt have to be Tonto to see that. There were scraps of candywrapper, the curled tail of a shotoff roll of Bang caps, red and black. A few boards and a fluffy scatter of sawdust, as if something had been built there. He remembered standing in the center of the clearing and scanning the trees, looking for their baby treehouse. He would spot it and then he would climb up and the girl would be cowering there, and he would use the knife to cut her throat and feel her titties nice and easy until they stopped moving. But he hadnt been able to see any treehouse; neither had Belch or Victor. The old familiar frustration rose in his throat. He and Victor left Belch to guard the clearing while they went down the river. But there had been no sign of her there, either. He remembered bending over and picking up a rock and 8 The Barrensl1255 P.M. heaving it far down the stream, furious and bewildered. Where the fuck did she go? he demanded, wheeling toward Victor. Victor shook his head slowly. Dont know, he said. Youre bleeding. Henry looked down and saw a dark spot, the size of a quarter, on the crotch of his jeans. The pain had withdrawn to a low, throbbing ache, but his underpants felt too small and too tight. His balls were swelling. He felt that anger inside him again, something like a knotted rope around his heart. She had done this. Where is she? he hissed at Victor. Dont know, Victor said again in that same dull voice. He seemed hypnotized, sunstruck, not really there at all. Ran away, I guess. She could be all the way over to the Old Cape by now. Shes not, Henry said. Shes hiding. Theyve got a place and shes hiding there. Maybe its not a treehouse. Maybe its something else. What? I . . . dont . . . know! Henry shouted, and Victor flinched back. Henry stood in the Kenduskeag, the cold water boiling over the tops of his sneakers, looking around. His eyes fixed on a cylinder poking out of the embankment about twenty feet downstreama pumpingstation. He climbed out of the water and walked down to it, feeling a sort of necessary dread settle into him. His skin seemed to be tightening, his eyes widening so that they were able to see more and more; it seemed he could feel the tiny hairs in his ears stirring and moving like kelp in an underwater tidal flow. Low humming came from the pumpingstation, and beyond it he could see a pipe jutting out of the embankment over the Kenduskeag. A steady flow of sludge pulsed out of the pipe and ran into the water. He leaned over the cylinders round iron top. Henry? Victor called nervously. Henry? What you doing? Henry paid no attention. He put his eye to one of the round holes in the iron and saw nothing but blackness. He exchanged eye for ear. Wait . . . The voice drifted up to him from the blackness inside, and Henry felt his interior temperature plummet to zero, his veins and arteries freezing into crystal tubes of ice. But with these sensations came an almost unknown feeling love. His eyes widened. A clownish smile spread his lips in a large nerveless arc. It was the voice from the moon. Now It was down in the pumpingstation ... down in the drains. Wait . . . watch . . . He waited, but there was no more only the steady soporific drone of the pumping machinery. He walked back down to where Victor stood on the bank, watching him cautiously. Henry ignored him and hollered for Belch. In a little while Belch came. Come on, he said. What are we gonna do, Henry? Belch asked. Wait. Watch. They crept back toward the clearing and sat down. Henry tried to pull his underpants away from his aching balls, but it hurt too much. Henry, what Belch began. Shhh! Belch fell obligingly silent. Henry had Camels but he didnt share them out. He didnt want the bitch to smell cigarette smoke if she was around. He could have explained, but there was no need. The voice had spoken only two words to him, but these seemed to explain everything. They played down here. Soon the others would come back. Why settle for just the bitch when they could have all seven of the little shitepokes? They waited and watched. Victor and Belch seemed to have gone to sleep with their eyes open. It was not a long wait, but there was time for Henry to think of a good many things. How he had found the switchblade this morning, for instance. It wasnt the same one hed had on the last day of school; hed lost that one somewhere. This one looked a lot cooler. It came in the mail. Sort of. He had stood on the porch, looking at their battered leaning RFD box, trying to grasp what he was seeing. The box was decked with balloons. Two were tied to the metal hook where the postman sometimes hung packages; others were tied to the flag. Red, yellow, blue, green. It was as if some weird circus had crept by on Witcham Road in the dead of night, leaving this sign. As he approached the mailbox, he saw there were faces on the balloonsthe faces of the kids who had deviled him all this summer, the kids who seemed to mock him at every turn. He had stared at these apparitions, gapemouthed, and then the balloons popped, one by one. That had been good; it was as if he were making them pop just by thinking about it, killing them with his mind. The front of the mailbox suddenly swung down. Henry walked toward it and peered in. Although the mailman didnt get this far out until the middle of the afternoon, Henry felt no surprise when he saw a flat rectangular package inside. He pulled it out. MR. HENRY BOWERS, RFD 2, DERRY, MAINE, the address read. There was even a returnaddress of sorts MR. ROBERT GRAY, DERRY, MAINE. He opened the package, letting the brown paper drift down heedlessly by his feet. There was a white box inside. He opened it. Lying on a bed of white cotton had been the switchknife. He took it into the house. |
His father was lying on his pallet in the bedroom they shared, surrounded by empty beer cans, his belly bulging over the top of his yellow underpants. Henry knelt beside him, listening to the snort and flutter of his fathers breathing, watching his fathers horsey lips purse and pucker with each breath. Henry placed the businessend of the switchknife against his fathers scrawny neck. His father moved a little and then settled back into beery sleep again. Henry kept the knife like that for almost five minutes, his eyes distant and thoughtful, the ball of his left thumb caressing the silver button set into the switchblades neck. The voice from the moon spoke to himit whispered like the spring wind which is warm with a cold blade buried somewhere in its middle, it buzzed like a paper nest full of roused hornets, it huckstered like a hoarse politician. Everything the voice said seemed pretty much okeydokey to Henry and so he pushed the silver button. There was a click inside the knife as the suicidespring let go, and six inches of steel drove through Butch Bowerss neck. It went in as easily as the tines of a meatfork into the breast of a wellroasted chicken. The tip of the blade popped out on the other side, dripping. Butchs eyes flew open. He stared at the ceiling. His mouth dropped open. Blood ran from the corners of it and down his cheeks toward the lobes of his ears. He began to gurgle. A large bloodbubble formed between his slack lips and popped. One of his hands crept to Henrys knee and squeezed convulsively. Henry didnt mind. Presently the hand fell away. The gurgling noises stopped a moment later. Butch Bowers was dead. Henry pulled the knife out, wiped it on the dirty sheet that covered his fathers pallet, and pushed the blade back in until the spring clicked again. He looked at his father without much interest. The voice had told him about the days work while he knelt beside Butch with the knife against Butchs neck. The voice had explained everything. So he went into the other room to call Belch and Victor. Now here they were, all three, and although his balls still ached horribly, the knife made a comforting bulge in his left front pants pocket. He felt that the cutting would begin soon. The others would come back down to resume whatever baby game they had been playing, and then the cutting would begin. The voice from the moon had laid it out for him as he knelt by his father, and on his way into town he had been unable to take his eyes from that pale ghostdisc in the sky. He saw that there was indeed a man in the moona grisly, glimmering ghostface with cratered holes for eyes and a glabrous grin that seemed to reach halfway up its cheekbones. It talked (we float down here Henry we all float youll float too) all the way to town. Kill them all, Henry, the ghostvoice from the moon said, and Henry could dig it; Henry felt he could second that emotion. He would kill them all, his tormentors, and then those feelingsthat he was losing his grip, that he was coming inexorably to a larger world he would not be able to dominate as he had dominated the playyard at Derry Elementary, that in the wider world the fatboy and the nigger and the stuttering freak might somehow grow larger while he somehow only grew olderwould be gone. He would kill them all, and the voicesthose inside and the one which spoke to him from the moonwould leave him alone. He would kill them and then go back to the house and sit on the back porch with his fathers souvenir Jap sword across his lap. He would drink one of his fathers Rheingolds. He would listen to the radio, too, but no baseball. Baseball was strictly Squaresville. He would listen to rock and roll instead. Although Henry didnt know it (and wouldnt have cared if he did), on this one subject he and the Losers agreed rock and roll was pretty much okeydokey. We got chicken in the barn, whose barn, what barn, my barn. Everything would be good then; everything would be the ginchiest then; everything would be okeyfine then, and anything which might come next would not matter. The voice would take care of himhe sensed that. If you took care of It, It would take care of you. That was how things had always been in Derry. But the kids had to be stopped, stopped soon, stopped today. The voice had told him so. Henry took his new knife out of his pocket, looked at it, turned it this way and that, admiring the way the sun winked and slid off the chrome facing. Then Belch was grabbing his arm and hissing Looka that, Henry! Jeezlyoldcrow! Looka that! Henry looked and felt the clear light of understanding burst over him. A square section of the clearing was rising as if by magic, revealing a growing slice of darkness beneath. For just a moment he felt a jolt of terror as it occurred to him that this might be the owner of the voice . . . for surely It lived somewhere under the city. Then he heard the gritty squall of dirt in the hinges and understood. They hadnt been able to see the treehouse because there was none. By God, we was standin right on top of em, Victor grunted, and as Bens head and shoulders appeared in the square hatchway in the center of the clearing, he made as if to charge forward. Henry grabbed him and held him back. Aint we gonna get em, Henry? Victor asked as Ben boosted himself up. Well get em, Henry said, never taking his eyes from the hated fatboy. Another ballkicker. Ill kick your balls so high up you can wear them for earrings, you fat fuck. Wait and see if I dont. Dont worry. The fatboy was helping the bitch out of the hole. She looked around doubtfully, and for a moment Henry believed she looked right at him. Then her eyes passed on. The two of them murmured together and then they pushed their way into the thick undergrowth and were gone. Come on, Henry said, when the sound of snapping branches and rustling leaves had faded almost to inaudibility. Well follow em. But keep back and keep quiet. I want em all together. The three of them crossed the clearing like soldiers on patrol, bent low, their eyes wide and moving. Belch paused to look down into the clubhouse and shook his head in admiring wonder. Sittin right over their heads, I was, he said. Henry motioned him forward impatiently. They took the path, because it was quieter. They were halfway back to Kansas Street when the bitch and the fatboy, holding hands (Isnt that cute? Henry thought in a kind of ecstasy), emerged almost directly in front of them. Luckily, their backs were to Henrys group, and neither of them looked around. Henry, Victor, and Belch froze, then drew into the shadows at the side of the path. Soon Ben and Beverly were just two shirts seen through a tangle of shrubs and bushes. The three of them began to pursue again . . . cautiously. Henry took the knife out again and 9 Henry Gets a Liftl230 A.M. pressed the chrome button in the handle. The blade popped out. He looked at it dreamily in the moonlight. He liked the way the starlight ran along the blade. He had no idea exactly what time it was. He was drifting in and out of reality now. A sound impinged on his consciousness and began to grow. It was a car engine. It drew closer. Henrys eyes widened in the dark. He held the knife more tightly, waiting for the car to pass by. It didnt. It drew up at the curb beyond the seminary hedge and simply stopped there, engine idling. Grimacing (his belly was stiffening now; it had gone boardhard, and the blood seeping sluggishly between his fingers had the consistency of sap just before you took the taps out of the maples in late March or early April), he got on his knees and pushed aside the stiff hedgebranches. He could see headlights and the shape of a car. Cops? His hand squeezed the knife and relaxed, squeezed and relaxed, squeezed and relaxed. I sent you a ride, Henry, the voice whispered. Sort of a taxi, if you can dig that. After all, we have to get you over there to the Town House pretty soon. The nights getting old. The voice uttered one thin bonelike chuckle and fell silent. Now the only sounds were the crickets and the steady rumble of the idling car. Sounds like cherrybomb mufflers, Henry thought distractedly. He got awkwardly to his feet and worked his way back to the seminary walk. He peeked around at the car. Not a fuzzmobile no bubbles on the roof, and the shape was all wrong. The shape was . . . old. Henry heard that giggle again . . . or perhaps it was only the wind. He emerged from the shadow of the hedge, crawled under the chain, got to his feet again, and began to walk toward the idling car, which existed in a blackandwhite Polaroidsnapshot world of bright moonlight and impenetrable shadow. Henry was a mess his shirt was black with blood, and it had soaked through his jeans almost to the knees. His face was a white blotch under an institutional crewcut. He reached the intersection of the seminary path and the sidewalk and peered at the car, trying to make sense out of the hulk behind the wheel. But it was the car he recognized firstit was the one his father always swore he would own someday, a 1958 Plymouth Fury. It was red and white and Henry knew (hadnt his father told him often enough?) that the engine rumbling under the hood was a V8 327. Available horsepower of 255, able to hit seventy from the gitgo in just about nine seconds, gobbling hitest through its fourbarrel carb. Im gonna get that car and then when I die they can bury me in it, Butch had been fond of saying . . . except, of course, he had never gotten the car and the state had buried him after Henry had been taken away, raving and screaming of monsters, to the funny farm. If thats him inside I dont think I can take it, Henry thought, squeezing down on the knife, swaying drunkenly back and forth, looking at the shape behind the wheel. Then the passenger door of the Fury swung open, the domelight came on, and the driver turned to look at him. It was Belch Huggins. His face was a hanging ruin. One of his eyes was gone, and a rotted hole in one parchment cheek revealed blackened teeth. Perched on Belchs head was the New York Yankees baseball cap he had been wearing the day he died. It was turned around backward. Graygreen mold oozed along the bill. Belch! Henry cried, and agony ripped its way up from his belly, making him cry out again, wordlessly. Belchs dead lips stretched in a grin, splitting open in whitishgray bloodless folds. He held one twisted hand out toward the open door in invitation. Henry hesitated, then shuffled around the Furys grille, allowing one hand to touch the Vshaped emblem there, just as he had always touched it when his father took him into the Bangor showroom when he was a kid to look at this same car. As he reached the passenger side, grayness overwhelmed him in a soft wave and he had to grab the open door to keep his feet. He stood there, head down, breathing in snuffling gasps. At last the world came backpartway, anyhowand he was able to work his way around the door and fall into the seat. Pain skewered his guts again, and fresh blood squirted out into his hand. It felt like warm jelly. He put his head back and gritted his teeth, the cords on his neck standing out. At last the pain began to subside a little. The door swung shut by itself. The domelight went out. Henry saw one of Belchs rotted hands close over the transmission lever and drop it into drive. The bunched white knots of Belchs knuckles glimmered through the decaying flesh of his fingers. The Fury began to move down Kansas Street toward UpMile Hill. How you doin, Belch? Henry heard himself say. It was stupid, of courseBelch couldnt be here, dead people couldnt drive carsbut it was all he could think of. Belch didnt reply. His one sunken eye stared at the road. His teeth glared sickly at Henry through the hole in his cheek. Henry became vaguely aware that ole Belch smelled pretty ripe. Ole Belch smelled, in fact, like a bushelbasket of tomatoes that had gone bad and watery. The glove compartment flopped open, banging Henrys knees, and in the light of the small bulb inside he saw a bottle of Texas Driver, halffull. He took it out, opened it, and had himself a good shot. It went down like cool silk and hit his stomach like an explosion of lava. He shuddered all over, moaning . . . and then began to feel a little better, a little more connected to the world. Thanks, he said. Belchs head turned toward him. Henry could hear the tendons in Belchs neck; the sound was like the scream of rusty screendoor hinges. Belch regarded him for a moment with a dead oneeyed stare, and Henry realized for the first time that most of Belchs nose was gone. It looked like something had been at the ole Belchers nose. Dog, maybe. Or maybe rats. Rats seemed more likely. The tunnels they had chased the little kids into that day had been full of rats. Moving just as slowly, Belchs head turned toward the road again. Henry was glad. Ole Belch staring at him that way, well, Henry hadnt been able to dig it too much. There had been something in Belchs single sunken eye. Reproach? Anger? What? There is a dead boy behind the wheel of this car. Henry looked down at his arm and saw that huge goosebumps had formed there. He quickly had another snort from the bottle. This one hit a little easier and spread its warmth farther. The Plymouth rolled down UpMile Hill and made its way around the counterclockwise traffic circle . . . except at this time of night there was no traffic; all the trafficlights had changed to yellow blinkers splashing the empty streets and closed buildings with steady pulses of light. It was so quiet that Henry could hear the relays clicking inside each light ... or was that his imagination? Never meant to leave you behind that day, Belcher, Henry said. I mean, if that was, you know, on your mind. That scream of dried tendons again. Belch looking at him again with his one sunken eye. And his lips stretched in a terrible grin that revealed grayblack gums which were growing their own garden of mold. What sort of a grin is that? Henry asked himself as the car purred silkily up Main Street, past Freeses on the one side, Nans Luncheonette and the Aladdin Theater on the other. Is it a forgiving grin? An oldpals grin? Or is it the kind of grin that says Im going to get you, Henry, Im going to get you for running out on me and Vic? What kind of grin? You have to understand how it was, Henry said, and then stopped. How had it been? It was all confused in his mind, the pieces jumbled up like the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle that had just been dumped out on one of the shitty cardtables in the rec room at Juniper Hill. How had it been, exactly? They had followed the fatboy and the bitch back to Kansas Street and had waited back in the bushes, watching them climb up the embankment to the top. If they had disappeared from view, he and Victor and Belch would have dropped the stalking game and simply gone after them; two of them were better than none at all, and the rest would be along in time. But they hadnt disappeared. They had simply leaned against the fence, talking and watching the street. Every now and then they would check down the slope into the Barrens, but Henry kept his two troops well out of sight. The sky, Henry remembered, had become overcast, clouds moving in from the east, the air thickening. There would be rain that afternoon. What had happened next? What A bony, leathery hand closed over his forearm and Henry screamed. He had been drifting away again into that cottony grayness, but Belchs dreadful touch and the dagger of pain in his stomach from the scream brought him back. He looked around and Belchs face was less than two inches from Henrys; he gasped in breath and wished he hadnt. The ole Belcher really had gone to seed. Henry was again reminded of tomatoes going quietly putrescent in some shadowy shed corner. His stomach roiled. He remembered the end suddenlythe end for Belch and Vic, anyway. How something had come out of the darkness as they stood in a shaft with a sewergrating at the top, wondering which way to go next. Something... Henry hadnt been able to tell what. Until Victor shrieked, Frankenstein! Its Frankenstein! And so it was, it was the Frankenstein monster, with bolts coming out of its neck and a deep stitched scar across its forehead, lurching along in shoes like a childs blocks. Frankenstein! Vic had screamed, FrAnd then Vics head was gone, Vics head was flying across the shaftway to strike the stonework of the far side with a sour sticky thud. The monsters watery yellow eyes had fallen on Henry, and Henry had frozen. His bladder let go and he felt warmth flood down his legs. The creature lurched toward him, and Belch . . . Belch had... Listen, I know I ran, Henry said. I shouldnt have done that. But . . . but . . . Belch only stared. I got lost, Henry whispered, as if to tell the ole Belcher that he had paid, too. It sounded weak, like saying Yeah, I know you got killed, Belch, but I got one fuck of a splinter under my thumbnail. But it had been bad . . . really bad. He had wandered around in a world of stinking darkness for hours, and finally, he remembered, he had started to scream. At some point he had fallena long, dizzying fall, in which he had time to think Oh good in a minute Ill be dead, Ill be out of thisand then he had been in fastrunning water. Under the Canal, he supposed. He had come out into fading sunlight, had flailed his way toward the bank, and had finally climbed out of the Kenduskeag less than fifty yards from the place where Adrian Mellon would drown twentysix years later. He slipped, fell, bashed his head, blacked out. When he woke up it was after dark. He had somehow found his way out to Route 2 and had hooked a ride to the home place. And there the cops had been waiting for him. But that was then and this was now. Belch had stepped in front of Frankensteins monster and it had peeled the left side of his face down to the skullso much Henry had seen before fleeing. But now Belch was back, and Belch was pointing at something. Henry saw that they had pulled up in front of the Derry Town House, and suddenly he understood perfectly. The Town House was the only real hotel left in Derry. Back in 58 there had also been the Eastern Star at the end of Exchange Street, and the Travellers Rest on Torrault Street. Both had disappeared during urban renewal (Henry knew all about this; he had read the Derry News faithfully every day in Juniper Hill). Only the Town House was left, and a bunch of tickytacky little motels out by the Interstate. Thats where theyll be, he thought. Right in there. All of them that are left. Asleep in their beds, with visions of sugarplumsorsewers, maybedancingin their heads. And Ill get them. One by one, Ill get them. He took the bottle of Texas Driver out again and bit off a snort. He could feel fresh blood trickling into his lap, and the seat was tacky beneath him, but the wine made it better; the wine seemed to make it not matter. He could have done with some good bourbon, but the Driver was better than nothing. Look, he said to Belch, Im sorry I ran. I dont know why I ran. Please . . . dont be mad. Belch spoke for the first and only time, but the voice wasnt his voice. The voice that came from Belchs rotting mouth was deep and powerful, terrifying. Henry whimpered at the sound of it. It was the voice from the moon, the voice of the clown, the voice he had heard in his dreams of drains and sewers where water rushed on and on. Just shut up and get them, the voice said. Sure, Henry whined. Sure, okay, I want to, no problem He put the bottle back in the glove compartment. Its neck chattered briefly like teeth. And he saw a paper where the bottle had been. He took it out and unfolded it, leaving bloody fingerprints on the corners. Embossed across the top was this logo, in bright scarlet Below this, carefully printed in capital letters Their room numbers. That was good. That saved time. Thanks, Be But Belch was gone. The drivers seat was empty. There was only the New York Yankees baseball cap lying there, mold crusted on its bill. And some slimy stuff on the knob of the gearshift. Henry stared, his heart beating painfully in his throat . . . and then he seemed to hear something move and shift in the back seat. He got out quickly, opening the door and almost falling to the pavement in his haste. He gave the Fury, which still burbled softly through its dual cherrybomb mufflers (cherrybombs had been outlawed in the State of Maine in 1962), a wide berth. It was hard to walk; each step pulled and tore at his belly. But he gained the sidewalk and stood there, looking at the eightfloor brick building which, along with the library and the Aladdin Theater and the seminary, was one of the few he remembered clearly from the old days. Most of the lights on the upper floors were out now, but the frostedglass globes which flanked the main doorway blazed softly in the darkness, haloed with moisture from the lingering groundfog. Henry made his laborious way toward and between them, shouldering open one of the doors. The lobby was weehours silent. There was a faded Turkish rug on the floor. The ceiling was a huge mural, executed in rectangular panels, which showed scenes from Derrys logging days. There were overstuffed sofas and wing chairs and a great fireplace which was now dead and silent, a birch log thrown across the andironsa real log, no gas; the fireplace in the Town House was not just a piece of lobby stage dressing. Plants spilled out of low pots. The glass double doors leading to the bar and the restaurant were closed. From some inner office, Henry could hear the gabble of a TV, turned low. He lurched across the lobby, his pants and shirt streaked with blood. Blood was grimed into the folds of his hands; it ran down his cheeks and slashed his forehead like warpaint. His eyes bulged from their sockets. Anyone in the lobby who had seen him would have run, screaming, in terror. But there was no one. The elevator doors opened as soon as he pushed the UP button. He looked at the paper in his hand, then at the floor buttons. After a moment of deliberation, he pushed 6 and the doors closed. There was a faint hum of machinery as the elevator began to rise. Might as well start at the top and work my way down. He slumped against the rear wall of the car, eyes halfclosed. The hum of the elevator was soothing. Like the hum of the machinery in the pumpingstations of the drainage system. That day it kept coming back to him. How everything seemed almost prearranged, as if all of them were just playing parts. How Vic and the ole Belcher had seemed . . . well, almost drugged. He remembered The car came to a stop, jolting him and sending another wave of griping pain into his stomach. The doors slid open. Henry stepped out into the silent hallway (more plants here, hanging ones, spiderplants, he didnt want to touch any of them, not those oozy green runners, they reminded him too much of the things that had been hanging down there in the dark). He rechecked the paper. Kaspbrak was in 609. Henry started down that way, running one hand along the wall for support, leaving a faint bloody track on the wallpaper as he went (ah, but he stepped away whenever he came close to one of the hanging spiderplants; he wanted no truck with those). His breathing was harsh and dry. Here it was. Henry pulled the switchblade from his pocket, swashed his dry lips with his tongue, and knocked on the door. Nothing. He knocked again, louder this time. Whozit? Sleepy. Good. Hed be in his jammies, only halfawake. And when he opened the door, Henry would drive the switchblade directly into the hollow at the base of his neck, the vulnerable hollow just below the adams apple. Bellboy, sir, Henry said. Message from your wife. Did Kaspbrak have a wife? Maybe that had been a stupid thing to say. He waited, coldly alert. He heard footstepsthe shuffle of slippers. From Myra? He sounded alarmed. Good. He would be more alarmed in a few seconds. A pulse beat steadily in Henrys right temple. I guess so, sir. Theres no name. It just says your wife. There was a pause, then a metallic rattle as Kaspbrak fumbled with the chain. Grinning, Henry pushed the button on the switchblades handle. Click. He held the blade up by his cheek, ready. He heard the thumbbolt turn. In just a moment he would plunge the blade into the skinny little creeps throat. He waited. The door opened and Eddie 10 The Losers All Together120 P.M. saw Stan and Richie just coming out of the Costello Avenue Market, each of them eating a Rocket on a pushup stick. Hey! he shouted. Hey, wait up! They turned around and Stan waved. Eddie ran to join them as quickly as he could, which was not, in truth, very quickly. One arm was immured in a plasterofParis cast and he had his Parcheesi board under the other. Whatchoo say, Eddie? Whatchoo say, boy? Richie asked in his grandly rolling Southern Gentleman Voice (the one that sounded more like Foghorn Leghorn in the Warner Brothers cartoons than anything else). Ah say . . . Ah say ... the boys got a broken ahm! Lookit that, Stan, the boys got a broken ahm! Ah say . . . be a good spote and carreh the boys Pawcheeseh bowud for him! I can carry it, Eddie said, a little out of breath. How about a lick on your Rocket? Your mom wouldnt approve, Eddie, Richie said sadly. He began to eat faster. He had just gotten to the chocolate stuff in the middle, his favorite part. Germs, boy! Ah say . . . Ah say you kin get germs eatin after someone else! Ill chance it, Eddie said. Reluctantly, Richie held his Rocket up to Eddies mouth ... and snatched it away quickly as soon as Eddie had gotten in a couple of moderately serious licks. You can have the rest of mine, if you want, Stan said. Im still full from lunch. Jews dont eat much, Richie instructed. Its part of their religion. The three of them were walking along companionably enough now, headed up toward Kansas Street and the Barrens. Derry seemed lost in a deep hazy afternoon doze. The blinds of most of the houses they passed were pulled down. Toys stood abandoned on lawns, as if their owners had been hastily called in from play or put down for naps. Thunder rumbled thickly in the west. Is it? Eddie asked Stan. No, Richies just pulling your leg, Stan said. Jews eat as much as normal people. He pointed at Richie. Like him. You know, youre pretty fucking mean to Stan, Eddie told Richie. How would you like somebody to say all that madeup shit about you, just because youre a Catholic? Oh, Catholics do plenty, Richie said. My dad told me once that Hitler was a Catholic, and Hitler killed billions of Jews. Right, Stan? Yeah, I guess so, Stan said. He looked embarrassed. My mom was furious when my dad told me that, Richie went on. A little reminiscent grin had surfaced on his face. Absolutely fyoorious. Us Catholics also had the Inquisition, that was the little dealie with the rack and the thumbscrews and all that stuff. I figure all religions are pretty weird. Me too, Stan said quietly. Were not Orthodox, or anything like that. I mean, we eat ham and bacon. I hardly even know what being a Jew is. I was born in Derry, and sometimes we go up to synagogue in Bangor for stuff like Yom Kippur, but He shrugged. Ham? Bacon? Eddie was mystified. He and his mom were Methodists. Orthodox Jews dont eat stuff like that, Stan said. It says something in the Torah about not eating anything that creeps through the mud or walks on the bottom of the ocean. I dont know exactly how it goes. But pigs are supposed to be out, also lobster. But my folks eat them. I do too. Thats weird, Eddie said, and burst out laughing. I never heard of a religion that told you what you could eat. Next thing, theyll be telling you what kind of gas you can buy. Kosher gas, Stan said, and laughed by himself. Neither Richie nor Eddie understood what he was laughing about. You gotta admit, Stanny, it is pretty weird, Richie said. I mean, not being able to eat a sausage just because you happen to be Jewish. Yeah? Stan said. You eat meat on Fridays? Jeez, no! Richie said, shocked. You cant eat meat on Friday, because He began to grin a little. Oh, okay, I see what you mean. Do Catholics really go to hell if they eat meat on Fridays? Eddie asked, fascinated, totally unaware that, until two generations before, his own people had been devout Polish Catholics who would no more have eaten meat on Friday than they would have gone outside with no clothes on. Well, Ill tell you what, Eddie, Richie said. I dont really think God would send me down to the Hot Place just for forgetting and having a baloney sandwich for lunch on a Friday, but why take a chance? Right? I guess not, Eddie said. But it seems so So stupid, he was going to say, and then he remembered a story Mrs. Portleigh had told the Sundayschool class when he was just a little kida first grader in Little Worshippers. According to Mrs. Portleigh, a bad boy had once stolen some of the communionbread when the tray was passed and put it in his pocket. He took it home and threw it into the toiletbowl just to see what would happen. At onceor so Mrs. Portleigh reported to her rapt Little Worshippersthe water in the toiletbowl had turned a bright red. It was the Blood of Christ, she said, and it had appeared to that little boy because he had done a very bad act called a BLASPHEMY. It had appeared to warn him that, by throwing the flesh of Jesus into the toilet, he had put his immortal soul in danger of Hell. Up until then, Eddie had rather enjoyed the act of communion, which he had only been allowed to take since the previous year. The Methodists used Welchs grape juice instead of wine, and the Body of Christ was represented by cutup cubes of fresh, springy Wonder Bread. He liked the idea of taking in food and drink as a religious rite. But following Mrs. Portleighs story, his awe of the ritual darkened into something more potent, something rather dreadful. Simply reaching for the cubes of bread became an act which required courage, and he always feared an electrical shock . . . or worse, that the bread would suddenly change color in his hand, become a bloodclot, and a disembodied Voice would begin to thunder in the church Not worthy! Not worthy! Damned to Hell! Damned to Hell! Often, after he had taken communion, his throat would close up, his breath would begin to wheeze in and out, and he would wait with panicky impatience for the benediction to be over so he could hurry into the vestibule and use his aspirator. You dont want to be so silly, he told himself as he grew older. That was nothing but a story, and Mrs. Portleigh sure wasnt any saintMammasaid she was divorced down in Kittery and that she plays Bingo at Saint Marys in Bangor, and that real Christians dont gamble, real Christians leave gambling for pagans and Catholics. All that made perfect sense, but it didnt relieve his mind. The story of the communion bread that turned the water in the toiletbowl to blood worried at him, gnawed at him, even caused him to lose sleep. It came to him one night that the way to get this behind him once and for all would be to take a piece of the bread himself, toss it in the toilet, and see what happened. But such an experiment was far beyond his courage; his rational mind could not stand against that sinister image of the blood spreading its cloud of accusation and potential damnation in the water. It could not stand against that talismanic magical incantation This is my body, take, eat; this is my blood, shed for you and for many. No, he had never made the experiment. I guess all religions are weird, Eddie said now. But powerful, his mind added, almost magical . . . or was that BLASPHEMY? He began to think about the thing they had seen on Neibolt Street, and for the first time he saw a crazy parallelthe Werewolf had, after all, come out of the toilet. |
Boy, I guess everybodys asleep, Richie said, tossing his empty Rockettube nonchalantly into the gutter. You ever see it so quiet? What, did everbody go to Bar Harbor for the day? HHHHey you guhguhguys! Bill Denbrough shouted from behind them. WuhWuhhait up! Eddie turned, delighted as always to hear Big Bills voice. He was wheeling Silver around the corner of Costello Avenue, outdistancing Mike, although Mikes Schwinn was almost brandnew. Hiyo Silver, AWAYYYY! Bill yelled. He rolled up to them doing perhaps twenty miles an hour, the playing cards clothespinned to the fenderstruts roaring. Then he backpedalled, locked the brakes, and produced an admirably long skidmark. Stuttering Bill! Richie said. Howaya, boy? Ah say . . . Ah say . . . how aw you, boy? Im oookay, Bill said. Seen Ben or BuhBuhheverly? Mike rode up and joined them. Sweat stood out on his face in little drops. How fast does that bike go, anyway? Bill laughed. I dddont nuhknow, eexactly. Pretty fffast. I havent seen them, Richie said. Theyre probably down there, hanging out. Singing twopart harmony. Shboom, shboom ... yadadadadadada ... you look like a dream, shweetheart. Stan Uris made throwingup noises. Hes just jealous, Richie said to Mike. Jews cant sing. Buhbuhbuh Beepbeep, Richie, Richie said for him, and they all laughed. They started toward the Barrens again, Mike and Bill pushing their bikes. Conversation was brisk at first, but then it lagged. Looking at Bill, Eddie saw an uneasy look on his face, and he thought that maybe the quiet was getting to him, too. He knew Richie had meant it as a joke, but it really did seem that everyone in Derry had gone to Bar Harbor for the day . . . to somewhere. Not a car moved on the street; there wasnt a single old lady pushing a carrier full of groceries back to her house or apartment. Sure is quiet, isnt it? Eddie ventured, but Bill only nodded. They crossed to the Barrens side of Kansas Street, and then they saw Ben and Beverly, running toward them, shouting. Eddie was shocked by Beverlys appearance; she was usually so neat and clean, her hair always washed and tied back in a ponytail. Now she was streaked with what looked like every kind of gluck in the universe. Her eyes were wide and wild. There was a scratch on one cheek. Her jeans were caked with crap and her blouse was torn. Ben fell behind her, puffing, his stomach wobbling. Cant go down in the Barrens, Beverly was panting. The boys . . . Henry . . . Victor . . . theyre down there somewhere . . . the knife . . . he has a knife. . . . Sluhslow down, Bill said, taking charge at once in that effortless, almost unconscious way of his. He glanced at Ben as he ran up, his cheeks flushed bright, his considerable chest heaving. She says Henrys gone crazy, Big Bill, Ben said. Shit, you mean he used to be sane? Richie asked, and spat between his teeth. ShShut uhup, RuhRichie, Bill said, and then looked back at Beverly. TehTell, he said. Eddies hand crept into his pocket and touched his aspirator. He didnt know what all this was, but he already knew it wasnt good. Forcing herself to speak as calmly as possible, Beverly managed to get out an edited version of the storya version that began with Henry, Victor, and Belch catching up to her on the street. She didnt tell them about her fathershe was desperately ashamed of that. When she was finished Bill stood silent for a moment, hands in his pockets, chin down, Silvers handlebars leaning against his chest. The others waited, throwing frequent glances at the railing that ran along the edge of the dropoff. Bill thought for a long time, and no one interrupted him. Eddie became aware, suddenly and effortlessly, that this might be the final act. That was how the days silence felt, wasnt it? The feeling that the whole town had up and left, leaving only the deserted husks of buildings behind. Richie was thinking about the picture in Georges album that had suddenly come to life. Beverly was thinking about her father, how pale his eyes had been. Mike was thinking about the bird. Ben was thinking about the mummy, and a smell like dead cinnamon. Stan Uris was thinking of bluejeans, black and dripping, and hands as white as wrinkled paper, also dripping. CuhCuhCome ohohon, Bill said at last. WWere going dddown. Bill Ben said. His face was troubled. Beverly said Henry was really crazy. That he meant to kill IhIts nuhnot theirs, Bill said, gesturing at the green daggershaped slash of the Barrens to their right and below themthe underbrush, the choked groves of trees, the bamboo, the glint of water. IhIhIts not their pruhpruhhopperty. He looked around at them, his face grim. Im tttired of bbeing scuhschuhhared by them. We bbbeat them in the ruhrockfight, and if we hhhave to beat them aaagain, well duhduhdo it. But Bill, Eddie said, what if its not just them? Bill turned to Eddie, and with real shock Eddie saw how tired and drawn Bills face wasthere was something frightening about that face, but it wasnt until much, much later, as an adult drifting toward sleep after the meeting at the library, that he understood what that frightening thing was it was the face of a boy driven close to the brink of madness, a boy who was perhaps ultimately no more sane or in control of his own decisions than Henry was. Yet the essential Bill was still there, looking out of those haunted scarified eyes ... an angry, determined Bill. Well, he said, whuhwhuhwhat if its nuhnuhnot? No one answered him. Thunder boomed, closer now. Eddie looked at the sky and saw the stormclouds moving in from the west in black thunderheads. It was going to rain a bitch, as his mother sometimes said. Nuhnuhhow Ill tttell you what, Bill said, looking at them. None of you have to guhguhgo wwith me if you ddont want to. Thats uhuhup to you. Ill go along, Big Bill, Richie said quietly. Me too, Ben said. Sure, Mike said with a shrug. Beverly and Stan agreed, and Eddie last. I dont think so, Eddie, Richie said. Your arms not, you know, looking too cool. Eddie looked at Bill. I wwwant hhim, Bill said. You wwwalk with muhmuhme, EhEhEddie. Ill keep an eye on yuhyou. Thanks, Bill, Eddie said. Bills tired, halfcrazy face seemed suddenly lovely to himlovely and well loved. He felt a dim sense of amazement. Id die for him, I guess, if he told me to. What kind of power is that? If it makes you look like Bill looks now, its maybe not such a good power to have. Yeah, Bills got the ultimate weapon, Richie said. B.O. bombs. He raised his left arm and fluttered his right hand under the exposed armpit. Ben and Mike laughed a little, and Eddie smiled. Thunder boomed again, close and loud enough this time to make them jump and huddle closer together. The wind was picking up, rattling trash around in the gutter. The first of the dark clouds sailed over the hazy ringed disc of the sun, and their shadows melted away. The wind was cold, chilling the sweat on Eddies uncovered arm. He shivered. Bill looked at Stan and said a peculiar thing then. You got your bbbirdbook, Stan? Stan tapped his hip pocket. Bill looked at them again. Lets gggo down, he said. They went down the embankment singlefile except for Bill, who stayed with Eddie as he had promised. He allowed Richie to push Silver down, and when they had reached the bottom, Bill put his bike in its accustomed place under the bridge. Then they stood together, looking around. The coming storm did not produce a darkness; not even, precisely, a dimness. But the quality of the light had changed, and things stood out in a kind of dreamlike steely relief shadowless, clear, chiselled. Eddie felt a sinking of horror and apprehension in his guts as he realized why the quality of this light seemed so familiarit was the same sort of light he remembered from the house at 29 Neibolt Street. A streak of lightning tattooed the clouds, bright enough to make him wince. He put a hand up to his face and found himself counting One . . . two . . . three . . . And then the thunder came in a single coughing bark, an explosive sound, a sound like an M80 firecracker, and they drew even closer together. Wasnt any rain forecast this morning, Ben said uneasily. The paper said hot and hazy. Mike was scanning the sky. The clouds up there were blackbottomed keelboats, high and heavy, swiftly overrunning the blue haze that had covered the sky from horizon to horizon when he and Bill came out of the Denbrough house after lunch. Its comin fast, he said. Never saw a storm come so fast. And as if in confirmation, thunder whacked again. CCCome on, Bill said. LLets put EhEhEddies Parcheeheesi board in the cluhcluhclubhouse. They started along the path they had beaten in the weeks since the incident of the dam. Bill and Eddie were at the head of the line, their shoulders brushing the broad green leaves of the shrubs, the others behind them. The wind gusted again, making the leaves on the trees and bushes whisper together. Farther ahead, the bamboo rattled eerily, like drums in a jungle tale. Bill? Eddie said in a low voice. What? I thought this was just in the movies, but . . . Eddie laughed a little. I feel like somebodys watching me. Oh, theyre thththere, all rrright, Bill said. Eddie looked around nervously and held his Parcheesi board a little tighter. He 11 Eddies Room305 A.M. opened the door on a monster from a horror comic. A gorestreaked apparition stood there and it could only be Henry Bowers. Henry looked like a corpse which has returned from the grave. Henrys face was a frozen witchdoctors mask of hate and murder. His right hand was cocked at cheeklevel, and even as Eddies eyes widened and he began to draw in his first shocked breath, the hand pistoned forward, the switchblade glittering like silk. With no thoughtthere was no time; if he had stopped to think he would have diedEddie slammed the door closed. It struck Henrys forearm, deflecting the knifes course so that it swung in a savage sidetoside arc less than an inch from Eddies neck. There was a crunch as the door pinched Henrys arm against the jamb. Henry uttered a muffled cry. His hand opened. The knife clattered to the floor. Eddie kicked it. It skittered under the TV. Henry threw his weight against the door. He outweighed Eddie by over a hundred pounds and Eddie was driven back like a doll; his knees struck the bed and he fell on it. Henry came into the room and swept the door shut behind him. He twisted the thumbbolt as Eddie sat up, wideeyed, his throat already starting to whistle. Okay, fag, Henry said. His eyes dropped momentarily to the floor, hunting for the knife. He didnt see it. Eddie groped on the nighttable and found one of the two bottles of Perrier water he had ordered earlier that day. This was the full one; he had drunk the other before going to the library because his nerves were shot and he had a bad case of acidburn. Perrier was very good for the digestion. As Henry dismissed the knife and started toward him, Eddie gripped the green pearshaped bottle by the neck and smashed it on the edge of the nighttable. Perrier foamed and fizzed across it, flooding out most of the pillbottles that stood there. Henrys shirt and pants were heavy with blood, both fresh and semidried. His right hand now hung at a strange angle. Babyfag, Henry said, teach you to throw rocks. He made it to the bed and reached for Eddie, who still hardly realized what was happening. No more than forty seconds had elapsed since he had opened the door. Henry grabbed for him. Eddie thrust the ragged base of the Perrier bottle at him. It ripped into Henrys face, pulling open his right cheek in a twisted flap and puncturing Henrys right eye. Henry uttered a breathless scream and staggered backward. His slit eye, leaking whitishyellow fluid, hung loosely from its socket. His cheek sprayed blood in a gaudy fountain. Eddies own cry was louder. He got off the bed and went toward Henryto help him, perhaps, he wasnt really sureand Henry lurched at him again. Eddie thrust with the Perrier bottle as if with a fencing sword, and this time the jagged points of green glass punched deep into Henrys left hand and sawed at his fingers. Fresh blood flowed. Henry made a thick grunting noise, the sound, almost, of a man clearing his throat, and shoved Eddie with his right hand. Eddie flew back and struck the writingdesk. His left arm twisted behind him somehow and he fell on it heavily. The pain was a sudden sickening flare. He felt the bone go along the faultline of that old break, and he had to clench his teeth against a scream of agony. A shadow blotted out the light. Henry Bowers was standing over him, swaying back and forth. His knees buckled. His left hand was dripping blood on the front of Eddies robe. Eddie had held onto the stump of the Perrier bottle and now, as Henrys knees came completely unhinged, he got it in front of him, jagged base pointing upward, the cap braced against his sternum. Henry came down like a tree, impaling himself on the bottle. Eddie felt it shatter in his hand and a fresh bolt of grinding agony shuddered through his left arm, which was still trapped under his body. Fresh warmth cascaded over him. He wasnt sure if this batch was Henrys blood or his. Henry twitched like a landed trout. His shoes rattled an almost syncopated beat on the carpet. Eddie could smell his rotten breath. Then Henry stiffened and rolled over. The bottle protruded grotesquely from his midsection, capped end pointing toward the ceiling, as if it had grown there. Gug, Henry said, and said no more. He looked up at the ceiling. Eddie thought he might be dead. Eddie fought off the waves of faintness that wanted to cover him over and drag him down. He got to his knees, and finally to his feet. There was fresh pain as his broken arm swung out in front of him and that cleared his head a little. Wheezing, fighting for breath, he made it to the nighttable. He picked his aspirator out of a puddle of carbonated water, stuck it in his mouth, and triggered it off. He shuddered at the taste, then gave himself another blast. He looked around at the body on the carpetcould that be Henry? could it possibly be? It was. Grown old, his crewcut more gray than black, his body now fat and white and sluglike, it was still Henry. And Henry was dead. At long last, Henry was Gug,Henry said, and sat up. His hands clawed at the air, as if for holds which only Henry could see. His gouged eye leaked and dribbled; its bottom arc now bulged pregnantly down onto his cheek. He looked around, saw Eddie shrinking back against the wall, and tried to get up. He opened his mouth and a stream of blood gushed out. Henry collapsed again. Heart racing, Eddie fumbled for the telephone and succeeded only in knocking it off the table and onto the bed. He snatched it up and dialed 0. The phone rang again and again and again. Come on, Eddie thought, what are you doing down there, jacking off? Come on, please, answer the frigging phone! It rang again and again. Eddie kept his eyes on Henry, expecting him to start trying to gain his feet again at any moment. Blood. Dear God, so much blood. Desk, a fuzzy, resentful voice said at last. Ring Mr. Denbroughs room, Eddie said. Quick as you can. With his other ear he was now listening to the rooms around him. How loud had they been? Was someone going to pound on the door and ask if everything was all right in there? You sure you want me to ring? the clerk asked. Its ten after three. Yes, do it! Eddie nearly screamed. The hand holding the phone was trembling in convulsive little bursts. There was a nest of waspy, rottenugly singing in his other arm. Had Henry moved again? No; surely not. Okay, okay, the clerk said. Cool your jets, my friend. There was a click, and then the hoarse burr of a roomphone ringing. Come on, Bill, come on, c A sudden thought, gruesomely plausible, occurred to him. Suppose Henry had visited Bills room first? Or Richies? Bens? Bevs? Or had Henry perhaps paid a visit to the library? Surely he had been somewhere else first; if someone hadnt softened Henry up, it would have been Eddie lying dead on the floor, with a switchblade growing out of his chest the way the neck of the Perrier bottle was growing out of Henrys gut. Or suppose Henry had visited all the others first, catching them bleary and halfasleep, as Henry had caught him? Suppose they were all dead? And that thought was so awful Eddie believed he would soon begin screaming if someone didnt answer the phone in Bills room. Please, Big Bill, Eddie whispered. Please be there, man. The phone was picked up and Bills voice, uncharacteristically cautious, said HHHello? Bill, Eddie said . . . almost babbled. Bill, thank God. Eddie? Bills voice grew momentarily fainter, speaking to someone else, telling the someone who it was. Then he was back strong. WWhats the muhhatter, Eddie? Its Henry Bowers, Eddie said. He looked at the body on the floor again. Had it changed position? This time it was not so easy to persuade himself it hadnt. Bill, he came here . . . and I killed him. He had a knife. I think . . . He lowered his voice. I think it was the same knife he had that day. When we went into the sewers. Do you remember? I rrremember, Bill said grimly. Eddie, listen to me. I want you to 12 The Barrens155 P.M. gggo back and tell BBBen to ccome up hhhere. Okay, Eddie said, and dropped back at once. They were approaching the clearing now. Thunder rumbled in the overcast sky, and the bushes sighed in the rising breeze. Ben joined him as they came into the clearing. The trapdoor to the clubhouse stood open, an improbable square of blackness in the green. The sound of the river was very clear, and Bill was suddenly struck by a crazy certainty that he was experiencing that sound, and this place, for the last time in his childhood. He drew a deep breath, smelling earth and air and the distant sooty dump, fuming like a sullen volcano that cannot quite make up its mind to erupt. He saw a flock of birds fly off the railroad trestle and toward the Old Cape. He looked up at the boiling clouds. What is it? Ben asked. Why hhhavent they tried to guhguhhet uus? Bill asked. Theyre ththere. EhEhEddie was ruhhight about that. I can fuhfuhheel them. Yeah, Ben said. I guess they might be stupid enough to think were going back into the clubhouse. Then theyd have us trapped. Muhmuhmaybe, Bill said, and he felt a sudden helpless fury at his stutter, which made it impossible for him to talk fast. Perhaps they were things he would have found impossible to say anywayhow he felt he could almost see through Henry Bowerss eyes, how he felt that, although on opposite sides, pawns controlled by opposing forces, he and Henry had grown very close. Henry expected them to stand and fight. It expected them to stand and fight. And be killed. A chilly explosion of white light seemed to fill his head. They would be victims of the killer that had been stalking Derry ever since Georges deathall seven of them. Perhaps their bodies would be found, perhaps not. It all depended on whether or not It could or would protect Henryand, to a lesser degree, Belch and Victor. Yes. To the outside, to the rest of this town, well have been victims of the killer. And thats right, in a funny sort of way that really is right. It wants us dead. Henrys the tool to get it done so It doesnt have to come out. Me first, I thinkBeverly and Richie might be able to hold the others, or Mike, but Stans scared, and sos Ben, although I think hes stronger than Stan. And Eddies got a broken arm. Why did I lead them down here? Christ! Why did I? Bill? Ben said anxiously. The others joined them beside the clubhouse. Thunder whacked again, and the bushes began to rustle more urgently. The bamboo rattled on in the fading stormy light. Bill It was Richie now. Shhh! The others fell uneasily silent under his blazing haunted eyes. He stared at the underbrush, at the path twisting away through it and back toward Kansas Street, and felt his mind suddenly go up another notch, as if to a higher plane. There was no stuttering in his mind; he felt as if his thoughts had been borne away on a mad flow of intuitionas if everything were coming to him. George at one end, me and my friends at the other. And then it will stop (again) again, yes, again, because this has happened before and there always has to be some sacrifice at the end, some terrible thing to stop it, I dont know how I can know that but I do . . . and they . . . they . . . They luhluhlet it happen, Bill muttered, staring wideeyed at the ratty pigtail of path. ShuhShuhSure they dddo. Bill? Bev asked, pleading. Stan stood on one side of her, small and neat in a blue polo shirt and chinos. Mike stood on the other, looking at Bill intensely, as if reading his thoughts. They let it happen, they always do, and things quiet down, things go on, It ... It ... (sleeps) sleeps . . . or hibernates like a bear . . . and then it starts again, and they know . . . people know . . . they know it has to be so It can be. I luhluhluhlll Oh please God oh please God he thrusts his fists please God against the posts let me get this out the posts and still insists oh God oh Christ OH PLEASE LET ME BE ABLE TO TALK! I 11led you ddown huhhere bbbbbecause nuhnuhnoplace is sssafe, Bill said. Spittle blabbered from his lips; he wiped them with the back of one hand. DuhDuhDerry is It. DDDo you uhuhunderstand mmme? He glared at them; they drew away a little, their eyes shiny, almost thanotropic with fright. Duhherry is IhIhIt! EhEhhennyppplace we gggo ... when IhIhIt ggggets uhus, they wwwuhhont suhsuhsee, they wwwont huhhuhhear, they wwwont nuhnuhknow. He looked at them, pleading. Duhdont yyyou suhsee hhow it ihihis? AAAll we cccan duhduhdo is to tttry and fuhhinish wwhat wwwwe stuhharted. Beverly saw Mr. Ross getting up, looking at her, folding his paper, and simply going into his house. They wont see, they wont hear, they wont know. And my father (take those pants off slutchild) had meant to kill her. Mike thought of lunch with Bill. Bills mother had been off in her own dreamy world, seeming not to see either of them, reading a Henry James novel while the boys made sandwiches and gobbled them standing at the counter. Richie thought of Stans neat but utterly empty house. Stan had been a little surprised; his mother was almost always home at lunchtime. On the few occasions when she wasnt, she left a note saying where she could be reached. But there had been no note today. The car was gone, and that was all. Probably went shopping with her friend Debbie, Stan said, frowning a little, and had set to work making eggsalad sandwiches. Richie had forgotten about it. Until now. Eddie thought of his mother. When he had gone out with his Parcheesi board there had been none of the usual cautions Be careful, Eddie, get under cover if it rains, Eddie, dont you dare play any rough games, Eddie. She hadnt asked if he had his aspirator, hadnt told him what time to be home, hadnt warned him against those rough boys you play with. She had simply gone on watching her soapopera story on TV, as if he didnt exist. As if he didnt exist. A version of the same thought went through all of the boys minds they had, at some point between getting up this morning and lunchtime, simply become ghosts. Ghosts. Bill, Stan said harshly, if we cut across? Through the Old Cape? Bill shook his head. I dont thuhthuhhink ssso. Wed ggget cccaught in the buhbuhbambbboo ... the quhquhquickmmud . . . or thered bbbe ruhruhreal ppppirahna fuhfuhfish in the KKKenduskeag ... ooor suhsuhhomething eeelse. Each had his or her own different vision of the same end. Ben saw bushes which suddenly became maneating plants. Beverly saw flying leeches like the ones that had come out of that old refrigerator. Stan saw the mucky ground in the bamboo vomiting up the living corpses of children caught in there by the fabled quickmud. Mike Hanlon imagined small Jurassic reptiles with horrid sawteeth suddenly boiling out of the cleft of a rotten tree, attacking them, biting them to pieces. Richie saw the Crawling Eye oozing down on top of them as they ran under the railroad trestle. And Eddie saw them climbing the Old Cape embankment only to look up and see the leper standing at the top, his sagging flesh acrawl with beetles and maggots, waiting for them. If we could get out of town somehow . . . Richie muttered, then winced as thunder shouted a furious negative from the sky. More rain fellit was still only squalling, but soon it would begin to come down seriously, in sheets and torrents. The days hazy peace was now utterly gone, as if it had never been at all. Wed be safe if we could just get out of this fucking town. Beverly began Beepb And then a rock came flying out of the shaggy bushes and struck Mike on the side of the head. He staggered backward, blood flowing through the tight cap of his hair, and would have fallen if Bill hadnt caught him. Teach you to throw rocks! Henrys voice floated mockingly to them. Bill could see the others looking around, wildeyed, ready to bolt in six different directions. And if they did that, it really would be over. BBBen! he said sharply. Ben looked at him. Bill, we gotta run. They Two more rocks flew out of the bushes. One struck Stan on the upper thigh. He yelled, more surprised than hurt. Beverly sidestepped the second. It struck the ground and rolled through the clubhouse trapdoor. DDDo you rrruhremember the fffirst duhday you cccame ddown here? Bill shouted over the thunder. The dddday schuhhool llet owout? Bill Richie shouted. Bill thrust a shushing hand at him; his eyes remained fixed on Ben, pinning him to the spot. Sure, Ben said, miserably trying to look in all directions at once. The bushes were now wavering and dancing wildly, their motion nearly tidal. The druhdruhdrain, Bill said. The pppumpingstuhhation. Thahthats where were suhsuhhupposed to gggo. Take us there! But Tuhtuhtake us ththere! A fusillade of rocks whizzed out of the bushes and for a moment Bill saw Victor Crisss face, somehow frightened, drugged, and avid all at the same time. Then a rock smashed into his cheekbone and it was Mikes turn to keep Bill from falling down. For a moment he couldnt see straight. His cheek felt numb. Then sensation returned in painful throbs and he felt blood running down his face. He swiped at his cheek, wincing at the painful knob that was rising there, looked at the blood, wiped it on his jeans. His hair whipped wildly in the freshening wind. Teach you to throw rocks, you stuttering asshole! Henry halflaughed, halfscreamed. TuhTuhTake us! Bill yelled. He understood now why he had sent Eddie back to get Ben; it was that pumpingstation they were supposed to go to, that very one, and only Ben knew exactly which one it wasthey ran along both banks of the Kenduskeag at irregular intervals. Ihihhits the pluhpluhhace! The wwway ihin! The wuhwuhwuhway to It! Bill, you cant know that! Beverly cried. He shouted furiously at herat all of them I know! Ben stood there for a moment, wetting his lips, looking at Bill. Then he struck off across the clearing, heading toward the river. A brilliant bolt of lightning streaked across the sky, purplishwhite, followed by a rip of thunder that made Bill reel on his feet. A fistsized chunk of rock sailed past his nose and struck Bens buttocks. He yipped with pain and his hand went to the spot. Yaah, fatboy! Henry cried in that same halflaughing, halfscreaming voice. The bushes rustled and crashed and Henry appeared as the rain stopped fooling around and came in a downpour. Water ran in Henrys crewcut, in his eyebrows, down his cheeks. His grin showed all his teeth. Teach you to throw r Mike had found one of the pieces of scrapwood left over from building the clubhouse roof and now he threw it. It flipped over twice and struck Henrys forehead. He screamed, clapped one hand to the spot like a man whos just had one hell of a good idea, and sat down hard. Ruhruhrun! Bill hollered. AAfter BuhBuhBen! More crashings and stumblings in the bushes, and as the rest of the Losers ran after Ben Hanscom, Victor and Belch appeared, Henry stood up, and the three of them gave chase. Even later, when the rest of that day had come back to Ben, he recalled only jumbled images of their run through the bushes. He remembered branches overloaded with dripping leaves slapping against his face, dousing him with cold water; he remembered that the thunder and lightning seemed to have become almost constant, and he remembered that Henrys screams for them to come back and fight seemed to merge with the sound of the Kenduskeag as they drew closer to it. Every time he slowed, Bill would whack him on the back to make him hurry up. What if I cant find it? What if I cant find that particular pumpingstation? The breath tore in and out of his lungs, hot and bloodytasting in the back of his throat. A stitch was sinking into his side. His buttocks sang where the rock had hit him. Beverly had said Henry and his friends meant to kill them, and Ben believed it now, yes he did. He came to the Kenduskeags bank so suddenly that he nearly plunged over the edge. He managed to get his balance, and then the embankment, undercut by the spring runoff, collapsed and he went tumbling over anyway, skidding all the way to the edge of the fastrunning water, his shirt rucking up in the back, clayey mud streaking and sticking to his skin. Bill piled into him and yanked him to his feet. The others burst out of the bushes which overhung the bank one after the other. Richie and Eddie were last, Richie with one arm slung around Eddies waist, his dripping specs clinging precariously to the end of his nose. WuhWuhWhere? Bill shouted. Ben looked first left and then right, aware that the time was suicidally short. The river seemed higher already, and the raindark sky had given it a dangerous slategray color as it boiled its way along. Its banks were choked with underbrush and stunted trees, all of them now dancing to the winds tune. He could hear Eddie sobbing for breath. Wuhwuhwhere? I dont kn he began, and then he saw the leaning tree and the eroded cave beneath it. That was where he had hidden that first day. He had dozed off, and when he woke up he had heard Bill and Eddie goofing around. Then the big boys had come . . . seen . . . conquered. Tata, boys, it was a real baby dam, believe me. There! he shouted. That way! Lightning flashed again and this time Ben could hear it, a buzzing noise like an overloaded Lionel traintransformer. It struck the tree and bluewhite electric fire sizzled its gnarly base into splinters and toothpicks sized for a fairytale giant. It fell toward the river with a rending crash, driving spray high into the air. Ben drew in a dismayed gasp and smelled something hot and punky and wild. A fireball rolled up the bole of the downed tree, seemed to flash brighter, and went out. Thunder exploded, not above them but around them, as if they stood in the center of the thunderclap. The rain sheeted down. Bill thumped him on the back, awaking him from his dazed contemplation of these things. GuhguhGO! Ben went, splashing and stumbling along the verge of the river, his hair hanging in his eyes. He reached the tree he little rootcave beneath it had been obliteratedand climbe over it, digging his toes into its wet hide, scraping his hands and forearms. Bill and Richie manhandled Eddie over, and as he stumbled off the treetrunk, Ben caught him. They both went tumbling to the ground. Eddie cried out. You all right? Ben shouted. I guess so, Eddie shouted back, getting to his feet. He fumbled for his aspirator and almost dropped it. Ben grabbed it for him and Eddie gave him a grateful look as he stuffed it into his mouth and triggered it. Richie came over, then Stan and Mike. Bill boosted Beverly up onto the tree and Ben and Richie caught her coming down on the far side, her hair plastered to her head, her bluejeans now black. |
Bill came last, pulling himself onto the trunk and swinging his legs around. He saw Henry and the other two splashing down the river toward them, and as he slid off the fallen tree he shouted Ruhruhrocks! Throw rocks! There were plenty of them here on the bank, and the lightningstruck tree made a perfect barricade. In a moment or two all seven of them were chucking rocks at Henry and his pals. They had nearly reached the tree; the range was pointblank. They were driven back, yelling with pain and fury, as rocks struck their faces, their chests, their arms and legs. Teach us to throw rocks! Richie shouted, and chucked one the size of a hens egg at Victor. It struck his shoulder and bounced almost straight up into the air. Victor howled. Ah say . . . Ah say . . . go on an teach us, boy! We learn good! Yeeeehaaaah! Mike screamed. How do you like it? How do you like it? The answer was not much. They retreated until they were out of range and huddled together. A moment later they climbed the bank, slipping and stumbling on the slick wet earth, which was already honeycombed with little running streamlets, holding onto branches to stay upright. They disappeared into the underbrush. Theyre gonna go around us, Big Bill, Richie said, pushing his glasses up on his nose. Thats ohohokay, Bill said. GGo on, BBBen. Well fuhfuhfollow yyou. Ben trotted along the embankment, paused (expecting that Henry and the others would burst out into his face at any moment), and saw the pumpingstation twenty yards farther down the streambed. The others followed him to it. They could see other cylinders on the opposite bank, one fairly close, the other forty yards upstream. Those two were both shooting torrents of muddy water into the Kenduskeag, but only a trickle was coming from the pipe sticking out of the embankment below this one. It wasnt humming, either, Ben noticed. The pumping machinery had broken down. He looked at Bill thoughtfully . . . and with some fright. Bill was looking at Richie, Stan, and Mike. WWWe gguhhotta get the lllid ohohoff, he said. HHHelp mmme. There were handholds in the iron, but the rain had made them slippery and the lid itself was incredibly heavy. Ben moved in next to Bill, and Bill shifted his hands a little to make room. Ben could hear water dripping insidean echoey, unpleasant sound, like water dripping into a well. NuhnuhNOW! Bill shouted, and the five of them heaved in unison. The lid moved with an ugly grating sound. Beverly grabbed on beside Richie and Eddie pushed with his good arm. One, two, three, push! Richie chanted. The lid grated a little farther off the top of the cylinder. Now a crescent of darkness showed. One, two, three, push! The crescent fattened. One, two, three, push! Ben shoved until red spots danced in front of his eyes. Stand back! Mike shouted. There it goes, there it goes! They stood away and watched as the big circular cap overbalanced, then fell. It dug a slash in the wet earth and landed upsidedown, like an oversized checker. Beetles scurried off its surface and into the matted grass. Uck, Eddie said. Bill peered inside. Iron rungs descended to a circular pool of black water, its surface now pocked with raindrops. The silent pump brooded in the middle of this, halfsubmerged. He could see water flowing into the pumpingstation from the mouth of its inflow pipe, and with a sinking in his guts he thought Thats where we have to go. In there. EhEhEhEddie. GGrab on to mmme. Eddie looked at him, uncomprehending. Like a puhpuhpiggerback. Hold on with yyour gggood ahaharm. He demonstrated. Eddie understood but was reluctant. Quick! Bill snapped. ThThTheyll bbbe here! Eddie grabbed on around Bills neck; Stan and Mike boosted him up so he could hook his legs around Bills midsection. As Bill swung clumsily over the lip of the cylinder, Ben saw that Eddies eyes were tightly shut. Over the rain, he could hear another sound whipping branches, snapping twigs, voices. Henry, Victor, and Belch. The worlds ugliest cavalry charge. Bill gripped the rough concrete lip of the cylinder and felt his way down, step by careful step. The iron rungs were slippery. Eddie had him in what was almost a deathgrip, and Bill supposed he was getting a pretty graphic demonstration of what Eddies asthma was really all about. Im scared, Bill, Eddie whispered. III am, too. He let go of the concrete rim and grabbed the topmost rung. Although Eddie was nearly choking him and felt as if he had already gained forty pounds, Bill paused a moment, looking at the Barrens, the Kenduskeag, the racing clouds. A voice insidenot a frightened voice, just a firm onehad told him to take a good look, in case he never saw the upper world again. So he looked, then began to descend with Eddie clinging to his back. I cant hold on much longer, Eddie managed. You wwwont have to, Bill said. Were almost duhhown. One of his feet went into chilly water. He felt for the next rung and found it. There was another below that and then the ladder ended. He was standing in kneedeep water beside the pump. He squatted, wincing as the cold water soaked his pants, and let Eddie off. He drew a deep breath. The smell wasnt so hot, but it was great not to have Eddies arm wrapped around his throat. He looked up at the cylinders mouth. It was about ten feet over his head. The others were grouped around the rim, looking down. CCCome on! he shouted. Wuhone at a tttime! Be quick! Beverly came first, swinging easily over the rim and grabbing the ladder, and Stan next. The others followed. Richie came last, pausing to listen to the progress of Henry and friends. He thought, from the sound of their blundering progress, that they would probably pass a little to the left of this pumpingstation, but almost certainly not by enough to make a difference. At that moment Victor bellowed Henry! There! Tozier! Richie looked around and saw them rushing toward him. Victor was in the lead . . . and then Henry pushed him aside so savagely that Victor skidded to his knees. Henry had a knife, all right, a regular pigsticker. Drops of water were falling from the blade. Richie glanced into the cylinder, saw Ben and Stan helping Mike off the ladder, and swung over himself. Henry understood what he was doing and screamed at him. Richie, laughing crazily, slammed his left hand in the crook of his right elbow and stuck his forearm skyward, his hand fisted in what may be the worlds oldest gesture. To be sure Henry got the point, he popped his middle finger up. Youll die down there! Henry shouted. Prove it! Richie shouted, laughing. He was terrified of going into this concrete throat, but he still couldnt stop laughing. And in his Irish Cops Voice he bugled Sure an begorrah, the luck of the Irish nivver runs out, me foine lad! Henry slipped on the wet grass and went sprawling on his butt less than twenty feet from where Richie stood, his feet on the top rung of the ladder bolted to the inner curve of the pumpingstation, his head and chest out. Hey, bananaheels! Richie shouted, delirious with triumph, and then scooted down the ladder. The iron rungs were slick and once he almost fell. Then Bill and Mike grabbed him and he was standing up to his knees in water with the rest of them in a loose circle around the pump. He was trembling all over, he felt hot and cold chills chasing each other up his back, and still he couldnt stop laughing. You should have seen him, Big Bill, clumsy as ever, still cant get out of his own frockin way Henrys head appeared in the circular opening at the top. Scratches from branches and brambles crisscrossed his cheeks. His mouth was working, and his eyes blazed. Okay, he shouted down at them. His words had a flat resonance inside the concrete cylinder, not quite an echo. Here I come. Got you now. He swung one leg over, felt for the topmost rung with his foot, found it, swung the other one over. Speaking loud, Bill said WWhen hhhe guhgets dddown cluhhose eeenough, wwwe all gruhgruhgrab hhim. PPPull hhim dddown. DuhDuhDuck him uhunder. GGGot iit? Righto, guvnor, Richie said, and snapped a salute with one trembling hand. Got you, Ben said. Stan tipped a wink at Eddie, who didnt understand what was going onexcept it seemed to him that Richie had gone crazy. He was laughing like a loon while Henry Bowersthe dreaded Henry Bowersprepared to come down and kill them all like rats in a rainbarrel. All ready for him, Bill! Stan cried. Henry froze three rungs down. He looked down at the Losers over his shoulder. His face seemed, for the first time, doubtful. Eddie suddenly got it. If they came down, they would have to come one at a time. It was too high to jump, especially with the pumping machinery to land on, and here they were, the seven of them, waiting in a tight little circle. Cuhcuhhome ohon, HHenry, Bill said pleasantly. Wuhwuhwhat are you wwwaiting for? Thats right, Richie chimed in. You like to beat up little kids, right? Come on, Henry. Were waiting, Henry, Bev said sweetly. I dont think youll like it when you get down here, but come on if you want to. Unless youre chicken, Ben added. He began to make chicken sounds. Richie joined him at once and soon all of them were doing it. The derisive clucking rebounded between the damp, trickling walls. Henry looked down at them, the knife clutched in his left hand, his face the color of old bricks. He put up with perhaps thirty seconds of it and then climbed out again. The Losers sent up catcalls and insults. OOOkay, Bill said. He spoke in a lower voice. WWe guhgot to get ihihinto that druhhain. Quhquhquick. Why? Beverly asked, but Bill was spared the effort of an answer. Henry reappeared at the rim of the pumpingstation and dropped a rock the size of a soccer ball into the pipe. Beverly screamed and Stan pulled Eddie against the circular wall with a hoarse yell. The rock struck the pumping machinerys rusty housing and produced a musical bonggg! It ricocheted left and struck the concrete wall, missing Eddie by less than half a foot. A chip of concrete flicked painfully against his cheek. The rock fell into the water with a splash. Quhquhquick! Bill shouted again, and they crowded around the pumpingstations inflow pipe. Its bore was about five feet in diameter. Bill sent them in one after another (a vague circus imageall the big clowns coming out of the little carpassed across his consciousness in a meteoric flash; years later he would use the same image in a book called The Black Rapids), and climbed in last, after ducking another rock. As they watched, more rocks flew down, most striking the pump housing and rebounding at crazy angles. When they stopped falling, Bill looked out and saw Henry coming down the ladder again, as quick as he could. GGGet hhhim! he shouted to the others. Richie, Ben, and Mike floundered out behind Bill. Richie leaped high and grabbed Henrys ankle. Henry cursed and shook his leg as if trying to kick away a small dog with big teetha terrier, perhaps, or a Pekinese. Richie grabbed a rung, scrabbled up even higher, and actually did manage to sink his teeth into Henrys ankle. Henry screamed and pulled himself up quickly. One of his loafers came off and splashed into the water, where it sank with no ado at all. Bit me! Henry was screaming. Bit me! Cocksucker bit me! Yeah, good thing I had a tetanus shot this spring! Richie flung at him. Bash them! Henry was raving. Bash them, bomb them back to the stone age, bash their brains in! More rocks flew. The boys backed into the drain again quickly. Mike was struck on the arm by a small rock and he held it tight, wincing, until the pain began to abate. Its a standoff, Ben said. They cant get down and we cant get up. Were not ssupposed to get up, Bill said quietly, and yyyou all know it. WWere nuhhot eever supposed to ggget up aagain. They looked at him, their eyes hurt and afraid. No one said anything. Henrys voice, fury masquerading as mockery, floated down We can wait up here all day, you guys! Beverly had turned away and was looking back along the bore of the inflow pipe. The light grew diffuse quickly, and she could not see much. What she could see was a concrete tunnel, its lower third filled with rushing water. It was higher on her now than it had been when they first squeezed in here, she realized; that would be because this pump wasnt working and only some of the water was exiting on the Kenduskeag side. She felt claustrophobia touch her throat, turning the skin there to something that felt like flannel. If the water rose enough, they would drown. Bill, do we have to? He shrugged. It said everything. Yeah, they had to; what else was there? Be killed by Henry, Victor, and Belch in the Barrens? Or by something elsemaybe something worsein town? She understood his thought well enough now; there was no stutter in his shrug. Better for them to go to It. Have it out, like the showdown in a Western movie. Cleaner. Braver. Richie said What was that ritual you told us about, Big Bill? The one in the library book? ChChChd, Bill said, smiling a little. Chd. Richie nodded. You bite Its tongue and It bites yours, right? Ruhruhright. Then you tell jokes. Bill nodded. Funny, Richie said, looking into the dark pipe, I cant think of a single one. Me either, Ben said. The fear was heavy in his chest, almost suffocating. He felt that the only thing keeping him from just sitting down in the water and blubbering like a babyor just going crazywas Bills calm, sure presence . . . and Beverly. He felt he would rather die than show Beverly how afraid he was. Do you know where this pipe goes? Stan asked Bill. Bill shook his head. Do you know how to find It? Bill shook his head again. Well know when were getting close, Richie said suddenly. He drew a deep, trembling breath. If we have to do it, then lets go. Bill nodded. Ill be fffirst. Then EhEddie. BBBen. Bev. Stuhhan the MMMan. MMMike. You luhlast, RihRichie. EEveryone kkkeep one hhhand on the shuhhoulder of the ppperson in fruhfruhfront of yyyou. Its gonna be ddark. You coming out? Henry Bowers shrieked down at them. Were gonna come out somewhere, Richie muttered. I guess. They formed up like a procession of blindmen. Bill looked back once, confirming that each had a hand on the shoulder of the person ahead. Then, bending forward slightly against the rush of the current, Bill Denbrough led his friends into the dark where the boat he had made for his brother had gone almost a year before. CHAPTER 20 The Circle Closes 1 Tom Tom Rogan was having one fuck of a crazy dream. In it he was killing his father. Part of his mind understood how crazy this was; his father had died when Tom was only in the third grade. Well . . . maybe died wasnt such a good word. Maybe committed suicide was actually the truth. Ralph Rogan had made himself a ginandlye cocktail. One for the road, you might say. Tom had been put in nominal charge of his brother and sisters, and he began to receive whuppins if anything went wrong with them. So he couldnt have killed his father . . . except there he was, in this frightening dream, holding what looked like a harmless handle of some sort to his fathers neck . . . only it wasnt really harmless, was it? There was a button in the end of the handle, and if he pushed it a blade would pop out and go right through his fathers neck. Im not going to do anything like that, Daddy, dont worry, his dreaming mind thought just before his finger jammed down on the button and the blade popped out. His fathers sleeping eyes opened and stared up at the ceiling; his fathers mouth opened and a bloody gargling sound came out. Daddy, I didnt do it! his mind screamed. Someone else He struggled to wake up and couldnt. The best he could do (and it turned out to be not very good at all) was to fade into a new dream. In this one he was splashing and slogging his way down a long dark tunnel. His balls hurt and his face stung because it was crisscrossed with scratches. There were others with him, but he could only make out vague shapes. It didnt matter, anyway. What mattered were the kids somewhere up ahead. They needed to pay. They needed (a whuppin) to be punished. Whatever purgatory this was, it was a smelly one. Water dripped and echoed. His shoes and pants were soaked. The little shitpots were somewhere up ahead in this maze of tunnels, and perhaps they thought (Henry) Tom and his friends would get lost, but the joke was on them (haha all over you!) because he had another friend, oh yes, a special friend, and this friend had marked the path they were to take with . . . with . . . (MoonBalloons) thingamajigs that were big and round and somehow lighted from within so that they shed a glow like that which falls mysteriously from oldfashioned streetlamps. One of these balloons floated and drifted at each intersection, and on the side of each was an arrow, pointing the way into the tunnelbranch he and (Belch and Victor) his unseen friends were to take. And it was the right path, oh yes he could hear the others ahead, their splashing progress echoing back, the distorted murmurs of their voices. They were getting closer, catching up. And when they did ... Tom looked down and saw that he still had the switchknife in his hand. For a moment he was frightenedthis was like one of those crazy astral experiences he sometimes read about in the weekly tabloids, when your spirit left your body and entered someone elses. The shape of his body felt different to him, as if he were not Tom but (Henry) someone else, someone younger. He began to fight his way out of the dream, panicked, and then a voice was talking to him, a soothing voice, whispering in his ear It doesnt matter when this is, and it doesnt matter who you are. What matters is that Beverly is up there, shes with them, my good friend, and do you know what? Shes been doing something one hell of a lot worse than sneaking smokes. You know what? Shes been fucking her old friend Bill Denbrough! Yes indeed! She and that stuttering freak, going right at it! They Thats a lie! he tried to scream. She wouldnt dare! But he knew it was no lie. She had used a belt on his (kicked me in the) balls and run off and she now had cheated on him, the slutty (child) little roundheels bitch had actually cheated on him, and oh dear friends, oh good neighbors, she was going to get the whuppin of all whuppinsfirst her and then Denbrough, her novelwriting friend. And anyone who tried to get in his way, you could count them in for a piece of the action, too. He stepped up his pace, although the breath was already whistling in and out of his throat. Up ahead he could see another luminous circle bobbing in the darknessanother MoonBalloon. He could hear the voices of the people ahead of him, and the fact that they were childish voices no longer bothered him. It was as the voice said it didnt matter where, when or who. Beverly was up there, and oh dear friends, oh good neighbors Come on, you guys, move your asses, he said, and it didnt even matter that his voice wasnt his own but the voice of a boy. Then, as they approached the MoonBalloon, he looked around and saw his companions for the first time. Both of them were dead. One was headless. The face of the other had been split open, as if by a great talon. Were moving as fast as we can, Henry, the boy with the split face said, and his lips moved in two pieces, grotesquely out of sync with each other, and that was when Tom shrieked the dream to pieces and came back to himself, tottering on the brink of what felt like some great empty space. He struggled to keep his balance, lost it, and tumbled to the floor. The floor was carpeted but the fall still sent a sickening burst of pain through his hurt knee and he stifled another cry against his forearm. Where am I? Where the fuck am I? He became aware of a faint but clear white light, and for a frightening moment he thought he was back in the dream again, that it was light cast by one of those crazy balloons. Then he remembered leaving the bathroom door partially open and the fluorescent light in there on. He always left the light on when staying in a strange place; it saved you barking your shins if you had to get up in the night to pee. That clicked reality into place. It had been a dream, all some crazy dream. He was in a Holiday Inn. This was Derry, Maine. He had chased his wife here, and, in the middle of a crazy nightmare, he had fallen out of bed. That was all; that was the long and the short of it. That wasnt just a nightmare. He jumped as if the words had been spoken beside his ear instead of inside his own mind. It didnt seem like his own interior voice at allit was cold, alien . . . but somehow hypnotic and believable. He got up slowly, fumbled a glass of water off the table beside the bed, and drank it down. He ran shaky hands through his hair. The clock on the table said ten past three. Go back to sleep. Wait until morning. That alien voice answered But there will be people around in the morningtoo many people. And besides, you can beat them down there this time. This time you can be first. Down there? He thought of his dream the water, the dripping dark. The light suddenly seemed brighter. He turned his head, not wanting to but helpless to stop. A groan slipped out of his mouth. A balloon was tied to the knob of the bathroom door. It floated at the end of a string about three feet long. The balloon glowed, full of a ghostly white light; it looked like a willothewisp glimpsed in a swamp, floating dreamily between trees overhung with gray ropes of moss. An arrow was printed on the balloons gently bulging skin, an arrow that was bloodscarlet. It was pointing at the door leading out into the hall. It doesnt really matter who I am, the voice said soothingly, and Tom realized now that it wasnt coming from either his own head or from beside his ear; it was coming from the balloon, from the center of that strange lovely white light. All that matters is that I am going to see that everything turns out to your satisfaction, Tom. I want to see her take a whuppin; I want to see them all take a whuppin. Theyve crossed my path once too often . . . and much too late in the day for them. So listen, Tom. Listen very carefully. All together now . . . follow the bouncing ball . . . Tom listened. The voice from the balloon explained. It explained everything. When it was done, it popped in one final flash of light and Tom began to dress. 2 Audra Audra also had nightmares. She awoke with a start, sitting boltupright in bed, the sheet pulled around her waist, her small breasts moving with her quick, agitated breathing. Like Toms, her dreaming had been a jumbled, distressful experience. Like Tom, she had had the sensation of being someone elseor rather, of having her own consciousness deposited (and partially submerged) in another body and another mind. She had been in a dark place with a number of others around her, and she had been aware of an oppressive sensation of dangerthey were going into the danger deliberately and she wanted to scream at them to stop, to explain to her what was happening . . . but the person with whom she had merged seemed to know, and to believe it was necessary. She was also aware that they were being chased, and that their pursuers were catching up, little by little. Bill had been in the dream, but his story about how he had forgotten his childhood must have been on her mind, because in her dream Bill was only a boy, ten or twelve years oldhe still had all his hair! She was holding his hand, and was dimly aware that she loved him very much, and that her willingness to go on was based on the rocksolid belief that Bill would protect her and all of them, that Bill, Big Bill, would somehow bring them through this and back into the daylight again. Oh but she was so terrified. They came to a branching of many tunnels and Bill stood there, looking from one to the next, and one of the othersa boy with his arm in a cast which glimmered a ghostlywhite in the darknessspoke up That one, Bill. The bottom one. YYYoure sssure? Yes. And so they had gone that way and then there had been a door, a wee wooden door no more than three feet high, the sort of door you might see in a fairytale book, and there had been a mark on the door. She could not remember what that mark had been, what strange rune or symbol. But it had brought all her terror to a focusingpoint and she had yanked herself out of that other body, that girls body, whoever (BeverlyBeverly) she might have been. She awoke boltupright in a strange bed, sweaty, wideeyed, gasping as if she had just run a race. Her hands flew to her legs, halfexpecting to find them wet and cold with the water she had been walking through in her head. But she was dry. Disorientation followedthis was not their home in Topanga Canyon or the rented house in Fleet. It was noplacelimbo furnished with a bed, a dresser, two chairs, and a TV. Oh God, come on, Audra She scrubbed her hands viciously across her face and that sickening feeling of mental vertigo receded. She was in Derry. Derry, Maine, where her husband had grown through a childhood he claimed no longer to remember. Not a familiar place to her, or a particularly good place by its feel, but at least a known place. She was here because Bill was here, and she would see him tomorrow, at the Derry Town House. Whatever terrible thing was wrong here, whatever those new scars on his hands meant, they would face it together. She would call him, tell him she was here, then join him. After that . . . well . . . Actually, she had no idea what came after that. The vertigo, that sense of being in a place that was really noplace, was threatening again. When she was nineteen she had done a whistlestop tour with a scraggy little production company, forty notsowonderful performances of Arsenic and Old Lace in forty notsowonderful towns and small cities. All of this in fortyseven notsowonderful days. They began at the Peabody Dinner Theater in Massachusetts and ended at Play It Again Sam in Sausalito. And somewhere in between, in some Midwestern town like Ames Iowa or Grand Isle Nebraska or maybe Jubilee North Dakota, she had awakened like this in the middle of the night, panicked by disorientation, unsure what town she was in, what day it was, or why she was wherever she was. Even her name seemed unreal to her. That feeling was back now. Her bad dreams had carried over into her waking and she felt a nightmarish freefloating terror. The town seemed to have wrapped itself around her like a python. She could sense it, and the feelings it produced were not good. She found herself wishing that she had heeded Freddies advice and stayed away. Her mind fixed on Bill, grasping at the thought of him the way a drowning woman would grip at a spar, a lifepreserver, anything that (we all float down here, Audra) floats. A chill raced through her and she crisscrossed her arms across her naked breasts. She shivered and saw goosebumps ripple their way up her flesh. For a moment it seemed to her that a voice had spoken aloud, but inside her head. As if there was an alien presence in there. Am I going crazy? God, is that it? No, her mind responded. Its just disorientation . . . jetlag . . . worry over your man. Nobodys talking inside your head. Nobody We all float down here, Audra, a voice said from the bathroom. It was a real voice, real as houses. And sly. Sly and dirty and evil. Youll float, too. The voice uttered a fruity little giggle that dropped in pitch until it sounded like a clogged drain bubbling thickly. Audra cried out . . . then pressed her hands against her mouth. I didnt hear that. She said it out loud, daring the voice to contradict her. It didnt. The room was silent. Somewhere, far away, a train whistled in the night. Suddenly she needed Bill so badly that waiting until daylight seemed impossible. She was in a standardized motel room exactly like the other thirtynine units in the place, but suddenly it was too much. Everything. When you started hearing voices, it was just too much. Too creepy. She seemed to be slipping back into the nightmare shed so lately escaped. She felt scared and terribly alone. Its worse than that, she thought. I feel dead. Her heart suddenly skipped two beats in her chest, making her gasp and utter a startled cough. She felt an instant of prisonpanic, claustrophobia inside her own body, and wondered if all this terror didnt have a stupidly ordinary physical root after all maybe she was going to have a heart attack. Or was already having one. Her heart settled, but uneasily. Audra turned on the light by the bedtable and looked at her watch. Twelve past three. He would be sleeping, but that didnt matter to her nownothing mattered except hearing his voice. She wanted to finish the night with him. If Bill was beside her, her clockwork would fall in sync with his and settle down. The nightmares would stay away. He sold nightmares to othersthat was his tradebut to her he had never given anything but peace. Outside that odd cold nut imbedded in his imagination, peace seemed to be all he was made for or meant for. She got the Yellow Pages, found the number for the Derry Town House, and dialed it. Derry Town House. Would you please ring Mr. Denbroughs room? Mr. William Denbrough? Does that guy ever get any calls in the daytime? the clerk said, and before she could think to ask what that was supposed to mean, he had plugged her call through. The phone burred once, twice, three times. She could imagine him, sleeping with everything under the covers except the top of his head; she could imagine one hand coming out, feeling for the phone. She had seen him do it before, and a fond little smile touched her lips. It faded as the phone rang a fourth time . . . and a fifth, and a sixth. Halfway through the seventh ring, the connection was broken. That room does not answer. No shit, Sherlock, Audra said, more upset and frightened than ever. Are you sure you rang the right room? Ayup, the clerk said. Mr. Denbrough had an interroom call not five minutes ago. I know he answered that one, because the light stayed on the switchboard a minute or two. He must have gone to the persons room. Well, which room was it? I dont remember. Sixth floor, I think. But She dropped the phone back into its cradle. A queer disheartening certainty came to her. It was a woman. Some woman had called him . . . and he had gone to her. Well, what now, Audra? How do we handle this? She felt tears threaten. They stung her eyes and her nose; she could feel the lump of a sob in the back of her throat. No anger, at least not yet . . . only a sick sense of loss and abandonment. Audra, get hold of yourself. Youre jumping to conclusions. Its the middle of the night and you had a bad dream and now youve got Bill with some other woman. But it aint necessarily so. What youre going to do is sit upyoull never get back to sleep now anyway. Turn on some lights and finish the novel you brought to read on the plane. Remember what Bill says? Finest kind of dope. BookValium. No more heebiejeebies. No more whimwhams and hearing voices. Dorothy Sayers and Lord Peter, thats the ticket. The Nine Tailors. Thatll take you through to dawn. Thatll The bathroom light suddenly went on; she could see it under the door. Then the latch clicked and the door juddered open. She stared at this, eyes widening, arms instinctively crossing over her breasts again. Her heart began to slam against her ribcage and the sour taste of adrenaline flooded her mouth. That voice, low and dragging, said We all float down here, Audra. The last word became a long, low, fading screamAudraaaaathat ended once again in that sick, clogged, bubbly sound that was so much like laughter. Whos there? she cried, backing away. That wasnt my imagination, no way, youre not going to tell me that The TV clicked on. |
She whirled around and saw a clown in a silvery suit with big orange buttons capering around on the screen. There were black sockets where its eyes should have been, and when its madeup lips stretched even wider in a grin, she saw teeth like razors. It held up a dripping, severed head. Its eyes were turned up to the whites and the mouth sagged open, but she could see well enough that it was Freddie Firestones head. The clown laughed and danced. It swung the head around and drops of blood splashed against the inside of the TV screen. She could hear them sizzling in there. Audra tried to scream and nothing came out but a little whine. She grabbed blindly for the dress lying over the back of the chair, and for her purse. She bolted into the hall and slammed the door behind her, gasping, her face paperwhite. She dropped the purse between her feet and slipped the dress over her head. Float, a low, chuckling voice said from behind her, and she felt a cold finger caress her bare heel. She uttered another high outofbreath scream and danced away from the door. White corpsefingers were seeking back and forth under it, the nails peeled away to show purplishwhite bloodless quicks. They made hoarse whispering noises on the rough nap of the hall carpet. Audra snagged the strap of her purse and ran barefooted for the door at the end of the corridor. She was in a blind panic now, her only thought that she had to find the Derry Town House, and Bill. It didnt matter if he was in bed with enough other women to make up a harem. She would find him and get him to take her away from whatever unspeakable thing there was in this town. She fled down the walkway and into the parkinglot, looking around wildly for her car. For a moment her mind froze and she couldnt even remember what she had been driving. Then it came Datsun, tobaccobrown. She spotted it standing hubcapdeep in the still, curdled groundmist, and hurried over to it. She couldnt find the keys in her purse. She swept through it with steadily increasing panic, shuffling Kleenex, cosmetics, change, sunglasses, and sticks of gum into a meaningless jumble. She didnt notice the battered LTD wagon parked nosetonose with her rented car, or the man sitting behind the wheel. She didnt notice when the LTDs door opened and the man got out; she was trying to cope with the growing certainty that she had left the Datsuns keys in the room. She couldnt go back in there; she couldnt. Her fingers touched hard serrated metal under a box of Altoid mints and she seized at it with a little cry of triumph. For a terrible moment she thought it might be the key to their Rover, now sitting in the Fleet railway stations carpark three thousand miles away, and then she felt the lucite rentalcar tab. She fumbled the key into the doorlock, breathing in harsh little gasps, and turned it. That was when a hand fell on her shoulder, and she screamed . . . screamed loudly this time. Somewhere a dog barked in answer, but that was all. The hand, as hard as steel, bit cruelly in and forced her around. The face she saw looming over hers was puffed and lumpy. The eyes glittered. When the swelled lips spread in a grotesque smile, she saw that some of the mans front teeth had been broken. The stumps looked jagged and savage. She tried to speak and could not. The hand squeezed tighter, digging in. Havent I seen you in the movies? Tom Rogan whispered. 3 Eddies Room Beverly and Bill dressed quickly, without speaking, and went up to Eddies room. On their way to the elevator they heard a phonebell begin somewhere behind them. It was muffled, a somewhereelse sound. Bill, was that yours? CCould have bbbeen, he said. One of the uhothers ccalling, muhhaybe. He punched the UP button. Eddie opened the door for them, his face white and strained. His left arm was at an angle both peculiar and weirdly evocative of old times. Im okay, he said. I took two Darvon. Pains not bad right now. But it was clearly not good, either. His lips, pressed so tightly together they had almost disappeared, were purple with shock. Bill looked past him and saw the body on the floor. One look was enough to satisfy him of two thingsit was Henry Bowers, and he was dead. He moved past Eddie and knelt by the body. The neck of a Perrier bottle had been driven into Henrys midsection, pulling the tatters of his shirt in after it. Henrys eyes were halfopen, glazed. His mouth, filled with coagulating blood, snarled. His hands were claws. A shadow fell over him and Bill looked up. It was Beverly. She looked down at Henry with no expression at all. All the times he chchchased us, Bill said. She nodded. He doesnt look old. You know that, Bill? He doesnt look old at all. Abruptly she looked back at Eddie, who was sitting on the bed. Eddie looked old; old and haggard. His arm lay in his lap, useless. Weve got to call the doctor for Eddie. No, Bill and Eddie said in unison. But hes hurt! His arm Its the same as luhluhlast tttime, Bill said. He got to his feet and held her by the arms, looking into her face. Once we ggo outside . . . once wwwe ihinvvholve the tttown Theyll arrest me for murder, Eddie said dully. Or theyll arrest all of us. Or theyll detain us. Or something. Then therell be an accident. One of the special accidents that only happen in Derry. Maybe theyll stick us in jail and a deputy sheriff will go berserk and shoot us all. Maybe well all die of ptomaine, or decide to hang ourselves in our cells. Eddie, thats crazy! Thats Is it? he asked. Remember, this is Derry. But were grownups now! Surely you dont think . . . I mean, he came here in the middle of the night . . . attacked you . . . WWith what? Bill said. Wheres the nuhnuhknife? She looked around, didnt see it, and dropped on her knees to look under the bed. Dont bother, Eddie said in that same faint, whistly voice. I slammed the door on his arm when he tried to stick me with it. He dropped it and I kicked it under the TV. Its gone now. I already looked. BBBeheverly, ccall the others, Bill said. I can spuhsplint EEEddies arm, I thhink. She looked at him for a long moment, then she looked down at the body on the floor again. She thought that the picture this room presented should tell a perfectly clear story to any policeman with half a brain. The place was a mess. Eddies arm was broken. This man was dead. It was a clear case of selfdefense against a nightprowler. And then she remembered Mr. Ross. Mr. Ross getting up and looking and then simply folding his newspaper and going back into the house. Once we go outside . . . once we involve the town . . . That made her remember Bill as a kid, his face white and tired and halfcrazy, Bill saying Derry is It. Do you understand me? ... Anyplace we go ... when It gets us, they wont see, they wont hear, they wont know. Dont you see how it is? All we can do is to try and finish what we started. Standing here now, looking down at Henrys corpse, Beverly thought Theyre both saying weve all become ghosts again. That its started to repeat. All of it. As a kid I could accept that, because kids almost are ghosts. But Are you sure? she asked desperately. Bill, are you sure? He was sitting on the bed with Eddie, gently touching his arm. AAArent yyou? he asked. After aaall thats huhhappened ttoday? Yes. All that had happened. The gruesome mess at the end of their reunion. The beautiful old woman who had turned into a crone before her eyes, (my fadder was also my mudder) the round of stories at the library tonight with the accompanying phenomena. All of those things. And still . . . her mind shouted at her desperately to stop this now, to spike it with sanity, because if she did not they were surely going to finish up this night by going down to the Barrens and finding a certain pumpingstation and I dont know, she said. I just . . . I dont know. Even after everything thats happened, Bill, it seems to me that we could call the police. Maybe. CCCall the uhothers, he said again. Well sssee what they ththink. All right. She called Richie first, then Ben. Both agreed to come right away. Neither asked what had happened. She found Mikes telephone number in the book and dialed it. There was no answer; after a dozen rings she hung up. TTTry the luhluhhibrary, Bill said. He had taken the short curtain rods down from the smaller of the two windows in Eddies room and was binding them firmly to Eddies arm with the belt of his bathrobe and the drawstring from his pajamas. Before she could find the number there was a knock at the door. Ben and Richie had arrived together, Ben in jeans and an untucked shirt, Richie in a pair of smart gray cotton trousers and his pajama top. His eyes looked warily around the room from behind his glasses. Christ, Eddie, what happened to Oh my God! Ben cried. He had seen Henry on the floor. BBBe quhhiet! Bill said sharply. And close ththe ddoor! Richie did it, his eyes fixed on the body. Henry? Ben took three steps toward the corpse and then stopped, as if afraid it might bite him. He looked helplessly at Bill. YYYou ttell, he said to Eddie. GGGoddam stuhhuhhutter is ggetting wuhwuhworse all the tttime. Eddie sketched in what had happened while Beverly hunted up the number for the Derry Public Library and called it. She expected that perhaps Mike had fallen asleep therehe might even have a bunk in his office. What she did not expect was what happened the phone was picked up on the second ring and a voice she had never heard before said hello. Hello, she answered, looking toward the others and making a shushing gesture with one hand. Is Mr. Hanlon there? Whos this? the voice asked. She wet her lips with her tongue. Bill was looking at her piercingly. Ben and Richie had looked around. The beginnings of real alarm stirred inside her. Who are you? she countered. Youre not Mr. Hanlon. Im Derry Chief of Police Andrew Rademacher, the voice said. Mr. Hanlon is at the Derry Home Hospital right now. He was assaulted and badly wounded a short time ago. Now who are you, please? I want your name. But she barely heard this last. Waves of shock rode through her, lifting her dizzily up and up, outside of herself. The muscles in her stomach and legs and crotch all went loose and numb, and she thought in a detached way This must be how it happens, when people get so scared they wet their pants. Sure. You just lose control of those muscles How badly has he been hurt? she heard herself asking in a papery voice, and then Bill was beside her, his hand on her shoulder, and Ben was there, and Richie, and she felt such a rush of gratitude for them. She held her free hand out and Bill took it. Richie placed his hand over Bills and Ben put his over Richies. Eddie had come over, and now he put his good hand on top. I want your name, please, Rademacher said briskly, and for a moment the skittering little craven inside of her, the one that had been bred by her father and cared for by her husband, almost answered Im Beverly Marsh and Im at the Derry Town House. Please send Mr. Nell over. Theres a dead man here whos still half a boy and were all very frightened. She said I ... Im afraid I cant tell you. Not just yet. What do you know about this? Nothing, she said, shocked. What makes you think I do? Jesus Christ! You just make a habit of calling the library every morning about threethirty, Rademacher said, is that it? Can the bullshit, young lady. This is assault, and the way the guy looks, it could be murder by the time the sun comes up. Ill ask you again who are you and how much do you know about this? Closing her eyes, gripping Bills hand with all her strength, she asked again He might die? Youre not just saying that to scare me? He really might die? Please tell me. Hes very badly hurt. And if that doesnt scare you, miss, it ought to. Now I want to know who you are and why As if in a dream she watched her hand float through space and drop the phone back into the cradle. She looked over at Henry and felt shock as keen as a slap from a cold hand. One of Henrys eyes had closed. The other one, the shattered one, oozed as nakedly as before. Henry seemed to be winking at her. 4 Richie called the hospital. Bill led Beverly over to the bed, where she sat with Eddie, looking off into space. She thought she would cry, but no tears came. The only feeling she was strongly and immediately aware of was a wish that someone would cover Henry Bowers. That winky look was really not cool at all. In one giddy instant Richie became a reporter from the Derry News. He understood that Mr. Michael Hanlon, the towns head librarian, had been assaulted while working late. Did the hospital have any word on Mr. Hanlons condition? Richie listened, nodding. I understand, Mr. Kerpaskiando you spell that with two ks? You do. Okay. And you are He listened, now enough into his own fiction to make doodling motions with one finger, as if writing on a pad. Uhhuh ... uhhuh ... yes. Yes, I understand. Well, what we usually do in cases like this is to quote you as a source. Then, later on, we can . . . uhhuh ... right! Just right! Richie laughed heartily and armed a film of sweat from his forehead. He listened again. Okay, Mr. Kerpaskian. Yes. Ill ... yes, I got it, KERPASKIAN, right! Czech Jewish, is it? Really! Thats ... thats most unusual. Yes, I will. Goodnight. Thank you. He hung up and closed his eyes. Jesus! he cried in a thick, low voice. Jesus! Jesus! Jesus! He made as if to shove the phone off the table and then simply let his hand fall. He took his glasses off and wiped them on his pajama top. Hes alive, but in grave condition, he told the others. Henry sliced him up like a Christmas turkey. One of the cuts chopped into his femoral artery and hes lost all the blood a man can and still stay alive. Mike managed to get some kind of tourniquet on it, or he would have been dead when they found him. Beverly began to cry. She did it like a child, with both hands plastered to her face. For a little while her hitching sobs and the rapid whistle of Eddies breathing were the only sounds in the room. Mike wasnt the only one who got sliced up like a Christmas turkey, Eddie said at last. Henry looked like he just went twelve rounds with Rocky Balboa in a Cuisinart. DDo you still wwwant to gggo to the pppolice, Bev? There were Kleenex on the nighttable but they were a caked and sodden mass in the middle of a puddle of Perrier. She went into the bathroom, making a wide circle around Henry, got a washcloth, and ran cool water on it. It felt delicious against her hot puffy face. She felt that she could think clearly againnot rationally but clearly. She was suddenly sure that rationality would kill them if they tried to use it now. That cop. Rademacher. He had been suspicious. Why not? People didnt call the library at threethirty in the morning. He had assumed some guilty knowledge. What would he assume if he found out that she had called him from a room where there was a dead man on the floor with a jagged bottleneck planted in his guts? That she and four other strangers had just come into town the day before for a little reunion and this guy just happened to drop by? Would she buy the tale if the shoe were on the other foot? Would anyone? Of course, they could buttress their tale by adding that they had come back to finish the monster that lived in the drains under the city. That would certainly add a convincing note of gritty realism. She came out of the bathroom and looked at Bill. No, she said. I dont want to go to the police. I think Eddies rightsomething might happen to us. Something final. But that isnt the real reason. She looked at the four of them. We swore it, she said. We swore. Bills brother ... Stan ... all the others ... and now Mike. Im ready, Bill. Bill looked at the others. Richie nodded. Okay, Big Bill. Lets try. Ben said, The odds look worse. than ever. Were two short now. Bill said nothing. Okay. Ben nodded. Shes right. We swore. EEEddie? Eddie smiled wanly. I guess I get another piggerback down that ladder, huh? If the ladders still there. No one throwing rocks this time, though, Beverly said. Theyre dead. All three of them. Do we do it now, Bill? Richie asked. YYYes, Bill said. I ththink this is the tttime. Can I say something? Ben asked abruptly. Bill looked at him and grinned a little. AAAny time. You guys are still the best friends I ever had, Ben said. No matter how this turns out. I just . . . you know, wanted to tell you that. He looked around at them, and they looked solemnly back at him. Im glad I remembered you, he added. Richie snorted. Beverly giggled. Then they were all laughing, looking at each other in the old way, in spite of the fact that Mike was in the hospital, perhaps dying or already dead, in spite of the fact that Eddies arm was broken (again), in spite of the fact that it was the deepest ditch of the morning. Haystack, you have such a way with words, Richie said, laughing and wiping his eyes. He should have been the writer, Big Bill. Still smiling a little, Bill said And on that nuhnuhnote 5 They took Eddies borrowed limo. Richie drove. The groundfog was thicker now, drifting through the streets like cigarette smoke, not quite reaching the hooded streetlamps. The stars overhead were bright chips of ice, spring stars ... but by cocking his head to the halfopen window on the passenger side, Bill thought he could hear summer thunder in the distance. Rain was being ordered up somewhere over the horizon. Richie turned on the radio and there was Gene Vincent singing BeBopALula. He hit one of the other buttons and got Buddy Holly. A third punch brought Eddie Cochran singing Summertime Blues. Id like to help you, son, but youre too young to vote, a deep voice said. Turn it off, Richie, Beverly said softly. He reached for it, and then his hand froze. Stay tuned for more of the Richie Tozier AllDead Rock Show! the clowns laughing, screaming voice cried over the fingerpops and guitarchops of the Eddie Cochran tune. Dont touch that dial, keep it tuned to the rockpile, theyre gone from the charts but not from our hearts and you keep coming, come right along, come on everybody! We play aaaalll the hits down here! Aaallllll the hits! And if you dont believe me, just listen to this mornings graveyardshift guest deejay, Georgie Denbrough! Tell em, Georgie! And suddenly Bills brother was wailing out of the radio. You sent me out and It killed me! I thought It was in the cellar, Big Bill, I thought It was in the cellar but It was in the drain, It was in the drain and It killed me, you let It kill me, Big Bill, you let It Richie snapped the radio off so hard the knob spun away and hit the floormat. Rock and roll in the sticks really sucks, he said. His voice was not quite steady. Bevs right, well leave it off, what do you say? No one replied. Bills face was pale and still and thoughtful under the glow of the passing streetlamps, and when the thunder muttered again in the west they all heard it. 6 In the Barrens Same old bridge. Richie parked beside it and they got out and moved to the railingsame old railingand looked down. Same old Barrens. It seemed untouched by the last twentyseven years; to Bill the turnpike overpass, which was the only new feature, looked unreal, something as ephemeral as a matte painting or a rearscreen projection effect in a movie. Cruddy little trees and scrub bushes glimmered in the twining fog and Bill thought I guess this is what we mean when we talk about the persistence of memory, this or something like this, something you see at the right time and from the right angle, image that kicks off emotion like a jet engine. You see it so clear that all the things which happened in between are gone. If desire is what closes the circle between world and want, then the circle has closed. CuhCuhCome on, he said, and climbed over the railing. They followed him down the embankment in a scatter of scree and pebbles. When they reached the bottom Bill checked automatically for Silver and then laughed at himself. Silver was leaning against the wall of Mikes garage. It seemed Silver had no part to play in this at all, although that was strange, after the way it had turned up. TuhTake us there, Bill told Ben. Ben looked at him and Bill read the thought in his eyesIts been twentyseven years, Bill, dream onand then he nodded and headed into the undergrowth. The paththeir pathhad long since grown over, and they had to force themselves through tangles of thornbushes, prickers, and wild hydrangea so fragrant it was cloying. Crickets sang somnolently all around them, and a few lightningbugs, early arrivals at summers luscious party, poked at the dark. Bill supposed kids still played down here, but they had made their own runs and secret ways. They came to the clearing where the clubhouse had been, but now there was no clearing here at all. Bushes and lackluster scrub pines had reclaimed it all. Look, Ben whispered, and crossed the clearing (in their memories it was still here, simply overlaid with another of those matte paintings). He yanked at something. It was the mahogany door they had found on the edge of the dump, the one they had used to finish off the clubhouse roof. It had been cast aside here and looked as if it hadnt been touched in a dozen years or more. Creepers were firmly entrenched across its dirty surface. Leave it alone, Haystack, Richie murmured. Its old. TuhTuhTake us ththere, BBen, Bill repeated from behind them. So they went down to the Kenduskeag following him, bearing left away from the clearing that didnt exist anymore. The sound of running water grew steadily louder, but they still almost fell into the Kenduskeag before any of them saw it the foliage had grown up in a tangled wall on the edge of the embankment. The edge broke off under the heels of Bens cowboy boots and Bill yanked him back by the scruff of the neck. Thanks, Ben said. De nada. In the oold ddays, you wuhhould have puhpulled me ihin aaafter you. DDown this wuhway? Ben nodded and led them along the overgrown bank, fighting through the tangles of bushes and brambles, thinking how much easier this was when you were only four feet five and able to go under most tangles (those in your mind as well as those in your path, he supposed) in one nonchalant duck. Well, everything changed. Our lesson for today, boys and girls, is the more things change, the more things change. Whoever said the more things change the more things stay the same was obviously suffering severe mental retardation. Because His foot hooked under something and he fell over with a thud, nearly striking his head on the pumpingstations concrete cylinder. It was almost completely buried in a wallow of blackberry bushes. As he got to his feet again he realized that his face and arms and hands had been striped by blackberry thorns in two dozen places. Make that three dozen, he said, feeling thin blood running down his cheeks. What? Eddie asked. Nothing. He bent down to see what he had tripped over. A root, probably. But it wasnt a root. It was the iron manhole cover. Someone had pushed it off. Of course, Ben thought. We did. Twentyseven years ago. But he realized that was crazy even before he saw fresh metal twinkling through the rust in parallel scrapemarks. The pump hadnt been working that day. Sooner or later someone would have come down to fix it, and would have replaced the cover in the bargain. He stood up and the five of them gathered around the cylinder and looked in. They could hear the faint sound of dripping water. That was all. Richie had brought all the matches from Eddies room. Now he lit an entire book of them and tossed it in. For a moment they could see the cylinders damp inner sleeve and the silent bulk of the pumping machinery. That was all. Could have been off for a long time, Richie said uneasily. Didnt necessarily have to happen t Its happened fairly recently, Ben said. Since the last rain, anyway. He took another book of matches from Richie, lit one, and pointed out the fresh scratches. Theres suhsuhsomething uhunder it, Bill said as Ben shook out the match. What? Ben asked. CCCouldnt tuhtuhtell. Looked like a struhstruhstrap. You and RihRichie help me ttturn it oover. They grabbed the cover and flipped it like a giant coin. This time Beverly lit the match and Ben cautiously picked up the purse which had been under the manhole cover. He held it up by the strap. Beverly started to shake out the match and then looked at Bills face. She froze until the flame touched the ends of her fingers and then dropped it with a little gasp. Bill? What is it? Whats wrong? Bills eyes felt too heavy. They couldnt leave that scuffed leather bag with its long leather strap. Suddenly he could remember the name of the song which had been playing on the radio in the back room of the leathergoods shop when he had bought it for her. Sausalito Summer Nights. It was the surpassing weirdism. All the spit was gone out of his mouth, leaving his tongue and inner cheeks as smooth and dry as chrome. He could hear the crickets and see the lightningbugs and smell big green dark growing out of control all around him and he thought Its another trick another illusion shes in England and this is just a cheap shot because Its scared, oh yes, Its maybe not as sure as It was when It called us all back, and really, Bill, get serioushow many scuffed leather purses with long straps do you think there are in the world? A million? Ten million? Probably more. But only one like this. He had bought it for Audra in a Burbank leathergoods store while Sausalito Summer Nights played on the radio in the back room. Bill? Beverlys hand on his shoulder, shaking him. Far away. Twentyseven leagues under the sea. What was the name of the group that sang Sausalito Summer Nights? Richie would know. I know, Bill said calmly into Richies scared, wideeyed face, and smiled. It was Diesel. Hows that for total recall? Bill, whats wrong? Richie whispered. Bill screamed. He snatched the matches out of Beverlys hand, lit one, and then yanked the purse away from Ben. Bill, Jesus, what He unzipped the purse and turned it over. What fell out was so much Audra that for a moment he was too unmanned to scream again. Amid the Kleenex, sticks of chewing gum, and items of makeup, he saw a tin of Altoid mints ... and the jewelled compact Freddie Firestone had given her when she signed for Attic Room. My wuhwuhwifes down there, he said, and fell on his knees and began pushing her things back into the purse. He brushed hair that no longer existed out of his eyes without even thinking about it. Your wife? Audra? Beverlys face was shocked, her eyes huge. Her pppurse. Her ththings. Jesus, Bill, Richie muttered. That cant be, you know th He had found her alligator wallet. He opened it and held it up. Richie lit another match and was looking at a face he had seen in half a dozen movies. The picture on Audras California drivers license was less glamorous but completely conclusive. But HuhHuhHenrys dead, and Victor, and BBBelch ... so whos got her? He stood up, staring around at them with febrile intensity. Whos got her? Ben put a hand on Bills shoulder. I guess we better go down and find out, huh? Bill looked around at him, as if unsure of who Ben might be, and then his eyes cleared. YYeah, he said. EhEhEddie? Bill, Im sorry. Can you cluhclimb on? I did once. Bill bent over and Eddie hooked his right arm around Bills neck. Ben and Richie boosted him up until he could hook his legs around Bills midsection. As Bill swung one leg clumsily over the lip of the cylinder, Ben saw that Eddies eyes were tightly shut ... and for a moment he thought he heard the worlds ugliest cavalry charge bashing its way through the bushes. He turned, expecting to see the three of them come out of the fog and the brambles, but all he had heard was the rising breeze rattling the bamboo a quarter of a mile or so from here. Their old enemies were all gone now. Bill gripped the rough concrete lip of the cylinder and felt his way down, step by step and rung by rung. Eddie had him in a deathgrip and Bill could barely breathe. Her purse, dear God, how did her purse get here? Doesnt matter. But if Youre there, God, and if Youre taking requests, let her be all right, dont let her suffer for what Bev and I did tonight or for what I did one summer when I was a boy .. and was it the clown? Was it Bob Gray who got her? If it was, I dont know if even God can help her. Im scared, Bill, Eddie said in a thin voice. Bills foot touched cold standing water. He lowered himself into it, remembering the feel and the dank smell, remembering the claustrophobic way this place had made him feel ... and, just by the way, what had happened to them? How had they fared down in these drains and tunnels? Where exactly had they gone, and how exactly had they gotten out again? He still couldnt remember any of that; all he could think of was Audra. I am tttoo. He halfsquatted, wincing as the cold water ran into his pants and over his balls, and let Eddie off. They stood shindeep in the water and watched the others descend the ladder. CHAPTER 21 Under the City 1 ItAugust 1958 Something new had happened. For the first time in forever, something new. Before the universe there had been only two things. One was Itself and the other was the Turtle. The Turtle was a stupid old thing that never came out of its shell. It thought that maybe the Turtle was dead, had been dead for the last billion years or so. Even if it wasnt, it was still a stupid old thing, and even if the Turtle had vomited the universe out whole, that didnt change the fact of its stupidity. It had come here long after the Turtle withdrew into its shell, here to Earth, and It had discovered a depth of imagination here that was almost new, almost of concern. This quality of imagination made the food very rich. Its teeth rent flesh gone stiff with exotic terrors and voluptuous fears they dreamed of nightbeasts and moving muds; against their will they contemplated endless gulphs. Upon this rich food It existed in a simple cycle of waking to eat and sleeping to dream. It had created a place in Its own image, and It looked upon this place with favor from the deadlights which were Its eyes. Derry was Its killingpen, the people of Derry Its sheep. Things had gone on. Then ... these children. Something new. For the first time in forever. When It had burst up into the house on Neibolt Street, meaning to kill them all, vaguely uneasy that It had not been able to do so already (and surely that unease had been the first new thing), something had happened which was totally unexpected, utterly unthought of, and there had been pain, pain, great roaring pain all through the shape it had taken, and for one moment there had also been fear, because the only thing It had in common with the stupid old Turtle and the cosmology of the macroverse outside the puny egg of this universe was just this all living things must abide by the laws of the shape they inhabit. For the first time It realized that perhaps Its ability to change Its shapes might work against It as well as for It. There had never been pain before, there had never been fear before, and for a moment It had thought It might dieoh Its head had been filled with a great white silver pain, and it had roared and mewled and bellowed and somehow the children had escaped. But now they were coming. They had entered Its domain under the city, seven foolish children blandering through the darkness without lights or weapons. It would kill them now, surely. It had made a great selfdiscovery It did not want change or surprise. It did not want new things, ever. It wanted only to eat and sleep and dream and eat again. Following the pain and that brief bright fear, another new emotion had arisen (as all genuine emotions were new to It, although It was a great mocker of emotions) anger. It would kill the children because they had, by some amazing accident, hurt It. |
But It would make them suffer first because for one brief moment they had made It fear them. Come to me then, It thought, listening to their approach. Come to me, children, and see how we float down here . . . how we all float. And yet there was a thought that insinuated itself no matter how strongly It tried to push the thought away. It was simply this if all things flowed from It (as they surely had done since the Turtle sicked up the universe and then fainted inside its shell), how could any creature of this or any other world fool It or hurt It, no matter how briefly or triflingly? How was that possible? And so a last new thing had come to It, this not an emotion but a cold speculation suppose It had not been alone, as It had always believed? Suppose there was Another? And suppose further that these children were agents of that Other? Suppose... suppose . . . It began to tremble. Hate was new. Hurt was new. Being crossed in Its purpose was new. But the most terrible new thing was this fear. Not fear of the children, that had passed, but the fear of not being alone. No. There was no other. Surely there was not. Perhaps because they were children their imaginations had a certain raw power It had briefly underestimated. But now that they were coming, It would let them come. They would come and It would cast them one by one into the macroverse ... into the deadlights of Its eyes. Yes. When they got here It would cast them, shrieking and insane, into the deadlights. 2 In the Tunnels215 P.M. Bev and Richie had maybe ten matches between them, but Bill wouldnt let them use them. For the time being, at least, there was still dim light in the drain. Not much, but he could make out the next four feet in front of him, and as long as he could keep doing that, they would save the matches. He supposed the little light they were getting must be coming from vents in curbings over their heads, maybe even from the circular vents in manhole covers. It seemed surpassingly strange to think they were under the city, but of course by now they must be. The water was deeper now. Three times dead animals had floated past a rat, a kitten, a bloated shiny thing that might have been a woodchuck. He heard one of the others mutter disgustedly as that baby cruised by. The water they were crawling through was relatively placid, but all that was going to come to an end fairly soon there was a steady hollow roaring not too far up ahead. It grew louder, rising to a onenote roar. The drain elbowed to the right. They made the turn and here were three pipes spewing water into their pipe. They were lined up vertically like the lenses on a traffic light. The drain deadended here. The light was marginally brighter. Bill looked up and saw they were in a square stonefaced shaft about fifteen feet high. There was a sewergrating up there and water was sloshing down on them in buckets. It was like being in a primitive shower. Bill surveyed the three pipes helplessly. The top one was venting water which was almost clear, although there were leaves and sticks and bits of trash in itcigarette butts, chewinggum wrappers, things like that. The middle pipe was venting gray water. And from the lowest one came a grayishbrown flood of lumpy sewage. EhEhEddie! Eddie floundered up beside him. His hair was plastered to his head. His cast was a soaking, drippy mess. WhWhWhich wuhwuhone? If you wanted to know how to build something, you asked Ben; if you wanted to know which way to go, you asked Eddie. They didnt talk about this, but they all knew it. If you were in a strange neighborhood and wanted to get back to a place you knew, Eddie could get you there, making lefts and rights with undiminished confidence until you were reduced simply to following him and hoping that things would turn out right ... which they always seemed to do. Bill told Richie once that when he and Eddie first began to play in the Barrens, he, Bill, was constantly afraid of getting lost. Eddie had no such fears, and he always brought the two of them out right where he said he was going to. If I gggot luhlost in the Hainesville Woods and EhEddie was with me, I wouldnt wuhhurry a bbit, Bill told Richie. He just nuhnuhknows. My dddad says some people, ihhits 1like they got a cuhhuhhompass in their heads. Eddies 11like that. I cant hear you! Eddie shouted. I said whwhich one? Which one what? Eddie had his aspirator clutched in his good hand, and Bill thought he actually looked more like a drowned muskrat than a kid. Which one do we tuhtuhtake? Well, that all depends on where we want to go, Eddie said, and Bill could have cheerfully throttled him even though the question made perfect sense. Eddie was looking dubiously at the three pipes. They could fit into all of them, but the bottom one looked pretty snug. Bill motioned the others to move up into a circle. Where the fuck is IhIhIt? he asked them. Middle of town, Richie said promptly. Right under the middle of town. Near the Canal. Beverly was nodding. So was Ben. So was Stan. MuhMuhMike? Yes, he said. Thats where It is. Near the Canal. Or under it. Bill looked back at Eddie. WWWhich one? Eddie pointed reluctantly at the lower pipe ... and although Bills heart sank, he wasnt at all surprised. That one. Oh, gross, Stan said unhappily. Thats a shitpipe. We dont Mike began, and then broke off. He cocked his head in a listening gesture. His eyes were alarmed. What Bill began, and Mike put a finger across his lips in a Shhhh! gesture. Now Bill could hear it too splashing sounds. Approaching. Grunts and muffled words. Henry still hadnt given up. Quick, Ben said. Lets go. Stan looked back the way they had come, then he looked at the lowest of the three pipes. He pressed his lips tightly together and nodded. Lets go, he said. Shit washes off. Stan the Man Gets Off A Good One! Richie cried. Wackawackawa Richie, will you shut up? Beverly hissed at him. Bill led them to the pipe, grimacing at the smell, and crawled in. The smell it was sewage, it was shit, but there was another smell here, too, wasnt there? A lower, more vital smell. If an animals grunt could have a smell (and, Bill supposed, if the animal in question had been eating the right things, it could), it would be like this undersmell. Were headed in the right direction, all right. Its been here . . . and Its been here a lot. By the time they had gone twenty feet, the air had grown rancid and poisonous. He squished slowly along, moving through stuff that wasnt mud. He looked back over his shoulder and said, You fuhfuhfollow right behind mme, EhEhEddie. Ill nuhneed yyou. The light faded to the faintest gray, held that way briefly, and then it was gone and they were (out of the blue and) into the black. Bill shuffled forward through the stink, feeling that he was almost cutting through it physically, one hand held out before him, part of him expecting that at any moment it would encounter rough hair and green lamplike eyes would open in the darkness. The end would come in one hot flare of pain as It walloped his head off his shoulders. The dark was stuffed with sounds, all of them magnified and echoing. He could hear his friends shuffling along behind him, sometimes muttering something. There were gurglings and strange clanking groans. Once a flood of sickeningly warm water washed past and between his legs, wetting him to the thighs and rocking him back on his heels. He felt Eddie clutch frantically at the back of his shirt, and then the small flood slackened. From the end of the line Richie bellowed with sorry good humor I think we just been pissed on by the Jolly Green Giant, Bill. Bill could hear water or sewage running in controlled bursts through the network of smaller pipes which now must be over their heads. He remembered the conversation about Derrys sewers with his father and thought he knew what this pipe must beit was to handle the overflow that only occurred during heavy rains and during the flood season. The stuff up there would be leaving Derry to be dumped in Torrault Stream and the Penobscot River. The city didnt like to pump its shit into the Kenduskeag because it made the Canal stink. But all the socalled gray water went into the Kenduskeag, and if there was too much for the regular sewerpipes to handle, there would be a dumpoff ... like the one that had just happened. If there had been one, there could be another. He glanced up uneasily, not able to see anything but knowing that there must be grates in the top arch of the pipe, possibly in the sides as well, and that any moment there might be He wasnt aware hed reached the end of the pipe until he fell out of it and staggered forward, pinwheeling his arms in a helpless effort to keep his balance. He fell on his belly into a semisolid mass about two feet below the mouth of the pipe hed just tumbled out of. Something ran squeaking over his hand. He screamed and sat up, clutching his tingling hand to his chest, aware that a rat had just run over it; he had felt the loathsome, plated drag of the things hairless tail. He tried to stand up and rapped his head on the new pipes low ceiling. It was a hard hit, and Bill was driven back to his knees with large red flowers exploding in the darkness before his eyes. Be cccareful! He heard himself shouting. His words echoed flatly. It drops off here! EhEddie! Where aaare yuhyou? Here! One of Eddies waving hands brushed Bills nose. Help me out, Bill, I cant see! Its There was a huge watery kerwhasssh! Beverly, Mike, and Richie all screamed in unison. In the daylight, the almost perfect harmony the three of them made would have been funny; down here in the dark, in the sewers, it was terrifying. Suddenly all of them were tumbling out. Bill clutched Eddie in a bearhug, trying to save his arm. Oh Christ, I thought I was gonna drown, Richie moaned. We got dousedoh boy, a shitshower, oh great, they ought to have a class trip down here sometime, Bill, we could get Mr. Carson to lead it And Miss Jimmison could give a health lecture afterward, Ben said in a trembling voice, and they all laughed shrilly. As the laughter was tapering off, Stan suddenly burst into miserable tears. Dont, man, Richie said, putting a fumbling arm around Stans sticky shoulders. Youll get us all cryin, man. Im all right! Stan said loudly, still crying. I can stand to be scared, but I hate being dirty like this, I hate not knowing where I am DDo yyyou ththink aaany of the muhmatches are still aaany guhgood? Bill asked Richie. I gave mine to Bev. Bill felt a hand touch his in the darkness and press a folder of matches into it. They felt dry. I kept them in my armpit, she said. They might work. You can try them, anyway. Bill tore a match out of the folder and struck it. It popped alight and he held it up. His friends were huddled together, wincing at the brief bright flare of light. They were splashed and daubed with ordure and they all looked very young and very afraid. Behind them he could see the sewerpipe they had come out of. The pipe they were in now was smaller still. It ran straight in both directions, its floor caked with layers of filthy sediment. And He drew in a quick hiss and shook the match out as it burned his fingers. He listened and heard the sounds of fastrunning water, dripping water, the occasional gushing roar as the overflow valves worked, sending more sewage into the Kenduskeag, which was now God only knew how far behind them. He didnt hear Henry and the othersyet. He said quietly, Theres a dddead bohbody on my rrright. About ttten fuhfeet aaaway from uhus. I think it mmight be PuhPuhPuh Patrick? Beverly asked, her voice trembling on the edge of hysteria. Is it Patrick Hockstetter? YYYes. Do you want me to luhlight aaanother mmatch? Eddie said, You got to, Bill. If I dont see how the pipe runs, I dont know which way to go. Bill lit the match. In its glow they all saw the green, swelled thing that had been Patrick Hockstetter. The corpse grinned at them in the dark with horrid chumminess, but with only half a face; sewer rats had taken the rest. Patricks summerschool books were scattered around him, bloated to the size of dictionaries in the damp. Christ, Mike said hoarsely, his eyes wide. I hear them again, Beverly said. Henry and the others. The acoustics must have carried her voice to them as well; Henry bellowed down the sewerpipe and for a moment it was as if he was standing right there. Well get youuuuuu You come on right ahead! Richie shouted. His eyes were bright, dancing, febrile. Keep coming, bananaheels! This is just like the YMCA swimming pool down here! Keep Then a shriek of such mad fear and pain came through the pipe that the guttering match fell from Bills fingers and went out. Eddies arm had curled around him and Bill hugged Eddie back, feeling his body trembling like a wire as Stan Uris packed close to him on the other side. That shriek rose and rose ... and then there was an obscene, thick flapping noise, and the shriek was cut off. Something got one of them, Mike choked, horrified, in the darkness. Something . . . some monster . . . Bill, we got to get out of here . . . please. . . . Bill could hear whoever was leftone or two, with the acoustics it was impossible to tellstumbling and scrabbling through the sewerpipe toward them. WuhWhich wwway, EhEddie? he asked urgently. DDo you nuhknow? Toward the Canal? Eddie asked, shaking in Bills arms. Yes! To the right. Past Patrick ... or over him. Eddies voice suddenly hardened. I dont care that much. He was one of the ones that broke my arm. Spit in my face, too. Lets guhgo, Bill said, looking back at the sewerpipe they had just quitted. SSingle luhline! Keep a tttouch on eeach uhuhother, like bbbefore! He groped forward, dragging his right shoulder along the slimy porcelain surface of the pipe, gritting his teeth, not wanting to step on Patrick ... or into him. So they crawled farther into the darkness while waters rushed around them and while, outside, the storm walked and talked and brought an early darkness to Derrya darkness that screamed with wind and stuttered with electric fire and racketed with falling trees that sounded like the deathcries of huge prehistoric creatures. 3 ItMay 1985 Now they were coming again, and while everything had gone much as It had foreseen, something It had not foreseen had returned that maddening, galling fear ... that sense of Another. It hated the fear, would have turned on it and eaten it if It could have ... but the fear danced mockingly out of reach, and It could only kill the fear by killing them. Surely there was no need for such fear; they were older now, and their number had been reduced from seven to five. Five was a number of power, but it did not have the mystical talismanic quality of seven. It was true that Its dogsbody hadnt been able to kill the librarian, but the librarian would die in the hospital. Later, just before dawn touched the sky, It would send a male nurse with a bad pill habit to finish the librarian once and for all. The writers woman was now with It, alive yet not aliveher mind had been utterly destroyed by her first sight of It as It really was, with all of Its little masks and glamours thrown asideand all of the glamours were only mirrors, of course, throwing back at the terrified viewer the worst thing in his or her own mind, heliographing images as a mirror may bounce a reflection of the sun into a wide unsuspecting eye and stun it to blindness. Now the mind of the writers wife was with It, in It, beyond the end of the macroverse; in the darkness beyond the Turtle; in the outlands beyond all lands. She was in Its eye; she was in Its mind. She was in the deadlights. Oh but the glamours were amusing. Hanlon, for instance. He would not remember, not consciously, but his mother could have told him where the bird he had seen at the Ironworks came from. When he was a baby only six months old, his mother had left him sleeping in his cradle in the side yard while she went around back to hang sheets and diapers on the line. His screams had brought her on the run. A large crow had lighted on the edge of the carriage and was pecking at baby Mikey like an evil creature in a nursery tale. He had been screaming in pain and terror, unable to drive away the crow, which had sensed weak prey. She had struck the bird with her fist and driven it off, seen that it had brought blood in two or three places on baby Mikeys arms, and taken him to Dr. Stillwagon for a tetanus shot. A part of Mike had remembered that alwaystiny baby, giant birdand when It came to Mike, Mike had seen the giant bird again. But when the dogsbody husband of the girl from before brought the writers woman, It had put on no faceIt did not dress when It was at home. The dogsbody husband had looked once and had dropped dead of shock, his face gray, his eyes filling with the blood that had squirted out of his brain in a dozen places. The writers woman had put out one powerful, horrified thoughtOH DEAR JESUS IT IS FEMALEandthen all thoughts ceased. She swam in the deadlights. It came down from Its place and took care of her physical remains; prepared them for later feeding. Now Audra Denbrough hung high up in the middle of things, crisscrossed in silk, her head lolling against the socket of her shoulder, her eyes wide and glazed, her toes pointing down. But there was still power in them. Diminished but still there. They had come here as children and somehow, against all the odds, against all that was supposed to be, all that could be, they had hurt It badly, had almost killed It, had forced It to flee deep into the earth, where it huddled, hurt and hating and trembling in a spreading pool of Its own strange blood. So another new thing, if you please for the first time in Its neverending history, It needed to make a plan; for the first time It found Itself afraid simply to take what It wanted from Derry, Its private gamepreserve. It had always fed well on children. Many adults could be used without knowing they had been used, and It had even fed on a few of the older ones over the yearsadults had their own terrors, and their glands could be tapped, opened so that all the chemicals of fear flooded the body and salted the meat. But their fears were mostly too complex. The fears of children were simpler and usually more powerful. The fears of children could often be summoned up in a single face ... and if bait were needed, why, what child did not love a clown? It understood vaguely that these children had somehow turned Its own tools against Itthat, by coincidence (surely not on purpose, surely not guided by the hand of any Other), by the bonding of seven extraordinarily imaginative minds, It had been brought into a zone of great danger. Any of these seven alone would have been Its meat and drink, and if they had not happened to come together, It surely would have picked them off one by one, drawn by the quality of their minds just as a lion might be drawn to one particular waterhole by the scent of zebra. But together they had discovered an alarming secret that even It had not been aware of that belief has a second edge. If there are ten thousand medieval peasants who create vampires by believing them real, there may be oneprobably a childwho will imagine the stake necessary to kill it. But a stake is only stupid wood; the mind is the mallet which drives it home. Yet in the end It had escaped; had gone deep, and the exhausted, terrified children had elected not to follow It when It was at Its most vulnerable. They had elected to believe It dead or dying, and had retreated. It was aware of their oath, and had known they would come back just as a lion knows the zebra will eventually return to the waterhole. It had begun to plan even as It began to drowse. When It woke It would be healed, renewedbut their childhoods would be burned away like seven fatty candles. The former power of their imaginations would be muted and weak. They would no longer imagine that there were piranha in the Kenduskeag or that if you stepped on a crack you might really break your mothers back or that if you killed a ladybug which lit on your shirt your house would catch fire that night. Instead, they would believe in insurance. Instead, they would believe in wine with dinnersomething nice but not too pretentious, like a PouillyFuiss 83, and let that breathe, waiter, would you? Instead, they would believe that Rolaids consume fortyseven times their own weight in excess stomach acid. Instead, they would believe in public television, Gary Hart, running to prevent heart attacks, giving up red meat to prevent colon cancer. They would believe in Dr. Ruth when it came to getting well fucked and Jerry Falwell when it came to getting well saved. As each year passed their dreams would grow smaller. And when It woke It would call them back, yes, back, because fear was fertile, its child was rage, and rage cried for revenge. It would call them and then kill them. Only now that they were coming, the fear had returned. They had grown up, and their imaginations had weakenedbut not as much as It had believed. It had felt an ominous, upsetting growth in their power when they joined together, and It had wondered for the first time if It had perhaps made a mistake. But why be gloomy? The die was cast and not all the omens were bad. The writer was halfmad for his wife, and that was good. The writer was the strongest, the one who had somehow trained his mind for this confrontation over all the years, and when the writer was dead with his guts falling out of his body, when their precious Big Bill was dead, the others would be Its quickly. It would feed well . . . and then perhaps It would go deep again. And doze. For awhile. 4 In the Tunnels430 A.M. Bill! Richie shouted into the echoing pipe. He was moving as fast as he could, but that wasnt very fast. He remembered that as kids they had walked bent over in this pipe, which led away from the pumpingstation in the Barrens. He was crawling now, and the pipe seemed impossibly tight. His glasses kept wanting to slide off the end of his nose and he kept pushing them up again. He could hear Bev and Ben behind him. Bill! he bawled again. Eddie! Im here! Eddies voice floated back. Wheres Bill? Richie shouted. Up ahead! Eddie called. He was very close now, and Richie sensed rather than saw him just ahead. He wouldnt wait! Richies head butted Eddies leg. A moment later Bevs head butted Richies ass. Bill! Richie screamed at the top of his voice. The pipe channelled his shout and sent it back at him, hurting his own ears. Bill, wait for us! We have to go together, dont you know that? Faintly, echoing, Bill Audra! Audra! Where are you? Goddam you, Big Bill! Richie cried softly. His glasses fell off. He cursed, groped for them, and set them, dripping, back on his nose. He pulled in breath and shouted again Youll get lost without Eddie, you fucking asshole! Wait up! Wait up for us! You hear me, Bill? WAIT UP FOR US, DAMMIT! There was an agonizing moment of silence. It seemed that no one breathed. All Richie could hear was distant dripping water; the drain was dry this time, except for the occasional stagnant puddle. Bill! He ran a trembling hand through his hair and fought the tears. COME ON ... PLEASE, MAN! WAIT UP! PLEASE! And, fainter still, Bills voice came back Im waiting. Thank God for small favors, Richie muttered. He slapped Eddies can. Go. I dont know how long I can with just one arm, Eddie said apologetically. Go anyway, Richie said, and Eddie began crawling again. Bill, looking haggard and almost usedup, was waiting for them in the sewershaft where the three pipes were lined up like lenses on a dead traffic light. There was room enough here for them to stand up. Over there, Bill said. CuhCriss. And BBBelch. They looked. Beverly moaned and Ben put an arm around her. The skeleton of Belch Huggins, clad in moldering rags, seemed more or less intact. What remained of Victor was headless. Bill looked across the shaftway and saw a grinning skull. There it was; there was the rest of him. Should have left it alone, guys, Bill thought, and shivered. This section of the sewer system had fallen into disuse; Richie thought the reason why was pretty clear. The wastetreatment plant had taken over. Sometime during the years when they were all busy learning to shave, to drive, to smoke, to fuck around a little, all that good shit, the Environmental Protection Agency had come into being, and the EPA had decided dumping raw sewageand even gray waterinto rivers and streams was a nono. So this part of the sewer system had simply moldered, and the bodies of Victor Criss and Belch Huggins had moldered along with it. Like Peter Pans Wild Boys, Victor and Belch had never grown up. Here were the skeletons of two boys in the shredded remains of teeshirts and jeans that had rotted away to rags. Moss had grown over the warped xylophone of Victors ribcage, and over the eagle on thr buckle of his garrisonbelt. Monster got em, Ben said softly. Do you remember? We heard it happen. Audras ddead. Bills voice was mechanical. I know it. You dont know any such thing! Beverly said with such fury that Bill stirred and looked at her. All you know for sure is that a lot of other people have died, most of them children. She walked across to him and stood before him with her hands on her hips. Her face and hands were streaked with grime, her hair matted with dirt. Richie thought she looked absolutely magnificent. And you know what did it. I nuhnever should have tttold her where I was guhgoing, Bill said. Why did I do that? Why did I Her hands pistoned out and seized him by the shirt. Amazed, Richie watched as she shook him. No more! You know what we came for! We swore, and were going to do it! Do you understand me, Bill? If shes dead, shes dead ... but Its not! Now, we need you. Do you get it? We need you! She was crying now. So you stand up for us! You stand up for us like before or none of us are going to get out of here! He looked at her for a long time without speaking, and Richie found himself thinking, Come on, Big Bill. Come on, come on Bill looked around at the rest of them and nodded. EhEddie. Im here, Bill. DDo yyou still ruhremember which pppipe? Eddie pointed past Victor and said Thats the one. Looks pretty small, doesnt it? Bill nodded again. Can you do it? With your aaarm broken? I can for you, Bill. Bill smiled the weariest, most terrible smile Richie had ever seen. Tuhhake us there, EhEddie. Lets gget it done. 5 In the Tunnels455 A.M. As he crawled, Bill reminded himself of the dropoff at the end of this pipe, but it still surprised him. At one moment his hands were shuffling along the crusted surface of the old pipe; at the next they were skating on air. He pitched forward and rolled instinctively, landing on his shoulder with a painful crunch. Be cccareful! he heard himself shouting. Heres the druhhopoff! EhEhEddie? Here! One of Eddies waving hands brushed across Bills forehead. Can you help me out? He got his arms around Eddie and lifted him out, trying to be careful of the bad arm. Ben came next, then Bev, then Richie. You got any muhmuhmatches, RuhRichie? I do, Beverly said. Bill felt a hand touch his in the darkness and press a folder of matches into it. Theres only eight or ten, but Bens got more. From the room. Bill said, Did you keep them in your aaarmpit, BBev? Not this time, she said, and put her arms around him in the dark. He hugged her tight, eyes closed, trying to take the comfort she wanted so badly to give. He released her gently and struck a match. The power of memory was greatthey all looked at once to their right. What remained of Patrick Hockstetters body was still there, amid a few lumpy, overgrown things that might have been books. The only really recognizable thing was a jutting semicircle of teeth, two or three of them with fillings. And something nearby. A gleaming circle barely seen in the matchs guttering light. Bill shook the match out and lit another. He picked it up. Audras wedding ring, he said. His voice was hollow, expressionless. The match went out in his fingers. In the darkness he put the ring on. Bill? Richie said hesitantly. Do you have any idea 6 In the Tunnels220 P.M. how long they had been wandering through the tunnels under Derry since they had left the place where Patrick Hockstetters body was, but Bill was sure he could never find his way back. He kept thinking about what his father had said You could wander for weeks. If Eddies sense of direction failed them now, they wouldnt need It to kill them; they would wander until they died... or, if they got into the wrong set of pipes, until they were drowned like rats in a rainbarrel. But Eddie didnt seem a bit worried. Every now and then he would ask Bill to light one of their diminishing store of matches, look around thoughtfully, and then set off again. He made rights and lefts seemingly at random. Sometimes the pipes were so big Bill could not reach their tops even by stretching his hand up all the way. Sometimes they had to crawl, and once, for five horrible minutes (which felt more like five hours), they wormed their way along on their bellies, Eddie now leading, the others following with their noses to the heels of the person ahead. The only thing Bill was completely sure of was that they had somehow gotten into a disused section of the Derry sewer system. They had left all the active pipes either far behind or far above. The roar of running water had dimmed to a faroff thunder. These pipes were older, not kilnfired ceramic but a crumbly claylike stuff that sometimes oozed springs of unpleasantsmelling fluid. The smells of human wastethose ripe gassy smells that had threatened to suffocate them allhad faded, but they had been replaced by another smell, yellow and ancient, that was worse. Ben thought it was the smell of the mummy. To Eddie it smelled like the leper. Richie thought it smelled like the worlds oldest flannel jacket, now moldering and rottinga lumbermans jacket, a very big one, big enough for a character like Paul Bunyan, perhaps. To Beverly it smelled like her fathers sockdrawer. In Stan Uris it woke a dreadful memory from his earliest childhoodan oddly Jewish memory in a boy who had only the haziest understanding of his own Jewishness. It smelled like clay mixed with oil and made him think of an eyeless, mouthless demon called the Golem, a clay man that renegade Jews were supposed to have raised in the Middle Ages to save them from the goyim who robbed them and raped their women and then sent them packing. Mike thought of the dry smell of feathers in a dead nest. When they finally reached the end of the narrow pipe, they slithered like eels down the curved surface of another which ran at an oblique angle to the one they had been in, and found they could stand up again. Bill felt the heads of the matches left in the book. Four. His mouth tightened and he resolved not to tell the others how close they were to the end of their light ... not unless he absolutely had to. HuhHuhHow you ggguys ddoin? They murmured replies, and he nodded in the dark. No panic, and no tears since Stans. That was good. He felt for their hands and they stood together in the dark that way for awhile, both taking and giving from the touch. Bill felt clear exultation in this, a sure sense that they were somehow producing more than the sum of their seven selves; they had been readded into a more potent whole. He lit one of the remaining matches and they saw a narrow tunnel stretching ahead on a downward slant. The top of this pipe was festooned with sagging cobwebs, some waterbroken and hanging in shrouds. Looking at them gave Bill an atavistic chill. The floor here was dry but thick with ancient mold and what might have been leaves, fungus ... or some unimaginable droppings. Farther up he saw a pile of bones and a drift of green rags. |
They might once have been that stuff they called polished cotton, workmans clothes. Bill imagined some Sewer Department or Water Department worker who had gotten lost, wandered down here, and been discovered.... The match guttered. He tipped its head downward, wanting the light to last a little longer. Do yyyou nuhknow where wwwe are? he asked Eddie. Eddie pointed down the slightly crooked bore of the tunnel. Canals that way, he said. Lessn half a mile, unless this thing turns in a different direction. Were under UpMile Hill right now, I think. But Bill The match burned Bills fingers and he let it drop. They were in darkness again. SomeoneBill thought it was Beverlysighed. But before the match had gone out, he had seen the worry on Eddies face. WWWhat? What ihis it? When I say were under UpMile Hill, I mean were really under it. We been going down for a long time now. Nobodyd ever put sewerpipe in this deep. When you put a tunnel this deep you call it a mineshaft. How deep do you figure we are, Eddie? Richie asked. Quarter of a mile, Eddie said. Maybe more. Jesuspleaseus, Beverly said. These arent sewerpipes, anyway, Stan said from behind them. You can tell by that smell. Its bad, but its not a sewery smell. I think Id rather smell the sewer, Ben said. It smells like A scream floated down to them, issuing from the mouth of the pipe they had just left, lifting the hair on the nape of Bills neck. The seven of them drew together, clutching each other. gonna get you sons of bitches. Were gonna get youuuuuuu Henry, Eddie breathed. Oh my God, hes still coming. Im not surprised, Richie said. Some people are too stupid to quit. They could hear faint panting, the scrape of shoes, the whisper of cloth. youuuuuuuuu CuhCuhCome on, Bill said. They started down the pipe, now walking double except for Mike, who was at the back of the line Bill and Eddie, Richie and Bev, Ben and Stan. HHHow fuhfar bbback do yyou think HHHenry ihhis? I couldnt tell, Big Bill, Eddie said. The echoes are bad. He dropped his voice. Did you see that pile of bones? YYYes, Bill said, dropping his own voice. There was a toolbelt with the clothes. I think it was a Water Department guy. I guhguess ssso. How long you think? I dddont nuhnuhknow. Eddie closed his good hand over Bills arm in the darkness. It was perhaps fifteen minutes later when they heard something coming toward them in the dark. Richie stopped, frozen cold all the way through. Suddenly he was three years eld again. He listened to that squelching, shifting movementclosing in on them, closingand to the whispering branchlike sounds that accompanied it, and even before Bill struck a match he knew what it would be. The Eye! he screamed. Christ, its the Crawling Eye! For a moment the others were not sure what they were seeing (Beverly had an impression that her father had found her, even down here, and Eddie had a fleeting vision of Patrick Hockstetter come back to life, somehow Patrick had flanked them and gotten in front of them), but Richies cry, Richies certainty, froze the shape for all of them. They saw what Richie saw. A gigantic Eye filled the tunnel, the glassy black pupil two feet across, the iris a muddy russet color. The white was bulgy, membranous, laced with red veins that pulsed steadily. It was a lidless lashless gelatinous horror that moved on a bed of rawlooking tentacles. These fumbled over the tunnels crumbly surface and sank in like fingers, so that the impression given in the glow of Bills guttering match was of an Eye that had somehow grown nightmare fingers which were pulling It along. It stared at them with blank, feverish avarice. The match went out. In the darkness, Bill felt those branchlike tentacles caress his ankles, his shins ... but he could not move. His body was frozen solid. He sensed It approaching, he could feel the heat radiating out from It, and could hear the wet pulse of blood wetting Its membranes. He imagined the stickiness he would feel when It touched him and still he could not scream. Even when fresh tentacles slipped around his waist and hooked themselves into the loops of his jeans and began to drag him forward, he could not scream or struggle. A deadly sleepiness seemed to have suffused his whole body. Beverly felt one of the tentacles slip around the cup of her ear and suddenly draw noosetight. Pain flared and she was dragged forward, twisting and moaning, as if an oldlady schoolteacher were giving her an outofpatience comealong to the back of the room, where she would be forced to sit on a stool and wear a duncecap. Stan and Richie tried to back away, but a forest of unseen tentacles now wavered and whispered about them. Ben put an arm around Beverly and tried to tug her back. She clasped his hands with panicky tightness. Ben . . . Ben, Its got me . . . . No It dont.... Wait ... Ill pull.... He pulled with all his might, and Beverly screamed as pain tore through her ear and blood began to flow. A tentacle, dry and hard, scraped over Bens shirt, paused, then twisted in a painful knot around his shoulder. Bill put out a hand, and it slapped into a gluey yielding wetness. The Eye! his mind screamed. Oh God I got my hand in the Eye! Oh God! Oh dear sweet God! The Eye! My hand in the Eye! He began to fight now, but the tentacles drew him forward inexorably. His hand disappeared into that wet avid heat. His forearm. Now his arm was plunged into the Eye up to the elbow. At any moment the rest of his body would come against that sticky surface and he felt that he would go mad in that instant. He fought frantically, chopping at the tentacles with his other hand. Eddie stood like a boy in a dream, hearing the muffled screams and sounds of struggle as his friends were being pulled in. He sensed the tentacles around him but none had as yet actually landed on him. Run home! his mind commanded him quite loudly. Run home to your mamma, Eddie! You can find the way! Bill screamed in the darka high, despairing sound that was followed by hideous squishings and slobberings. Eddies paralysis broke wide openIt was trying to take Big Bill! No! Eddie bellowedit was a fullblown roar. One might never have guessed such a Norsewarrior sound could issue from such a thin chest, Eddie Kaspbraks chest, Eddie Kaspbraks lungs, which were of course afflicted with the most terrible case of asthma in Derry. He bolted forward, jumping over questing tentacles without seeing them, his broken arm thumping his own chest as it swung back and forth in its soggy cast. He fumbled in his pocket and brought out his aspirator. (acid thats what it tastes like acid acid battery acid) He collided with Bill Denbroughs back and slammed him aside. There was a watery ripping sound, followed by a low eager mewling that Eddie did not so much hear with his ears as feel with his mind. He raised the aspirator (acid its acid if I want it to be so eat it eat it eat) BATTERY ACID, FUCKNUTS! Eddie screamed, and triggered off a blast. At the same time he kicked at the Eye. His foot went deep into the jelly of Its cornea. There was a gush of hot fluid over his leg. He pulled his foot back, only dimly aware that he had lost his shoe. FUCK OFF! CRAM IT, SAM! GO AWAY, JOS! GET LOST! FUCK OFF! He felt tentacles touch him, but tentatively. He triggered the aspirator again, coating the Eye, and feltheard that mewling again ... now a hurt, surprised sound. Fight It! Eddie raved at the others. Its just a fucking Eye! Fight It! You hear me? Fight It, Bill! Kick the shit out of the sucker! Jesus Christ you fucking pussies Im doing the Mashed Potatoes all over It AND I GOT A BROKEN ARM! Bill felt his strength return. He ripped his dripping arm out of the Eye . . . and then slammed it, fistfirst, back in. A moment later Ben was beside him. He ran into the Eye, grunted with surprise and disgust, and then began to rain punches onto its jellied quivering surface. Let her go! he yelled. You hear me? Let her go! Get outta here! Get outta here! Just an Eye! Just a fucking Eye! Eddie was screaming deliriously. He triggered his aspirator again and felt It draw back. The tentacles which had settled on him now dropped away. Richie! Richie! Get it! Its just an Eye! Richie stumbled forward, unable to believe he was doing this, actually approaching the worst, most terrible monster in the world. But he was. He only threw a single weak punch, and the feel of his fist sinking into the Eyeit was thick and wet and somehow gristlymade him throw his guts up in one big tasteless convulsion. A sound came out of himglurt!and the thought that hed actually puked on the Eye caused him to do it again. It was only a single punch, but since he had created this particular monster, perhaps that was all that was necessary. Suddenly the tentacles were gone. They could hear It withdrawing ... and then the only sounds were Eddie panting and Beverly crying softly, one hand to her bleeding ear. Bill struck one of their three remaining matches and they stared at each other with dazed, shocked faces. Bills left arm was running with a thick, cloudy goo that looked like a mixture of partially congealed eggwhite and snot. Blood was trickling slowly down the side of Beverlys neck, and there was a fresh cut on Bens cheek. Richie slowly pushed his glasses up on his nose. AAAre we all ruhruhright? Bill asked hoarsely. Are you, Bill? Richie asked. YYYeah. He turned to Eddie and hugged the smaller boy with fierce intensity. You suhsuhsaved my luhlife, man. It ate your shoe, Beverly said, and uttered a wild laugh. Isnt that too bad. Ill buy you a new pair of Keds when we get out of here, Richie said. He clapped Eddie on the back in the dark. How did you do it, Eddie? Shot it with my aspirator. Pretended it was acid. Thats how it tastes after awhile if Im having, you know, a bad day. Worked great. Im doing the Mashed Potatoes all over It AND I GOT A BROKEN ARM, Richie said, and giggled madly. Not too shabby, Eds. Actually pretty chuckalicious, tell you what. I hate it when you call me Eds. I know, Richie said, hugging him tightly, but somebody has to toughen you up, Eds. When you stop leading the sheltered igszistence of a child and grow up, you gonna, Ah say, Ah say you gonna find out life aint always this easy, boy! Eddie began to shriek with laughter. Thats the shittiest Voice I ever heard, Richie. Well, keep that aspirator thing handy, Beverly said. We might need it again. You didnt see It anywhere? Mike asked. When you lit the match? IhIhIts gggone, Bill said, and then added grimly But were getting close to It. To the pluhhace where IhIt stuhstuhstays. And I ththink we hhhurt Ihhit ththat time. Henrys still coming, Stan said. His voice was low and hoarse. I can hear him back there. Then lets move out, Ben said. They did. The tunnel progressed steadily downward, and that smellthat low, wild stenchgrew steadily stronger. At times they could hear Henry behind them, but now his cries seemed far away and not at all important. There was a feeling in all of themsimilar to that feeling of skew and disconnection they had felt in the house on Neibolt Streetthat they had progressed over the edge of the world and into some queer nothingness. Bill felt (although he did not have the vocabulary to express what he knew) that they were approaching Derrys dark and ruined heart. It seemed to Mike Hanlon that he could almost feel that hearts diseased, arrhythmic beat. Beverly felt a sense of evil power growing around her, seeming to enfold her, certainly trying to split her off from the others and make her alone. Nervously, she reached out on either side of herself and clasped Bills hand and Bens. It seemed to her that she had to reach too far, and she called out nervously Hang onto hands! Its like were moving away from each other! It was Stan who first realized he could see again. There was a low, strange radiance in the air. At first he could only see handshis, clasping Bens on one side and Mikes on the other. Then he realized he could see the buttons on Richies muddy shirt and the Captain Midnight ringjust some junky cerealbox prizethat Eddie liked to wear on his little finger. Can you guys see? Stan asked, coming to a stop. The others stopped, too. Bill looked around, first aware that he could seea little, anywayand then that the tunnel had widened out amazingly. They were now in a curved chamber easily as big as the Sumner Tunnel in Boston. Bigger, he amended as he looked around with a growing sense of awe. They craned their necks back to see the ceiling, which was now fifty feet or more above them, and held up by outcurving buttresses of stone like ribs. Nets of dirty cobweb hung between them. The floor was now stoneflagged, but overlaid with such a drift of ancient dirt that the quality of their footfalls had never changed. The upcurving walls were easily fifty feet away on either side. Waterworks must have really gone crazy down here, Richie said, and laughed uneasily. Looks like a cathedral, Beverly said softly. Wheres the light coming from? Ben wanted to know. Coming rright out of the wwwalls, looks Ilike, Bill said. I dont like it, Stan said. Lets guhgo. HHHenryll be breathing dddown our nuhnecks A loud, braying cry split the gloom, and then the ruffling, heavy thunder of wings. A shape came cruising out of the dark, one eye glaringthe other was a dark lamp. The bird! Stan screamed. Look out, its the bird! It dived at them like an obscene fighterplane, Its plated orange beak opening and closing to reveal the pink inner lining of Its mouth, plush as a satin pillow in a coffin. It went straight for Eddie. Its beak raked his shoulder and he felt pain sink into his flesh like acid. Blood flowed down his chest. He cried out as the backwash of Its beating wings blew noxious tunnel air in his face. It wheeled back, Its eye glaring malevolently, rolling in Its socket, blurring only as Its nictitating eyelid jittered down momentarily to cover the eye with tissuethin film. Its claws sought Eddie, who ducked, screaming. They razored through the back of his shirt, cutting it open, drawing shallow scarlet lines along his shoulderblades. Eddie yelled and tried to crawl away but the bird wheeled back again. Mike broke forward, digging in his pocket. He came out with a oneblade Buck knife. As the bird dived on Eddie again, he swept it in a quick, tight arc across one of the birds talons. It cut deep, and blood poured out. The bird banked away and then came back, folding Its wings, diving in like a bullet. Mike fell to one side at the last moment, slashing upward with the Buck knife. He missed, and the birds claw hit his wrist with such force that his hand went numb and tinglythe bruise that later bloomed there went most of the way to his elbow. The Buck flew into the dark. The bird came back, screeching triumphantly, and Mike rolled his body over Eddies and waited for the worst. Stan walked forward toward the two boys huddled on the floor as the bird returned. He stood, small and somehow trim in spite of the dirt grimed into his hands and arms and pants and shirt, and suddenly held his hands out in a curious gesturepalms up, fingers down. The bird uttered another squawk and sheared off, bulleting by Stan, missing him by inches, lifting his hair and then dropping it in the buffeting wake of Its passage. He turned in a tight circle to face Its return. I believe in scarlet tanagers even though I never saw one, he said in a high clear voice. The bird screamed and banked away as if hed shot at it. Same with vultures, and the New Guinea mudlark and the flamingos of Brazil. The bird screamed, circled, and suddenly flew on up the tunnel, squawking. I believe in the golden bald eagle! Stan screamed after it. And I think there really might be a phoenix somewhere! But I dont believe in you, so get the fuck out of here! Get out! Hit the road, Jack! He stopped then, and the silence seemed very large. Bill, Ben, and Beverly went to Mike and Eddie; they helped Eddie to his feet and Bill looked at the cuts. Nuhnot dddeep, he said. But I bbet they hhurt like hhhell. It tore my shirt to pieces, Big Bill. Eddies cheeks glistened with tears, and he was wheezing again. The bellowing barbarians voice was gone; it was hard to believe it had ever been there. What am I going to tell my mom? Bill smiled a little. Why dddont we wuhworry about that when we gggget out of here? Give yourself a bluhhast, EEddie. Eddie did, inhaling deeply and then wheezing. That was great, man, Richie told Stan. That was just frockin great! Stan was shivering all over. Theres no bird like that, thats all. There never has been and there never will be. Were coming! Henry screamed from behind them. His voice was utterly demented. He was laughing and howling now. He sounded like something that has crawled out of a crack in the roof of hell. Men Belch! Were coming and well get you little punks! You cant get away! Bill shouted GGGet out, HHHenry! WWWhile theres still tuhtuhtime! Henrys response was a hollow, inarticulate scream. They heard a hustle of footsteps and in a burst of comprehension Bill understood Henrys whole purpose he was real, he was mortal, he could not be stopped by an aspirator or a birdbook. Magic would not work on Henry. He was too stupid. CCCome ohon. We guhgotta stay aaahead of hhhim. They went on again, holding hands, Eddies tattered shirt flapping behind him. The light grew brighter, the tunnel ever huger. As it canted downward, the ceiling flew away above until they could barely see it. It now seemed to them that they were not walking in a tunnel at all but making their way through a titanic underground courtyard, the approach to some cyclopean castle. The light from the walls had become a running greenyellow fire. The smell was stronger, and they began to pick up a vibration that might have been real or might have been only in their minds. It was steady and rhythmic. It was a heartbeat. It ends up ahead! Beverly cried. Look! Its a blank wall! But as they drew closer, antlike now on this great floor of dirty stone blocks, each block bigger than Bassey Park, it seemed, they saw that the wall was not entirely blank after all. It was broken by a single door. And although the wall itself towered hundreds of feet above them, the door was very small. It was no more than three feet high, a door of the sort you might see in a fairytale book, made of stout oaken boards bound with iron strips in an Xpattern. It was, they all realized at once, a door made only for children. Ghostly, in his mind, Ben heard the librarian reading to the little ones Who is that triptrapping upon my bridge? The children lean forward, all the old fascination glistening in their eyes will the monster be bested ... or will It feed? There was a mark on the door, and heaped at its foot was a pile of bones. Small bones. The bones of God alone knew how many children. They had come to the place of It. The mark on the door, then what was that? Bill marked it as a paper boat. Stan saw it as a bird rising toward the skya phoenix, perhaps. Michael saw a hooded facethat of crazy Butch Bowers, perhaps, if it could only be seen. Richie saw two eyes behind a pair of spectacles. Beverly saw a hand doubled up into a fist. Eddie believed it to be the face of the leper, all sunken eyes and wrinkled snarling mouthall disease, all sickness, was stamped into that face. Ben Hanscom saw a tattered pile of wrappings and seemed to smell old sour spices. Later, arriving at that same door with Belchs screams still echoing in his ears, alone at the end of it, Henry Bowers would see it as the moon, full, ripe ... and black. Im scared, Bill, Ben said in a wavering voice. Do we have to? Bill toed the bones, and suddenly scattered them in a powdery, rattling drift with one foot. He was scared, too ... but there was George to consider. It had ripped off Georges arm. Were those small and fragile bones among these? Yes, of course they were. They were here for the owners of the bones, George and all the othersthose who had been brought here, those who might be brought here, those who had been left in other places simply to rot. We have to, Bill said. What if its locked? Beverly asked in a small voice. IhIts not Ilocked, Bill said, and then told her what he knew from deeper inside Pluhhaces like this are nnever luhluhlocked. He placed the tented fingers of his right hand on the door and pushed. It swung open on a flood of sick yellowgreen light. That zoo smell wafted out at them, incredibly strong, incredibly potent now. One by one they passed through the fairytale door, and into the lair of It. Bill 7 In the Tunnels459 A.M. stopped so suddenly that the others piled up like freightcars when the engine suddenly comes to a panicstop. What is it? Ben called. IhIhIt was hhhere. The EhEhEye. DDo you rrremember? I remember, Richie said. Eddie stopped it with his aspirator. By pretending it was acid. He said something about some dance. Pretty chuckalicious, but I cant remember exactly what it was. It dddoesnt mmmatter. We wont suhsee anything we saw bbbefore, Bill said. He struck a light and looked around at the others. Their faces were luminous in the glow of the match, luminous and mystic. And they seemed very young. HHHow you guys ddoin? Were okay, Big Bill, Eddie said, but his face was drawn with pain. Bills makeshift splint was coming apart. How bout you? OhChkay, Bill said, and shook out the match before his face could tell them any different story. How did it happen? Beverly asked him, touching his arm in the dark. Bill, how could she? BBBecause I muhhentioned the nname of the town. ShShe cccame ahhafter mmme. Even whwhen I was dddoing it, suhsuhhomething ihhinside was tttelling me to shshshut uhup. BBut I dddidnt luhluhhisten. He shook his head helplessly in the dark. But even if shshe came to DuhDuhDerry, I dddont uhhunderstand hhhow she ccould have guhhotten dddown hhere. If HHHenry dihdidnt bbbring her, then who ddid? It, Ben said. It doesnt have to look bad, we know that. It could have shown up and said you were in trouble. Taken her here in order to ... to fuck you up, I suppose. To kill our guts. Cause thats what you always were, Big Bill. Our guts. Tom? Beverly said in a low, almost musing voice. WWWho? Bill struck another match. She was looking at him with a kind of desperate honesty. Tom. My husband. He knew, too. At least, I think I mentioned the name of the town to him, the way you mentioned it to Audra. I ... I dont know if it took or not. He was pretty angry with me at the time. Jesus, what is this, some kind of soap opera where everybody turns up sooner or later? Richie said. Not a soap opera, Bill said, sounding sick, a show. Like the circus. Bev here went and married Henry Bowers. When she left, why wouldnt he come here? After all, the real Henry did. No, Beverly said. I didnt marry Henry. I married my father. If he beat on you, whats the difference? Eddie asked. CCCome around me, Bill said. Muhmuhmove in. They did. Bill reached out to either side and found Eddies good hand and one of Richies hands. Soon they stood in a circle, as they had done once before when their number was greater. Eddie felt someone put an arm around his shoulders. The feeling was warm and comforting and deeply familiar. Bill felt the sense of power that he remembered from before, but understood with some desperation that things really had changed. The power was nowhere near as strongit struggled and flickered like a candleflame in foul air. The darkness seemed thicker and closer to them, more triumphant. And he could smell It. Down this passageway, he thought, and not so terribly far, is a door with a mark on it. What was behind that door? Its the one thing I still cant remember. I can remember making my fingers stiff, because they wanted to tremble, and I can remember pushing the door open. I can even remember the flood of light that streamed out and how it seemed almost alive, as if it wasnt just light but fluorescent snakes. I remember the smell, like the monkeyhouse in a big zoo, but even worse. And then ... nothing. Do aaany of yyyyou remmmember what It really wwwas? No, Eddie said. I think . . . Richie began, and then Bill could almost feel him shake his head in the dark. No. No, Beverly said. Huhuh. That was Ben. Thats the one thing I still cant remember. What It was . . . or how we fought It. Chd, Beverly said. Thats how we fought it. But I dont remember what that means. Stand by mme, Bill said, and IIll stuhstuhhand by yyyou guys. Bill, Ben said. His voice was very calm. Something is coming. Bill listened. He heard dragging, shambling footsteps approaching them in the dark ... and he was afraid. AAAudra? he called ... and knew already that it was not her. Whatever was shambling toward them drew closer. Bill struck a light. 8 Derry500 A.M. The first wrong thing happened on that latespring day in 1985 two minutes before official sunrise. To understand how wrong it was one would have to have known two facts that were known to Mike Hanlon (who lay unconscious in the Derry Home Hospital as the sun came up), both concerning the Grace Baptist Church, which had stood on the corner of Witcham and Jackson since 1897. The church was topped with a slender white spire which was the apotheosis of every Protestant churchsteeple in New England. There were clockfaces on all four sides of the steeplebase, and the clock itself had been constructed and shipped from Switzerland in the year 1898. The only one like it stood in the town square of Haven Village, forty miles away. Stephen Bowie, a timber baron who lived on West Broadway, donated the clock to the town at a cost of some 17,000. Bowie could afford it. He was a devout churchgoer and deacon for forty years (during several of those later years he was also president of Derrys Legion of White Decency chapter). In addition, he was known for his devout layman sermons on Mothers Day, which he always referred to reverently as Mothers Sunday. From the time of its installation until May 31st, 1985, that clock had faithfully chimed each hour and each halfwith one notable exception. On the day of the explosion at the Kitchener Ironworks it had not chimed the noonhour. Residents believed that the Reverend Jollyn had silenced the clock to show that the church was in mourning for the dead children, and Jollyn never disabused them of this notion although it was not true. The clock had simply not chimed. Nor did it chime the hour of five on the morning of May 31st, 1985. At that moment, all over Derry, oldtimers opened their eyes and sat up, disturbed for no reason they could put their fingers on. Medicines were gulped, false teeth put in, pipes and cigars lit. The old folks stood a watch. One of them was Norbert Keene, now in his nineties. He hobbled to the window and looked out at a darkening sky. The weather report the night before had called for clear skies, but his bones told him it was going to rain, and hard. He felt scared, deep inside him; in some obscure way he felt threatened, as if a poison were working its way relentlessly toward his heart. He thought randomly of the day the Bradley Gang had ridden heedlessly into Derry, into the sights of seventyfive pistols and rifles. That kind of work left a man feeling kind of warm and lazy inside, like everything was ... was somehow confirmed. He couldnt put it any better than that, even to himself. Work like that left a man feeling like he maybe might live forever, and Norbert Keene damn near had. Ninetysix years old come June 24th, and he still walked three miles every day. But now he felt scared. Those kids, he said, looking out his window, unaware he had spoken. What is it with them damn kids? What they monkeying around with this time? Egbert Thoroughgood, ninetynine, who had been in the Silver Dollar when Claude Heroux tuned up his axe and played The Dead March for four men on it, awoke at the same moment, sat up, and let out a rusty scream that no one heard. He had dreamed of Claude, only Claude had been coming after him, and the axe had come down, and a moment after it did Thoroughgood had seen his own severed hand twitching and curling on the counter. Something wrong, he thought in his muddy way, frightened and shaking all over in his peestained longjohns. Something dreadful wrong. Dave Gardener, who had discovered George Denbroughs mutilated body in October of 1957 and whose son had discovered the first victim of this new cycle earlier in the spring, opened his eyes on the stroke of five and thought, even before looking at the clock on the bureau Grace Church clock didnt chime the hour.... Whats wrong? He felt a large illdefined fright. Dave had prospered over the years; in 1965 he had purchased The Shoeboat, and now there was a second Shoeboat at the Derry Mall and a third up in Bangor. Suddenly all of those thingsthings he had spent his life working forseemed in jeopardy. From what? he cried to himself, looking at his sleeping wife. From what, why you so goddam antsy just because that clock didnt chime? But there was no answer. He got up and went to the window, hitching at the waistband of his pajamas. The sky was restless with clouds racing in from the west, and Daves disquiet grew. For the first time in a very long while he found himself thinking of the screams that had brought him to his porch twentyseven years ago, to see that writhing figure in the yellow rainslicker. He looked at the approaching clouds and thought Were in danger. All of us. Derry. Chief Andrew Rademacher, who really believed he had tried his best to solve the new string of childmurders that had plagued Derry, stood on the porch of his house, thumbs in his Sam Browne belt, looking up at the clouds, and felt the same disquiet. Something getting ready to happen. Looks like its going to pour buckets, for one thing. But thats not all. He shuddered... and as he stood there on his porch, the smell of the bacon his wife was cooking wafting out through the screen door, the first dimesized drops of rain darkened the sidewalk in front of his pleasant Reynolds Street home and, somewhere just over the horizon from Bassey Park, thunder rumbled. Rademacher shivered again. 9 Georgel501 A.M. Bill held the match up ... and uttered a long trembling despairing screech. It was George wavering up the tunnel toward him, George, still dressed in his bloodspattered yellow rainslicker. One sleeve dangled limp and useless. Georges face was white as cheese and his eyes were shiny silver. They fixed on Bills own. My boat! Georgies lost voice rose, wavering, in the tunnel. I cant find it, Bill, Ive looked everywhere and I cant find it and now Im dead and its your fault your fault YOUR FAULT JuhJuhGeorgie! Bill shrieked. He felt his mind tottering, ripping free of its moorings. George stumblestaggered toward him and now his one remaining arm rose toward Bill, the white hand at the end of it hooked into a claw. The nails were dirty and grasping. Your fault, George whispered, and grinned. His teeth were fangs; they opened and closed slowly, like the teeth in a beartrap. You sent me out and its all . . . your . . . fault. NuhNuhNo, Juh JuhGeorgie! Bill cried. I dihdihdidn t nuhhunnuhknow Kill you! George cried, and a mixture of doglike sounds came out of that fanged mouth yips, yelps, howls. A kind of laughter. Bill could smell him now, could smell George rotting. It was a cellarsmell, squirmy, the smell of some final monster standing slumped and yelloweyed in the corner, waiting to unzip some small boys guts. Georges teeth gnashed together. The sound was like billiard balls clicking off one another. Yellow pus began to leak from his eyes and dribble down his face ... and the match went out. Bill felt his friends disappearthey were running, of course they were, they were leaving him alone. They were cutting him off, as his parents had cut him off, because George was right it was all his fault. |
Soon he would feel that single hand seize his throat, soon he would feel those fangs pulling him open, and that would be right. That would be only just. He had sent George out to die, and he had spent his whole adult life writing about the horror of that betrayaloh, he had put many faces on it, almost as many faces as It had put on for their benefit, but the monster at the bottom of everything was only George, running out into the receding flood with his paraffincoated paper boat. Now would come the atonement. You deserve to die for killing me, George whispered. He was very close now. Bill closed his eyes. Then yellow light splashed the tunnel and he opened them. Richie was holding up a match. Fight It, Bill! Richie shouted. Gods sake! Fight It! What are you doing here? He looked at them, bewildered. They hadnt run after all. How could that be? How could that be after they had seen how foully he had murdered his own brother? Fight It! Beverly was screaming. Oh Bill, fight It! Only you can do this one! Please George was less than five feet away now. He suddenly stuck his tongue out at Bill. It was crawling with white fungoid growths. Bill screamed again. Kill It, Bill! Eddie shouted. Thats not your brother! Kill It while its small! Kill It NOW! George glanced at Eddie, cutting his shinysilver eyes that way for just a moment, and Eddie reeled back and struck the wall as if he had been pushed. Bill stood mesmerized, watching his brother come toward him, George again after all these years, it was George at the end as it had been George at the beginning, oh yes, and he could hear the creak of Georges yellow slicker as George closed the distance, he could hear the jingle of the buckles on his overshoes and he could smell something like wet leaves, as if underneath the slicker Georges body was made of them, as if the feet inside Georges galoshes were leaffeet, yes, a leafman, that was it, that was George, he was a rotted balloon face and a body made of dead leaves, the kind that sometimes choke the sewers after a flood. Dimly he heard Beverly shriek. (he thrusts his fists) Bill, please Bill (against the posts and still insists) Well look for my boat together, George said. Thick yellow pus, mock tears, rolled down his cheeks. He reached for Bill and his head cocked sideward, his teeth peeling back from those fangs. (he sees the ghosts he sees the ghosts HE SEES) Well find it, George said and Bill could smell Its breath and it was a smell like exploded animals lying on the highway at midnight. As Georges mouth yawned, he could see things squirming around inside there. Its still down here, everything floats down here, well float, Bill, well all float Georges fishbelly hand closed on Bills neck. (HE SEES THE GHOSTS WE SEE THE GHOSTS THEY WE YOU SEE THE GHOSTS) Georges contorted face drifted toward Bills neck. float He thrusts his fists against the posts! Bill cried. His voice was deeper, hardly his own at all, and in a searing flash of memory Richie remembered that Bill only stuttered in his own voice when he pretended to be someone else, he never did. The Georgething recoiled, hissing, Its hand going to Its face in a wardingoff gesture. Thats it! Richie screamed deliriously. You got It, Bill! Get It! Get It! Get It! He thrusts his fists against the posts and still insists he sees the ghosts! Bill thundered. He advanced on the Georgething. Youre no ghost! George knows I didnt mean for him to die! My folks were wrong! They took it out on me and that was wrong! Do you hear me? The Georgething abruptly turned, squealing like a rat. It began to run and ripple under the yellow slicker. The slicker itself seemed to be dripping, running in bright blots of yellow. It was losing Its shape, becoming amorphous. He thrusts his fists against the posts, you son of a bitch! Bill Denbrough screamed, and still insists he sees the ghosts! He leaped at It and his fingers snagged in the yellow rainslicker that was no longer a rainslicker. What he grabbed felt like some strange warm taffy that melted under his fingers as soon as he had closed his fist around it. He fell to his knees. Then Richie yelled as the guttering match burned his fingers and they were plunged into darkness again. Bill felt something begin to grow in his chest, something hot and choking and as painful as fiery nettles. He gripped his knees and drew them up to his chin, hoping it would stop the pain, or perhaps ease it; he was dimly thankful for the dark, glad that the others couldnt see this agony. He heard a sound escape hima wavering moan. There was a second; a third. George! he cried. George, Im sorry! I never meant for anything bbbbad to huhhuhhappen! Perhaps there was something else to say, but he could not say it. He was sobbing then, lying on his back with one arm over his eyes, remembering the boat, remembering the steady beat of the rain against his bedroom windows, remembering the medicines and the tissues on the nighttable, the faint ache of fever in his head and in his body, remembering George, most of all that remembering George, George in his yellow hooded slicker. George, Im sorry! he cried through his tears. Im sorry, Im sorry, please, Im suhsuhSORRY And then they were around him, his friends, and no one lit a match, and someone held him, he didnt know who, Beverly maybe, or maybe Ben, or Richie. They were with him, and for that little while the darkness was kind. 10 Derryl530 A.M. By 530 it was raining hard. The weather forecasters on the Bangor radio stations expressed mild surprise and tendered mild apologies to all the people who had made plans for picnics and outings on the basis of yesterdays forecasts. Tough break, folks; just one of those odd weather patterns that sometimes developed in the Penobscot Valley with startling suddenness. On WZON, meteorologist Jim Witt described what he called an extraordinarily disciplined lowpressure system. That was putting it mildly. Conditions went from cloudy in Bangor to showery in Hampden to drizzly in Haven to moderate rain in Newport. But in Derry, only thirty miles from downtown Bangor, it was pouring. Travellers on Route 7 found themselves moving through water that was eight inches deep in places, and beyond the Rhulin Farms a plugged culvert in a dip had covered the highway with so much water that the highway was actually impassable. By six that morning the Derry Highway Patrol had orange DETOUR signs on both sides of the dip. Those who waited under the shelter on Main Street for the first bus of the day to take them to work stood looking over the railing at the Canal, where the water was ominously high in its concrete channel. There would be no flood, of course; all agreed on that. The water was still four feet below the highwater mark of 1977, and there had been no flood that year. But the rain came down with steady pounding persistence, and thunder grumbled in the low clouds. Water ran down UpMile Hill in streams and roared in the stormdrains and sewers. No flood, they agreed, but there was a patina of unease on every face. At 545 a powertransformer on a pole beside the abandoned Tracker Brothers Truck Depot exploded in a flash of purple light, spraying twisted chunks of metal onto the shingled roof. One of the flying chunks of metal severed a hightension wire, which also fell on the roof, spluttering and twisting like a snake, shooting an almost liquid stream of sparks. The roof caught fire in spite of the downpour, and soon the depot was blazing. The powercable tumbled from the roof to the weedy verge that led around to the lot where small boys had once played baseball. The Derry Fire Department rolled for the first time that day at 602 A.M. and arrived at Tracker Brothers at 609. One of the first firemen off the truck was Calvin Clark, one of the Clark twins with whom Ben, Beverly, Richie, and Bill had gone to school. His third step away from the truck brought the sole of his leather boot down on the live line. Calvin was electrocuted almost instantly. His tongue popped out of his mouth and his rubber firemans coat began to smolder. He smelled like burning tires at the town dump. At 605 A.M., residents of Merit Street in the Old Cape felt something that might have been an underground explosion. Plates fell from shelves and pictures from walls. At 606, every toilet on Merit Street suddenly exploded in a geyser of shit and raw sewage as some unimaginable reversal took place in the pipes which fed the holding tanks of the new wastetreatment plant in the Barrens. In some cases these explosions were strong enough to tear holes in bathroom ceilings. A woman named Anne Stuart was killed when an ancient gearwheel catapulted from her toilet along with a gout of sewage. The gearwheel went through the frosted glass of the shower door and passed through her throat like a terrible bullet as she washed her hair. She was nearly decapitated. The gearwheel was a relic of the Kitchener Ironworks, and had found its way into the sewers almost threequarters of a century before. Another woman was killed when the sudden violent reversal of sewage, driven by expanding methane gases, caused her toilet to explode like a bomb. The unfortunate woman, who was sitting on the john at the time and reading the current Banana Republic catalogue, was torn to pieces. At 619 A.M., a bolt of lightning struck the socalled Kissing Bridge, which spanned the Canal between Bassey Park and Derry High School. The splintered pieces were thrown high into the air and then rained down into the swiftly moving Canal to be carried away. The wind was rising. At 630 A.M., the gauge in the lobby of the courthouse building registered it at just over fifteen miles an hour. By 645, it had risen to twentyfour miles an hour. At 646 A.M., Mike Hanlon awoke in his room at the Derry Home Hospital. His return to consciousness was a kind of slow dissolvefor a long time he thought he was dreaming. If so, it was an odd sort of dreaman anxiety dream, his old psych prof Doc Abelson might have called it. There seemed to be no overt reason for the anxiety, but it was there all the same; the plain white room seemed to shriek menace. He gradually realized that he was awake. The plain white room was a hospital room. Bottles hung over his head, one full of clear liquid, the other a deep dark red one. Whole blood. He saw a blank TV set bolted to the wall and became aware of the steady sound of rain beating against the window. Mike tried to move his legs. One moved freely but the other, his right leg, wouldnt move at all. The feeling in that leg was very faint, and he realized it was tightly bandaged. Little by little it came back. He had settled down to write in his notebook and Henry Bowers had turned up. A real blast from the past, a golden gasser. There had been a fight, and Henry! Where had Henry gone? After the others? Mike groped for the callbell. It was draped over the head of the bed, and he had it in his hands when the door opened. A nurse stood there. Two buttons of his white tunic were unbuttoned and his dark hair was mussed, giving him a rumpled Ben Casey look. He wore a Saint Christopher medal around his neck. Even in his soupy, onlythreequartersawake state, Mike placed him immediately. In 1958, a sixteenyearold girl named Cheryl Lamonica had been killed in Derry, killed by It. The girl had had a fourteenyearold brother named Mark, and this was him. Mark? he said weakly. I have to talk to you. Shhh, Mark said. His hand was in his pocket. No talk. He walked into the room, and as he stood at the foot of the bed, Mike saw with a hopeless chill how blank Mark Lamonicas eyes were. His head was slightly cocked, as if hearing distant music. He took his hand out of his pocket. There was a syringe in it. This will put you to sleep, Mark said, and began to walk toward the bed. 11 Under the Cityl649 A.M. Shhhhh! Bill cried suddenly, although there had been no sound except their own faint footsteps. Richie struck a light. The walls of the tunnel had moved away, and the five of them seemed very small in this space under the city. They huddled together and Beverly felt a dreamy sense of djvu as she observed the gigantic flagstones on the floor and the hanging nets of cobweb. They were close now. Close. What do you hear? she asked Bill, trying to look everywhere as the match in Richies hand burned down, expecting to see some new surprise come lurching or flying out of the darkness. Rodan, anyone? The alien from that gruesome movie with Sigourney Weaver? A great scuttering rat with orange eyes and silver teeth? But there was nothingonly the dusty smell of the dark, and, far away, the thunder of running water, as if the drains were filling up. SSSomething ruhruhwrong, Bill said. Mike Mike? Eddie asked. What about Mike? I felt it, too, Ben said. Is it . . . Bill, did he die? No, Bill said. His eyes were hazy and distant, unemotionalall of his alarm was in his tone and the defensive posture of his body. He . . . HHHe . . . He swallowed. There was a click in his throat. His eyes widened Oh. Oh, no! Bill? Beverly cried, alarmed. Bill, what is it? What Gruhgruhgrab my huhhands! Bill screamed. Kwuhkwuhquick! Richie dropped the match and seized one of Bills hands. Beverly grabbed the other. She groped with her free hand, and Eddie grasped it feebly with the hand at the end of his broken arm. Ben grasped his other hand and completed the circle by holding Richies hand. Send him our power! Bill cried in that same strange, deep voice. Send him our power, whatever You are, send him our power! Now! Now! Now! Beverly felt something go out from them and toward Mike. Her head rolled on her shoulders in a kind of ecstasy, and the harsh whistle of Eddies breathing merged with the headlong thunder of water in the drains. 12 Now, Mark Lamonica said in a low voice. He sighedthe sigh of a man who feels orgasm approaching. Mike pushed the callbutton in his hands again and again. He could hear it ringing at the nurses station down the hall, but no one came. With a kind of hellish second sight he understood that the nurses were sitting around down there, reading the morning paper, drinking coffee, hearing his callbell but not hearing it, hearing but not responding, they would respond only later when it was all over, because that was how things worked in Derry. In Derry some things were better not seen or heard ... until they were over. Mike let the callbutton fall from his hands. Mark bent toward him, the tip of the syringe glittering. His Saint Christopher medal swung hypnotically back and forth as he drew the sheet down. Right there, he whispered. The sternum. And sighed again. Mike suddenly felt power wash into himsome primitive power that crammed his body like volts. He stiffened, fingers splaying out as if in a convulsion. His eyes widened. A grunt jerked out of him, and that sense of dreadful paralysis was driven from him as if by a roundhouse slap. His right hand pistoned out toward the nighttable. There was a plastic pitcher there and a heavy cafeteriastyle waterglass beside it. His hand closed around the glass. Lamonica sensed the change; that dreamy, pleased light disappeared from his eyes and was replaced by wary confusion. He drew back a bit, and then Mike brought the glass up and smashed it into his face. Lamonica screamed and staggered backward, dropping the syringe. His hands went to his spouting face; blood ran down his wrists and splashed on his white tunic. The power left as suddenly as it had come. Mike looked dully at the shards of broken glass on the bed and his hospital johnny and his own bleeding hand. He heard the quick, light sound of crepesoled shoes in the hall, approaching. Now they come, he thought, Oh yes, now. And after theyre gone, wholl show up? Wholl show up next? As they burst into his room, the nurses who had sat calmly on station as his callbell rang frantically, Mike closed his eyes and prayed for it to be over. He prayed his friends were somewhere under the city, he prayed they were all right, he prayed they would end it. He didnt know exactly Who he prayed to ... but he prayed nonetheless. 13 Under the Cityl654 A.M. Hes aaall ruhright, Bill said presently. Ben didnt know how long they had stood in the darkness, holding hands. It seemed to him that he had felt somethingsomething from them, from their circlego out and then come back. But he did not know where that thingif it existed at allhad gone, or done. Are you sure, Big Bill? Richie asked. YYYes. Bill released Richies hand and Beverlys. But we hhave to finish this as kwuhquick as we ccan. CCome ohohon. They went on, Richie or Bill periodically lighting matches. We dont have so much as a peashooter among us, Ben thought. But thats part of it, too, isnt it? Chiid. What does that mean? What was It, exactly? What was Its final face? And even if we didnt kill It, we hurt It. How did we do that? The chamber they walked throughit could no longer be called a tunnelgrew larger and larger. Their footfalls echoed. Ben remembered the smell, that thick zoo smell. He became aware that the matches were no longer necessarythere was light now, light of a sort a ghastly effulgence that was growing steadily stronger. In that marshy light, his friends all looked like walking corpses. Wall up ahead, Bill, Eddie said. I nuhnuhknow. Ben felt his heart begin to pick up speed. There was a sour taste in his mouth and his head had begun to ache. He felt slow and frightened. He felt fat. The door, Beverly whispered. Yes, here it was. Once, twentyseven years before, they had been able to pass through that door by doing no more than ducking their heads. Now they would have to duckwalk their way through, or crawl on hands and knees. They had grown; here was final proof, if final proof were needed. The pulsepoints in Bens neck and wrists felt hot and bloody; his heart had picked up a light and rapid flutter that was close to arrhythmia. Pigeonpulse, he thought, randomly, and licked his lips. Bright greenishyellow light flooded out from under the door; it shot through the ornate keyhole in a twisting shaft that looked almost thick enough to cut. The mark was on the door, and again they all saw something different in that strange device. Beverly saw Toms face. Bill saw Audras severed head with blank eyes that stared at him in dreadful accusation. Eddie saw a grinning skull poised over two crossed bones, the symbol for poison. Richie saw the bearded face of a degenerate Paul Bunyan, eyes narrowed to killers slits. And Ben saw Henry Bowers. Bill, are we strong enough? he asked. Can we do this? I duhhont nuhnuhknow, Bill said. What if its locked? Beverly asked in a small voice. Toms face mocked her. IhIts not, Bill said. Pluhhaces like this are nnever luhluhlocked. He placed the tented fingers of his right hand on the doorhe had to bend over to do itand pushed. It swung open on a flood of sick yellowgreen light. That zoo smell wafted out at them, the smell of the past become the present, horribly alive, obscenely vital. Roll, wheel, Bill thought randomly, and looked around at them. Then he dropped to his hands and knees. Beverly followed, then Richie, then Eddie. Ben came last, his flesh crawling at the feel of the ancient grit on the floor. He passed through the portal, and as he straightened up in the weird glow of fire crawling up and down the dripping stone walls in snakes of light, the last memory socked home with the force of a psychic battering ram. He cried out, staggering back, one hand going to his head, and his first incoherent thought was No wonder Stan committed suicide! Oh God, I wish I had! He saw the same expressions of stunned horror and dawning realization on the faces of the others as the last key turned in the last lock. Then Beverly was shrieking, clinging to Bill, as It raced down the gossamer curtain of Its webbing, a nightmare Spider from beyond time and space, a Spider from beyond the fevered imaginings of whatever inmates may live in the deepest depths of hell. No, Bill thought coldly, not a Spider either, not really, but this shape isnt one It picked out of our minds; its just the closest our minds can come to (the deadlights) whatever It really is. It was perhaps fifteen feet high and as black as a moonless night. Each of Its legs was as thick as a musclebuilders thigh. Its eyes were bright malevolent rubies, bulging from sockets filled with some dripping chromiumcolored fluid. Its jagged mandibles opened and closed, opened and closed, dripping ribbons of foam. Frozen in an ecstasy of horror, tottering on the brink of utter lunacy, Ben observed with an eyeofthestorm calm that this foam was alive; it struck the stinking stoneflagged floor and then began to writhe away into the cracks like protozoa. But Its something else, theres some final shape, one that I can almost see the way you might see the shape of a man moving behind a movie screen while the show is on, some other shape, but I dont want to see It, please God, dont let me see It.... And it didnt matter, did it? They were seeing what they were seeing, and Ben understood somehow that It was imprisoned in this final shape, the shape of the Spider, by their common unsought and unfathered vision. It was against this It that they would live or die. The creature was squealing and mewling, and Ben became quite sure he was hearing sounds It made twicein his head, and then, a split second later, in his ears. Telepathic, he thought, Im reading Its mind. Its shadow was a squat egg that raced along the ancient wall of this keep that was Its lair. Its body was covered by coarse hair, and Ben saw that It was possessed of a stinger long enough to impale a man. A clear fluid dripped from its tip, and Ben saw that this was also alive; like the saliva, the poison writhed away into the cracks of the floor. Its stinger, yes ... but below that, Its belly bulged grotesquely, almost dragging on the floor as It moved, now changing direction slightly, heading unerringly toward their leader, toward Big Bill. Thats Its eggsac, Ben thought, and his mind seemed to shriek at the implication. Whatever It is beyond what we see, this representation is at least symbolically correct Its female, and Its pregnant.... It was pregnant then and none of us knew except Stan, oh Jesus Christ YES, it was Stan, Stan, not Mike, Stan who understood, Stan who told us.... Thats why we had to come back, no matter what, because It is female, Its pregnant with some unimaginable spawn . . . and Its time has drawn close. Incredibly, Bill Denbrough was stepping forward to meet It. Bill, no! Beverly screamed. StuhStuhStay bbback! Bill shouted without looking around. And then Richie was running toward him, shouting his name, and Ben found his own legs in motion. He seemed to feel a phantom stomach swaying in front of him, and he welcomed the sensation. Got to become a child again, he thought incoherently. Thats the only way I can keep It from driving me crazy. Got to become a kid again ... got to accept it. Somehow. Running. Shouting Bills name. Vaguely aware that Eddie was running beside him, his broken arm flopping, the belt of the bathrobe Bill had cinched around it now trailing on the floor. Eddie had drawn his aspirator. He looked like a crazed malnourished gunslinger with some weird pistol. Ben heard Bill bellow You kkkilled my brother, you fuhfuhfucking BITCH! Then It was rearing up over Bill, burying Bill in Its shadow, Its legs pawing the air. Ben heard Its eager mewling, looked into Its timeless, evil red eyes ... and for an instant did see the shape behind the shape saw lights, saw an endless crawling hairy thing which was made of light and nothing else, orange light, dead light that mocked life. The ritual began for the second time. CHAPTER 22 The Ritual of Chd 1 In the Lair of It1958 It was Bill who held them together as that great black Spider raced down Its web, creating a noxious breeze that tousled their hair. Stan shrieked like a baby, his brown eyes bulging from their sockets, his fingers harrowing his cheeks. Ben backed slowly away until his ample ass struck the wall to the left of the door. He felt cold fire burn through his pants and stepped away again, but dreamily. Surely none of this could be happening; it was simply the worlds worst nightmare. He found he could not lift his hands. They seemed to have big weights tied to them. Richie found his eyes drawn to that web. Hanging here and there, partially wrapped in silken strands that seemed to move as if alive, were a number of rotted halfeaten bodies. He thought he recognized Eddie Corcoran near the ceiling, although both of Eddies legs and one of his arms were gone. Beverly and Mike clung to each other like Hansel and Gretel in the woods, watching, paralyzed, as the Spider reached the floor and scrabbled toward them, Its distorted shadow racing along beside It on the wall. Bill looked around at them, a tall, skinny boy in a mudandsewagesplattered teeshirt that had once been white, jeans with cuffs, mudcaked Keds. His hair lay across his forehead, and his eyes were blazing. He surveyed them, seemed to dismiss them, and turned back toward the Spider. And, incredibly, he began to cross the room toward It, not running but walking fast, his elbows cocked, his forearms corded, his hands fisted. YuhYuhYou kkkilled my bruhhother! No, Bill! Beverly shrieked, struggling free of Mikes embrace and running toward Bill, her red hair flying out behind her. Leave him alone! she screamed at the Spider. Dont you touch him! Shit! Beverly! Ben thought, and then he was running too, stomach swaying back and forth in front of him, legs pumping. He was vaguely aware that Eddie Kaspbrak was running on his left, holding his aspirator in his good hand like a pistol. And then It was rearing up over Bill, who was unarmed; It buried Bill in Its shadow, Its legs pawing at the air. Ben grabbed for Beverlys shoulder. His hand slapped it, then slipped off. She turned toward him, her eyes wild, her lips drawn back from her teeth. Help him! she screamed. How? Ben screamed back. He wheeled toward the Spider, heard Its eager mewling, looked into Its timeless, evil eyes, and saw something behind the shape; something much worse than a spider. Something that was all insane light. His courage faltered ... but it was Bev who had asked him. Bev, and he loved her. Goddam you, leave Bill alone! he shrieked. A moment later a hand swatted his back so hard he almost fell over. It was Richie, and although tears were running down his cheeks, Richie was grinning madly. The corners of his mouth seemed to reach almost to the lobes of his ears. Spit leaked out between his teeth. Lets get her, Haystack! Richie screamed. Chd! Chd! Her? Ben thought stupidly. Her, did he say? Aloud Okay, but what is it? Whats Chd? Frocked if I know! Richie yelled, then ran toward Bill and into the shadow of It. It had somehow squatted on Its rear legs. Its front legs pawed the air just over Bills head. And Stan Uris, forced to approach, compelled to approach in spite of every instinct in his mind and body, saw that Bill was staring up at It, his blue eyes fixed on Its inhuman orange ones, eyes from which that awful corpselight spilled. Stan stopped, understanding that the Ritual of Chdwhatever that washad begun. 2 Bill in the VoidEarly who are you and why do you come to Me? Im Bill Denbrough. You know who I am and why Im here. You killed my brother and Im here to kill You. You picked the wrong kid, bitch. I am eternal. I am the Eater of Worlds. Yeah? That so? Well, youve had your last meal, sister. you have no power; here is the power; feel the power, brat, and then speak again of how you come to kill the Eternal. You think you see Me? You see only what your mind will allow. Would you see Me? Come, then! Come, brat! Come! Thrown (he) No, not thrown, fired, fired like a living bullet, like the Human Cannonball at the Shrine Circus that came to Derry each May. He was picked up and heaved across the Spiders chamber. Its only in my mind! he screamed at himself. My bodys still standing right there, eye to eye with It, be brave, its only a mindtrick, be brave, be true, stand, stand (thrusts) Roaring forward, slamming into a black and dripping tunnel lined with decaying, crumbling tiles that were fifty years old, a hundred, a thousand, a millionbillion, who knew, rushing in deadly silence past intersections, some lit by that twisting greenyellow fire, some by glowing balloons full of a ghastly white skulllight, others dead black; he was thrown at a speed of a thousand miles an hour past piles of bones, some human, some not, speeding like a rocketpowered dart in a windtunnel, now angling upward, but not toward light but toward dark, some titanic dark (his fists) and exploding outward into utter blackness, the blackness was everything, the blackness was the cosmos and the universe, and the floor of the blackness was hard, hard, it was like polished ebonite and he was skidding along on his chest and belly and thighs like a weight on a shuffleboard. He was on the ballroom floor of eternity, and eternity was black. (against the posts) stop that why do you say that? that wont help you, stupid boy and still insists he sees the ghosts! stop it! he thrusts his fists against the posts and still insists he sees the ghosts! stop it! stop it! I demand, I command, that you stop it! Dont like that, do you? And thinking If I could only say it out loud, say it without stuttering, I could break this illusion this is no illusion, you foolish little boythis is eternity, My eternity, and you are lost in it, lost forever, never to find your way back; you are eternal now, and condemned to wander in the black ... after you meet Me face to face, that is But there was something else here. Bill sensed it, felt it, in a crazy way smelled it some large presence ahead in the dark. A Shape. He felt not fear but a sense of overmastering awe; here was a power which dwarfed Its power, and Bill had only time to think incoherently Please, please, whatever You are, remember that I am very small He rushed toward it and saw it was a great Turtle, its shell plated with many blazing colors. Its ancient reptilian head slowly poked out of its shell, and Bill thought he felt a vague contemptuous surprise from the thing that had cast him out here. The eyes of the Turtle were kind. Bill thought it must be the oldest thing anyone could imagine, older by far than It, which had claimed to be eternal. What are you? Im the Turtle, son. I made the universe, but please dont blame me for it; I had a bellyache. Help me! Please help me! I take no stand in these matters. My brother has his own place in the macroverse; energy is eternal, as even a child such as yourself must understand He was flying past the Turtle now, and even at his tremendous skidding speed, the Turtles plated side seemed to go on and on to his right. He thought dimly of riding in a train and passing one going in the other direction, a train that was so long it seemed eventually to stand still or even move backward. He could still hear It, yammering and buzzing, Its voice high and angry, not human, full of mad hate. But when the Turtle spoke, Its voice was blanked out utterly. The Turtle spoke in Bills head, and Bill understood somehow that there was yet Another, and that Final Other dwelt in a void beyond this one. This Final Other was, perhaps, the creator of the Turtle, which only watched, and It, which only ate. This Other was a force beyond the universe, a power beyond all other power, the author of all there was. |
Suddenly he thought he understood It meant to thrust him through some wall at the end of the universe and into some other place (what that old Turtle called the macroverse) where It really lived; where It existed as a titanic, glowing core which might be no more than the smallest mote in that Others mind; he would see It naked, a thing of unshaped destroying light, and there he would either be mercifully annihilated or live forever, insane and yet conscious inside Its homicidal endless formless hungry being. Please help me! For the others you must help yourself, son But how? Please tell me! How? How? HOW? He had reached the Turtles heavily scaled back legs now; there was time enough to observe its titanic yet ancient flesh, time to be struck with the wonder of its heavy toenailsthey were an odd bluishyellow color, and he could see galaxies swimming in each one. Please, you are good, I sense and believe that you are good, and I am begging you ... wont you please help me? you already know. there is only Chd. and your friends. Please oh please son, youve got to thrust your fists against the posts and still insist you see the ghosts ... thats all I can tell you. once you get into cosmological shit like this, you got to throw away the instruction manual He realized the voice of the Turtle was fading. He was beyond it now, bulleting into a darkness that was deeper than deep. The Turtles voice was being overcome, overmastered, by the gleeful, gibbering voice of the Thing that had thrust him out and into this black voidthe voice of the Spider, of It. how do you like it out here, Little Friend? do you like it? do you love it? do you give it ninetyeight points because it has a good beat and you can dance to it? can you catch it on your tonsils and heave it left and right? did you enjoy meeting my friend the Turtle? I thought that stupid old fuck died years ago, and for all the good he could do you, he might as well have, did you think he could help you? no no no no he thrusts no he thuhthuhhuhhuhrusts no stop babbling! the time is short; let us talk while we still can. tell me about yourself, Little Friend ... tell me, do you love all the cold dark out here? are you enjoying your grand tour of the nothingness that lies Outside? wait until you break through, Little Friend! wait until you break through to where I am! wait for that! wait for the deadlights! youll look and youll go mad ... but youll live ... and live ... and live ... inside them ... inside Me ... It screamed noxious laughter, and Bill became aware that Its voice was beginning both to fade and to swell, as if he was simultaneously drawing out of Its range ... and hurtling into it. And wasnt that just what was happening? Yes. He thought it was. Because while the voices were in perfect sync, the one he was now rushing toward was totally alien, speaking syllables no human tongue or throat could reproduce. Thats the voice of the deadlights, he thought. the time is short; let us talk while we still can Its human voice fading the way the Bangor radio stations faded when you were in the car and travelling south. Bright, flaring terror filled him. He would shortly be beyond sane communication with It ... and some part of him understood that, for all Its laughter, for all Its alien glee, that was what It wanted. Not just to send him out to whatever It really was, but to break their mental communication. If that ceased, he would be utterly destroyed. To pass beyond communication was to pass beyond salvation; he understood that much from the way his parents had behaved toward him after George had died. It was the only lesson their refrigerator coldness had had to teach him. Leaving It ... and approaching It. But the leaving was somehow more important. If It wanted to eat little kids out here, or suck them in, or whatever It did, why hadnt It sent them all out here? Why just him? Because It had to rid Its Spiderself of him, that was why. Somehow the SpiderIt and the It which It called the deadlights were linked. Whatever lived out here in the black might be invulnerable when It was here and nowhere else ... but It was also on earth, under Derry, in a form that was physical. However repulsive It might be, in Derry it was physical ... and what was physical could be killed. Bill skidded through the dark, his speed still increasing. Why do I sense so much of Its talk is nothing but a bluff, a big shuckandjive? Why should that be? How can that be? He understood how, maybe ... just maybe. There is only Chd, the Turtle had said. And suppose this was it? Suppose they had bitten deep into each others tongues, not physically but mentally, spiritually? And suppose that if It could throw Bill far enough into the void, far enough toward Its eternal discorporate self, the ritual would be over? It would have ripped him free, killed him, and won everything all at the same time. youre doing good, son, but very shortly its going to be too late Its scared! Scared of me! Scared of all of us! skidding, he was skidding, and there was a wall up ahead, he sensed it, sensed it in the dark, the wall at the edge of the continuum, and beyond it the other shape, the deadlights dont talk to me, son, and dont talk to yourselfits tearing you loose. bite in if you care, if you dare, if you can be brave, if you can stand ... bite in, son! Bill bit innot with his teeth, but with teeth in his mind. Dropping his voice a full register, making it not his own (making it, in fact, his fathers voice, although Bill would go to his grave not knowing this; some secrets are never known, and its probably better so), drawing in a great breath, he cried HE THRUSTS HIS FISTS AGAINST THE POSTS AND STILL INSISTS HE SEES THE GHOSTS NOW LET ME GO! He felt It scream in his mind, a scream of frustrated petulant rage ... but it was also a scream of fear and pain. It was not used to not having Its own way; such a thing had never happened to It, and until the most recent moments of Its existence It had not suspected such a thing could. Bill felt It writhing at him, not pulling but pushingtrying to get him away. THRUSTS HIS FISTS AGAINST THE POSTS, I SAID! STOP IT! BRING ME BACK! YOU MUST! I COMMAND IT! I DEMAND IT! It screamed again, Its pain more intense nowperhaps partly because, while It had spent Its long, long existence inflicting pain, feeding on it, It had never experienced it as a part of Itself. Still It tried to push him, to get rid of him, blindly and stubbornly insisting on winning, as It had always won before. It pushed ... but Bill sensed that his outward speed had slowed, and a grotesque image came into his mind Its tongue, covered with that living spittle, extended like a thick rubber band, cracking, bleeding. He saw himself clinging to the tip of that tongue by his teeth, ripping through it a little at a time, his face bathed in the convulsive ichor that was Its blood, drowning in Its dead stench, yet still holding on, holding on somehow, while It struggled in Its blind pain and towering rage not to let Its tongue snap back (Chd, this Chd, stand, be brave, be true, stand for your brother, your friends; believe, believe in all the things you have believed in, believe that if you tell the policeman youre lost hell see that you get home safely, that there is a Tooth Fairy who lives in a huge enamel castle, and Santa Claus below the North Pole, making toys with his trove of elves, and that Captain Midnight could be real, yes, he could be in spite of Calvin and Cissy Clarks big brother Carlton saying that was all a lot of baby stuff, believe that your mother and father will love you again, that courage is possible and words will come smoothly every time; no more Losers, no more cowering in a hole in the ground and calling it a clubhouse, no more crying in Georgies room because you couldnt save him and didnt know, believe in yourself, believe in the heat of that desire) He suddenly began to laugh in the darkness, not in hysteria but in utter delighted amazement. OH SHIT, I BELIEVE IN ALL OF THOSE THINGS! he shouted, and it was true even at eleven he had observed that things turned out right a ridiculous amount of the time. Light flared around him. He raised his arms out and above his head. He turned his face up, and suddenly he felt power rush through him. He heard It scream again ... and suddenly he was being drawn back the way he had come, still holding that image of his teeth planted deep in the strange meat of Its tongue, his teeth locked together like grim old death. He flew through the dark, legs trailing behind him, the tips of his mudcrusted sneaker laces flying like pennants, the wind of this empty place blowing in his ears. He was pulled past the Turtle and saw that its head had withdrawn into its shell; its voice emerged hollow and distorted, as if even the shell it lived in were a well eternities deep not bad, son, but Id finish it now; dont let It get away. energy has a way of dissipating, you know; what can be done when youre eleven can often never be done again The voice of the Turtle faded, faded, faded. There was only the rushing dark ... and then the mouth of a cyclopean tunnel ... smells of age and decay ... cobwebs brushing at his face like rotted skeins of silk in a haunted house ... moldering tiles blurring by ... intersections, all dark now, the moonballoons all gone, and It was screaming, screaming let me go let me go Ill leave never come back let me GO IT HURTS IT HURTS IT HURRRRRRRRRR Thrusts his fists! Bill screamed, nearly delirious now. He could see light ahead but it was fading, guttering like great candles which had at last burned low ... and for a moment he saw himself and the others holding hands in a line, Eddie on one side of him and Richie on the other. He saw his own body, sagging, his head rolled back on his neck, staring up at the Spider, which twisted and whirled like a dervish, Its coarse, spiny legs beating at the floor, poison dripping from Its stinger. It was screaming in Its deathagony. So Bill honestly believed. Then he was slamming back into his body with all the impact of a line drive slamming into a baseball glove, the force of it tearing his hands loose from Richies and Eddies, driving him to his knees and skidding him across the floor to the edge of the web. He reached out for one of the strands without thinking, and his hand immediately went numb, as if it had been injected with a hypo full of novocaine. The strand itself was as thick as a telephonepole guywire. Dont touch that, Bill! Ben yelled, and Bill yanked his hand away in one quick jerk, leaving a raw place across his palm just below the fingers. It filled with blood and he staggered to his feet, eyes on the Spider. It was scrabbling away from them, making Its way into the growing dimness at the back of the chamber as the light failed. It left puddles and pools of black blood behind as It went; somehow their confrontation had ruptured Its insides in a dozen, maybe a hundred places. Bill, the web! Mike screamed. Look out! He stepped backward, craning his neck up, as strands of Its web came floating down, striking the stoneflagged floor on either side of him like the bodies of meaty white snakes. They immediately began to lose shape, to flow into the cracks between the stones. The web was falling apart, coming loose from its many moorings. One of the bodies, wrapped up like a fly, came plunging down to strike the floor with a sickening rottedgourd sound. The Spider! Bill yelled. Where is It? He could still hear It in his head, mewling and crying out in Its pain, and understood dimly that It had gone into the same tunnel It had thrown Bill into ... but had It gone in there to flee back to the place where It had meant to send Bill ... or to hide until they were gone? To die? Or escape? Christ, the lights! Richie shouted. The lightsre going out! What happened, Bill? Where did you go? We thought you were dead! In some confused part of his mind Bill knew that wasnt true if they had really thought him dead, they would have run, scattered, and It would have picked them off easily, one by one. Or perhaps it would be truer to say that they had thought him dead, but believed him alive. We have to make sure! If Its dying or gone back to where It came from, where the rest of It is, thats fine. But what if Its just hurt? What if It can get better? What Stans shriek cut across his thoughts like broken glass. In the fading light Bill saw that one of the strands of webbing had come down on Stans shoulder. Before Bill could reach him, Mike had thrown himself at the smaller boy in a flying tackle. He drove Stan away and the piece of webbing snapped back, taking a piece of Stans polo shirt with it. Get back! Ben yelled at them. Get away from it, its all coming down! He seized Beverlys hand and pulled her back toward the childsized door while Stan struggled to his feet, looked dazedly around, and then grabbed Eddie. The two of them started toward Ben and Beverly, helping each other, looking like phantoms in the fading light. Overhead, the spiderweb was drooping, collapsing on itself, losing its fearful symmetry. Bodies twirled lazily in the air like nightmarish plumbbobs. Crossstrands fell in like the rotted rungs of some strange complex of ladders. Severed strands hit the stone flagging, hissed like cats, lost their shape, began to run. Mike Hanlon wove his way through them as he would later weave his way through the opposing lines of nearly a dozen highschool football teams, head down, ducking and dodging. Richie joined him. Incredibly, Richie was laughing, although his hair was standing straight up on his head like the quills of a porcupine. The light grew dimmer, the phosphorescence that had coiled on the walls now dying away. Bill! Mike shouted. Come on! Get the frock out of there! What if Its not dead? Bill screamed back. We got to go after It, Mike! We got to make sure! A snarl of webbing sagged outward like a parachute and then fell with a nasty ripping sound that was like skin being pulled apart. Mike grabbed Bills arm and pulled him, stumbling, out of the way. Its dead! Eddie cried, joining them. His eyes were febrile lamps, his breathing a chilly winterwhistle in his throat. Fallen strands of webbing had sizzled complex scars into the plaster of Paris of his cast. I heard It, It was dying, you dont sound like that if youre on your way to a sock hop, It was dying, Im sure of it! Richies hands groped out of the darkness, seized Bill, and pulled him into a rough embrace. He began to pound Bills back ecstatically. I heard It, tooIt was dying, Big Bill! It was dying ... and youre not stuttering! Not at all! Howdja do it? How in the hell? Bills brain was whirling. Exhaustion tugged at him with thick and clumsy hands. He could not remember ever feeling this tired ... but in his mind he heard the drawling, almost weary voice of the Turtle Id finish it now; dont let It get away.... what can be done when youre eleven can often never be done again. But we have to be sure The shadows were joining hands and now the darkness was almost complete. But before the light failed utterly, he thought he saw the same hellish doubt on Beverlys face ... and in Stans eyes. And still, as the last of the light gave way, they could hear the tenebrous whispershudderthump of Its unspeakable web falling to pieces. 3 Bill in the VoidLate well here you are again, Little Buddy! but whats happened to your hair? youre just as bald as a cueball! sad! what sad, short lives humans live! each life a short pamphlet written by an idiot! tuttut, and all that Im still Bill Denbrough. You killed my brother and you killed Stan the Man, you tried to kill Mike. And Im going to tell you something this time Im not going to stop until the jobs done the Turtle was stupid, too stupid to lie. he told you the truth, Little Buddy ... the time only comes around once. you hurt me ... you surprised me. never again. I am the one who called you back. I. You called, all right, but You werent the only one your friend the Turtle ... he died a few years ago. the old idiot puked inside his shell and choked to death on a galaxy or two. very sad, dont you think? but also quite bizarre. deserves a place in Ripleys Believe It or Not, thats what I think. happened right around the same time you had that writers block. you must have felt him go, Little Buddy I dont believe that, either oh youll believe ... youll see. this time, Little Buddy, I intend you to see everything, including the deadlights He sensed Its voice rising, buzzing and racketingat last he sensed the full extent of Its fury, and he was terrified. He reached for the tongue of Its mind, concentrating, trying desperately to recapture the full extent of that childish belief, understanding at the same time that there was a deadly truth in what It had said last time It had been unprepared. This time ... well, even if It had not been the only one to call them, It sure had been waiting. But still He felt his own fury, clean and singing, as his eyes fixed on Its eyes. He sensed Its old scars, sensed that It had truly been hurt, and that It was still hurt. And as It threw him, as he felt his mind swatted out of his body, he concentrated all of his being on seizing Its tongue ... and missed his grip. 4 Richie The other four watched, paralyzed. It was an exact replay of what had happened beforeat first. The Spider, which seemed about to seize Bill and gobble him up, grew suddenly still. Bills eyes locked with Its ruby ones. There was a sense of contact ... a contact just beyond their ability to divine. But they felt the struggle, the clash of wills. Then Richie glanced up into the new web, and saw the first difference. There were bodies there, some halfeaten and halfrotted, and that was the same ... but high up, in one corner, was another body, and Richie was sure this one was still fresh, possibly even still alive. Beverly had not looked upher eyes were fixed on Bill and the Spiderbut even in his terror, Richie saw the resemblance between Beverly and the woman in the web. Her hair was long and red. Her eyes were open but glassy and unmoving. A line of spittle had run from the left comer of her mouth down to her chin. She had been attached to one of the webs main cables by a gossamer harness that went around her waist and under both arms so that she lolled forward in a halfbow, arms and legs dangling limply. Her feet were bare. Richie saw another body crumpled at the foot of her web, a man he had never seen before ... and yet his mind registered an almost subconscious resemblance to the late unlamented Henry Bowers. Blood had run from both of the strangers eyes and caked in a foam around his mouth and on his chin. He Then Beverly was screaming. Somethings wrong! Somethings gone wrong, do something, for Christs sake wont somebody DO something Richies gaze snapped back to Bill and the Spider ... and he sensedheard monstrous laughter. Bills face was stretching in some subtle way. His skin had gone parchmentsallow, as shiny as the skin of a very old person. His eyes were rolled up to the whites. Oh Bill, where are you? As Richie watched, blood suddenly burst from Bills nose in a foam. His mouth was writhing, trying to scream ... and now the Spider was advancing on him again. It was turning, presenting Its stinger. It means to kill him ... kill his body, anyway ... while his mind is somewhere else. It means to shut him out forever. Its winning ... Bill, where are you? For Christs sake, where are you? And somewhere, faintly, from some unimaginable distance, he heard Bill scream ... and the words, although meaningless, were crystalclear and full of sickening (the Turtle is dead oh God the Turtle really is dead) despair. Bev shrieked again and put her hands to her ears as if to shut out that fading voice. The Spiders stinger rose and Richie bolted at It, a grin spreading up toward his ears, and he called out in his best Irish Cops Voice Here, here, me foine girl! Just what in the hell do ye think yere doin? Belay that guff before I snatch yer pettiskirts and snap yer smithyriddles! The Spider stopped laughing, and Richie felt a rising howl of anger and pain inside Its head. Hurt It! he thought triumphantly. Hurt It, how about that, hurt It, and guess what? IVE GOT ITS TONGUE! I THINK BILL MISSED IT SOMEHOW BUT WHILE IT WAS DISTRACTED I GOT Then, screaming at him, Its cries a hive of furious bees in his head, Richie was whacked out of himself and into darkness, dimly aware that It was trying to shake him loose. It was doing a pretty good job, too. Terror washed through him, and then was replaced by a sense of cosmic absurdity. He remembered Beverly with his Duncan yoyo, showing him how to make it sleep, walk the dog, go around the world. And now here he was, Richie the Human YoYo, and Its tongue was the string. Here he was, and this wasnt called walking the dog but maybe walking the Spider, and if that wasnt funny, what was? Richie laughed. It wasnt polite to laugh with your mouth full, of course, but he doubted if anybody out here read Miss Manners. That got him laughing again, and he bit in harder. The Spider screamed and shook him furiously, howling Its anger at being surprised againIt had believed only the writer would challenge It, and now this man who was laughing like a crazy boy had seized It when It was least prepared. Richie felt himself slipping. hold eet a secon, senhorrita, we ees goin out here together or I ain gonna sell you no tickets in la lotera after all, and every one is a big winner, I swear on my mammas name He felt his teeth catch again, more firmly this time. And there was a fainting sort of pain as It drove Its fangs into his own tongue. Boy, it was still pretty funny, though. Even in the dark, being hurled after Bill with only the tongue of this unspeakable monster left to connect him to his own world, even with the pain of Its poisonous fangs suffusing his mind like a red fog, it was pretty goddamned funny. Check it out, folks. Youll believe a disc jockey can fly. He was flying, all right. Richie was in greater darkness than he had ever known, than he had ever suspected might exist, travelling at what felt like the speed of light, and being shaken as a terrier shakes a rat. He sensed that there was something up ahead, some titanic corpse. The Turtle he had heard Bill lamenting in his fading voice? Must be. It was only a shell, a dead husk. Then he was past, rushing on into the darkness. Really steaming now, he thought, and felt that wild urge to cackle again. bill! bill, can you hear me? hes gone, hes in the deadlights, let me go! LET ME GO! (richie?) Incredibly distant; incredibly far out in the black. bill! bill! here I am! catch hold! for Gods sake catch hold hes dead, youre all dead, youre too old, dont you understand that? now let me GO! hey bitch, youre never too old to rock and roll LET ME GO! take me to him and maybe I will Richie closer, he was closer now, thank Godhere I come, Big Bill! Richie to the rescue! Gonna save your old cracked ass! Owe you one from that day on Neibolt Street, remember? let me GOOOO! It was hurting badly now, and Richie understood how completely he had caught It by surpriseIt had believed It had only Bill to deal with. Well, good. Good nuff. Richie didnt care about killing It right now; he was no longer sure It could be killed. But Bill could be killed, and Richie sensed that Bills time was now very, very short. Bill was closing in on some large nasty surprise out here, something best not thought about. Richie, no! Go back! Its the edge of everything up here! The deadlights! souns like what you turn on when you drivinn you hearse at midnie, senhorr ... and where is you, honeychile? smile, so I can see where you is! And suddenly Bill was there, skidding along on (the left? right? there was no direction here) one side or the other. And beyond him, coming up fast, Richie could seesense something that finally dried up his laughter. It was a barrier, something of a strange, nongeometrical shape that his mind could not grasp. Instead his mind translated it as best it could, as it had translated the shape of It into a Spider, allowing Richie to think of it as a colossal gray wall made of fossilized wooden stakes. These stakes went forever up and forever down, like the bars of a cage. And from between them shone a great blind light. It glared and moved, smiled and snarled. The light was alive. (deadlights) More than alive it was full of a forcemagnetism, gravity, perhaps something else. Richie felt himself lifted and dropped, swirled and pulled, as if he were shooting a fast throat of rapids in an innertube. He could feel the light moving eagerly over his face ... and the light was thinking. This is It, this is It, the rest of It. let me go, you promised to let me GO I know but sometimes, honeychile, I liemymamma she beat me fo it but my daddy, he done just about give up He sensed Bill tumbling and flailing toward one of the gaps in the wall, sensed evil fingers of light reaching for him, and with a final despairing effort, he reached for his friend. Bill! Your hand! Give me your hand! YOUR HAND, GODDAMMIT! YOUR HAND! Bills hand shot out, the fingers opening and closing, that living fire crawling and twisting over Audras wedding ring in runic, Moorish patternswheels, crescents, stars, swastikas, linked circles that grew into rolling chains. Bills face was overlaid with the same light, making him look tattooed. Richie stretched out as far as he could, hearing It scream and yammer. (I missed him, oh dear God I missed hes going to shoot through) Then Bills fingers closed over Richies, and Richie clenched his hand into a fist. Bills legs flew through one of the gaps in the frozen wood, and for one mad moment Richie realized he could see all the bones and veins and capillaries inside them, as if Bill had shot halfway into the maw of the worlds strongest Xray machine. Richie felt the muscles in his arm stretch like taffy, felt the ballandsocket joint in his shoulder creak and groan in protest as the footpounds of pressure built up. He summoned all of his force and shouted Pull us back! Pull us back or Ill kill you! I ... Ill Voice you to death! The Spider screeched again, and Richie suddenly felt a great, snapping whiplash curl through his body. His arm was a whitehot bar of agony. His grip on Bills hand began to slip. Hold on, Big Bill! I got you! Richie, I got you! You better, Richie thought grimly, because I think you could walk ten billion miles out here and never find a fucking pay toilet. They whistled back, that crazy light fading, becoming a series of brilliant pinpoints that finally winked out. They drove through the darkness like torpedoes, Richie gripping Its tongue with his teeth and Bills wrist with one aching hand. There was the Turtle; there and gone in a single eyeblink. Richie sensed them drawing closer to whatever passed for the real world (although he believed he would never think of it as exactly real again; he would see it as a clever canvas scene underlaid with a crisscrossing of supportcables ... cables like the strands of a spiderweb). But were going to be all right, he thought. Were going to get back. We The buffeting began thenthe whipping, slamming, sidetoside flailing as It tried one final time to shake them off and leave them Outside. And Richie felt his grip slipping. He heard Its guttural roar of triumph and concentrated his being on holding ... but he continued to slip. He bit down frantically, but Its tongue seemed to be losing substance and reality; it seemed to be becoming gossamer. Help! Richie screamed. Im losing it! Help! Somebody help us! 5 Eddie Eddie was halfaware of what was happening; he felt it somehow, saw it somehow, but as if through a gauzy curtain. Somewhere, Bill and Richie were struggling to come back. Their bodies were here, but the rest of themthe real of themwas far away. He had seen the Spider turn to impale Bill with Its stinger, and then Richie had run forward, yelling at It in that ridiculous Irish Cops Voice he used to use ... only Richie must have improved his act a hell of a lot over the years, because this Voice sounded eerily like Mr. Nell from the old days. The Spider had turned toward Richie, and Eddie had seen Its unspeakable red eyes bulge in their sockets. Richie yelled again, this time in his Pancho Vanilla Voice, and Eddie had felt the Spider scream in pain. Ben yelled hoarsely as a split appeared in Its hide along the line of one of Its scars from the last time. A stream of ichor, black as crude oil, sprayed out. Richie had started to say something else ... and his voice had begun to diminish, like the fade at the end of a pop song. His head had rolled back on his neck, his eyes fixed on Its eyes. The Spider grew quiet again. Time passedEddie had no idea just how much. Richie and the Spider stared at each other; Eddie sensed the connection between them, felt a swirl of talk and emotion somewhere far away. He could make out nothing exactly, but sensed the tones of things in colors and hues. Bill lay slumped on the floor, nose and ears bleeding, fingers twitching slightly, his long face pale, his eyes closed. The Spider was now bleeding in four or five places, badly hurt again, badly hurt but still dangerously vital, and Eddie thought Why are we just standing around here? We could hurt It while Its occupied with Richie! Why doesnt somebody move, for Christs sake? He sensed a wild triumphand that feeling was clearer, sharper. Closer. Theyre coming back! he wanted to shout, but his mouth was too dry, his throat too tight. Theyre coming back! Then Richies head began to turn slowly from side to side. His body seemed to ripple inside his clothes. His glasses hung on the end of his nose for a moment ... then fell off and shattered on the stone floor. The Spider stirred, its spiny legs making a dry clittering on the floor. Eddie heard It cry out in terrible triumph, and a moment later, Richies voice burst clearly into his head (help! Im losing it! somebody help me!) Eddie ran forward then, yanking his aspirator from his pocket with his good hand, his lips drawn back in a grimace, his breath whistling painfully in and out of a throat that now felt the size of a pinhole. Crazily, his mothers face danced before him and she was crying Dont go near that Thing, Eddie! Dont go near It! Things like that give you cancer! Shut up, Ma!Eddie screamed in a high, shrieky voiceall the voice he had left. The Spiders head turned toward the sound, Its eyes momentarily leaving Richies. Here! Eddie howled in his fading voice. Here, have some of this! He leaped at It, triggering the aspirator at the same time, and for an instant all his childhood belief in the medicine came back to him, the childhood medicine that could solve everything, that could make him feel better when the bigger boys roughed him up or when he was knocked over in the rush to get through the doors when school let out or when he had to sit on the edge of the Tracker Brothers vacant lot, out of the game because his mother wouldnt allow him to play baseball. It was good medicine, strong medicine, and as he leaped into the Spiders face, smelling Its foul yellow stench, feeling himself overwhelmed by Its singleminded fury and determination to wipe them all out, he triggered the aspirator into one of Its ruby eyes. He feltheard Its screamno rage this time, only pain, a horrid screaming agony. He saw the mist of droplets settle on that bloodred bulge, saw the droplets turn white where they landed, saw them sink in as a splash of carbolic acid would sink in; he saw Its huge eye begin to flatten out like a bloody eggyolk and run in a ghastly stream of living blood and ichor and maggoty pus. |
Come home now, Bill! he screamed with the last of his voice, and then he struck It, he felt Its noisome heat baking into him; he felt a terrible wet warmth and realized that his good arm had slipped into the Spiders mouth. He triggered the aspirator again, shooting the stuff right down Its throat this time, right down Its rotten evil stinking gullet, and there was sudden, flashing pain, as clean as the drop of a heavy knife, as Its jaws closed and ripped his arm off at the shoulder. Eddie fell to the floor, the ragged stump of his arm spraying blood, faintly aware that Bill was getting shakily to his feet, that Richie was weaving and stumbling toward him like a drunk at the end of a long hard night. eds Far away. Unimportant. He could feel everything running out of him along with his lifes blood ... all the rage, all the pain, all the fear, all the confusion and hurt. He supposed he was dying but he felt ... ah, God, he felt so lucid, so clear, like a windowpane which has been washed clean and now lets in all the gloriously frightening light of some unsuspected dawning; the light, oh God, that perfect rational light that clears the horizon somewhere in the world every second. eds oh my god bill ben someone hes lost his arm, his He looked up at Beverly and saw she was crying, the tears coursing down her dirty cheeks as she got an arm under him; he became aware that she had taken off her blouse and was trying to staunch the flow of blood, and that she was screaming for help. Then he looked at Richie and licked his lips. Fading, fading back. Becoming clearer and clearer, emptying out, all of the impurities flowing out of him so he could become clear, so that the light could flow through, and if he had had time enough he could have preached on this, he could have sermonized Not bad, he would begin. This is not bad at all. But there was something else he had to say first. Richie, he whispered. What? Richie was down on his hands and knees, staring at him desperately. Dont call me Eds, he said, and smiled. He raised his left hand slowly and touched Richies cheek. Richie was crying. You know I ... I .... Eddie closed his eyes, thinking how to finish, and while he was still thinking it over he died. 6 Derry700900 A.M. By 700 A.M., the windspeed in Derry had picked up to about thirtyseven miles an hour, with gusts up to fortyfive. Harry Brooks, a National Weather Service forecaster based at Bangor International Airport, made an alarmed call to NWS headquarters in Augusta. The winds, he said, were coming out of the west and blowing in a queer semicircular pattern he had never seen before ... but it looked to him more and more like some weird species of pocket hurricane, one that was limited almost exclusively to Derry Township. At 710, the major Bangor radio stations broadcast the first severeweather warnings. The explosion of the powertransformer at Tracker Brothers had killed the power all over Derry on the Kansas Street side of the Barrens. At 717, a hoary old maple on the Old Cape side of the Barrens fell with a terrific rending crash, flattening a NiteOwl store on the corner of Merit Street and Cape Avenue. An elderly patron named Raymond Fogarty was killed by a toppling beer cooler. This was the same Raymond Fogarty who, as the minister of the First Methodist Church of Derry, had presided over the burial rites of George Denbrough in October of 1957. The maple also pulled down enough power lines to knock out the power in both the Old Cape and the somewhat more fashionable Sherburn Woods development beyond it. The clock in the steeple of the Grace Baptist Church had chimed neither six nor seven. At 720, three minutes after the maple fell in the Old Cape and about an hour and fifteen minutes after every toilet and domestic drain over there had suddenly reversed itself, the clock in the tower chimed thirteen times. A minute later, a bluewhite stroke of lightning struck the steeple. Heather Libby, the ministers wife, happened to be looking out the window of the parsonages kitchen at the time, and she said that the steeple exploded like someone loaded it up with dynamite. Whitewashed boards, chunks of beams, and clockwork from Switzerland showered down on the street. The ragged remains of the steeple burned briefly and then guttered out in the rain, which was now a tropical downpour. The streets leading downhill into the downtown shopping area foamed and ran. The progress of the Canal under Main Street had become a steady shaking thunder that made people look at each other uneasily. At 725, with the titanic crash of the Grace Baptist steeple still reverberating all over Derry, the janitor who came into Wallys Spa every morning except Sunday to swamp the place out saw something which sent him screaming into the street. This fellow, who had been an alcoholic ever since his first semester at the University of Maine lo these eleven years ago, was paid a pittance for his serviceshis real pay, it was understood, was his absolute freedom to finish up anything left in the beer kegs under the bar from the night before. Richie Tozier might or might not have remembered him; he was Vincent Caruso Taliendo, better known to his fifthgrade contemporaries as Boogers Taliendo. As he was mopping up on that apocalyptic morning in Derry, working his way gradually closer and closer to the serving area, he saw all seven of the beer tapsthree Bud, two Narragansett, one Schlitz (known more familiarly to the bleary patrons of Wallys as Slits), and one Miller Litenod forward, as if pulled by seven invisible hands. Beer ran from them in streams of goldwhite foam. Vince started forward, thinking not of ghosts or phantoms but of his mornings dividend going down the drain. Then he skidded to a stop, eyes widening, and a wailing, horrified scream rose in the empty, beersmelling cave that was Wallys Spa. Beer had given way to arterial streams of blood. It swirled in the chromium drains, overflowed, and ran down the side of the bar in little streamlets. Now hair and chunks of flesh began to splurt out of the beertaps. Boogers Taliendo watched this, transfixed, not even able to summon enough strength to scream again. Then there was a thudding, toneless blast as one of the beer kegs under the counter exploded. All of the cupboard doors under the bar swung wide. Greenish smoke, like the aftermath of a magicians trick, began to drift out of them. Boogers had seen enough. Screaming, he fled into the street, which was now a shallow canal. He fell on his butt, got up, and threw a terrified glance back over his shoulder. One of the bar windows blew out with a loud shootinggallery sound. Whickers of broken glass whistled all around Vinces head. A moment later the other window exploded. Once again he was miraculously untouched ... but he decided on the spur of the moment that the time had come to see his sister up Eastport. He started off at once, and his journey to the Derry town limits and beyond would make a saga in itself ... but suffice it to say that he did eventually get out of town. Others were not so lucky. Aloysius Nell, who had turned seventyseven not long since, was sitting with his wife in the parlor of their home on Strapham Street, watching the storm pound Derry. At 732, he suffered a fatal stroke. His wife told her brother a week later that Aloysius dropped his coffee cup on the rug, sat boltupright, his eyes wide and staring, and screamed Here, here, me foine girl! Just what in the hell do ye think yere doin? Belay that guff before I snatch yer pettiskirrrr Then he fell out of his chair, smashing his coffee cup under him. Maureen Nell, who knew well how bad his ticker had been for the last three years, understood immediately that all was over with him, and after loosening his collar she had run for the telephone to call Father McDowell. But the phone was out of order. A funny noise like a police siren was all it would make. And so, although she knew it was probably a blasphemy she would have to answer for to Saint Peter, she had attempted to give him the last rites herself. She felt confident, she told her brother, that God would understand even if Saint Peter didnt. Aloysius had been a good husband and a good man, and if he drank too much, that was only the Irish in him coming out. At 749 a series of explosions shook the Derry Mall, which stood on the site of the defunct Kitchener Ironworks. No one was killed; the mall didnt open until 1000, and the fiveman janitorial squad hadnt been due to arrive until 800 (and on such a morning as this, very few of them would have shown up anyway). A team of investigators later dismissed the idea of sabotage. They suggestedrather vaguelythat the explosions had probably been caused by water which had seeped into the malls electrical system. Whatever the reason, no one was going to go shopping at the Derry Mall for a long time. One explosion totally wiped out Zales Jewelry Store. Diamond rings, ID bracelets, strings of pearls, trays of wedding rings, and Seiko digital watches flew everywhere in a hail of bright, sparkly trinkets. A musicbox flew the length of the east corridor and landed in the fountain outside of the J. C. Penneys, where it briefly played a bubbly rendition of the theme from Love Story before shutting down. The same blast tore a hole through the BaskinRobbins next door, turning the thirtyone flavors into icecream soup that ran away along the floor in cloudy runnels. The blast which tore through Sears lifted off a chunk of the roof and the rising wind sailed it away like a kite; it came down a thousand yards away, slicing cleanly through the silo of a farmer named Brent Kilgallon. Kilgallons sixteenyearold son rushed out with his mothers Kodak and took a picture. The National Enquirer bought it for sixty dollars, which the boy used to buy two new tires for his Yamaha motorcycle. A third explosion ripped through Hit or Miss, sending flaming skirts, jeans, and underwear out into the flooded parkinglot. And a final explosion tore open the mall branch of the Derry Farmers Trust like a rotted box of crackers. A chunk of the banks roof was also torn off. Burglar alarms went off with a bray that would not be silenced until the security systems independent wiring hookup was shorted out four hours later. Loan contracts, banking instruments, deposit slips, cashdrawer chits, and MoneyManager forms were lifted into the sky and blown away by the rising wind. And money tens and twenties mostly, with a generous helping of fives and a soupon of fifties and hundreds. Better than 75,000 blew away, according to the banks officers.... Later, after a mass shakeup in the banks executive structure (and an FSLIC bailout), some would admitstrictly off the record, of coursethat it had been more like 200,000. A woman in Haven Village named Rebecca Paulson found a fiftydollar bill fluttering from her backdoor welcome mat, two twenties in her birdhouse, and a hundred plastered against an oak tree in her back yard. She and her husband used the money to make an extra two payments on their Bombardier Skidoo. Dr. Hale, a retired doctor who had lived on West Broadway for nearly fifty years, was killed at 800 A.M. Dr. Hale liked to boast that he had taken the same twomile walk from his West Broadway home and around Derry Park and the Elementary School for the last twentyfive of those fifty years. Nothing stopped him; not rain, sleet, hail, howling noreasters, or subzero cold. He set out on the morning of May 31st in spite of his housekeepers worried fussings. His exitline from the world, spoken back over his shoulder as he went through the front door, pulling his hat firmly down to his ears, was Dont be so goddamned silly, Hilda. This is nothing but a capful of rain. You should have seen it in 57! That was a storm! As Dr. Hale turned back onto West Broadway, a manhole cover in front of the Mueller place suddenly lifted off like the payload of a Redstone rocket. It decapitated the good doctor so quickly and neatly that he walked on another three steps before collapsing, dead, on the sidewalk. And the wind continued to rise. 7 Under the City415 P.M. Eddie led them through the darkened tunnels for an hour, perhaps an hour and a half, before admitting, in a tone that was more bewildered than frightened, that for the first time in his life he was lost. They could still hear the dim thunder of water in the drains, but the acoustics of all of these tunnels was so crazed that it was impossible to tell if the watersounds were coming from ahead or behind, left or right, above or below. Their matches were gone. They were lost in the dark. Bill was scared ... plenty scared. The conversation hed had with his father in his fathers shop kept coming back to him. Theres nine pounds of blueprints that just disappeared somewhere along the line.... My point is that nobody knows where all the damned sewers and drains go, or why. When they work, nobody cares. When they dont, theres three or four sad sacks from Derry Water who have to try and find out which pump went flooey or where the plugup is.... Its dark and smelly and there are rats. Those are all good reasons to stay out, but the best reason is that you could get lost. Its happened before. Happened before. Happened before. Its happened Sure it had. There was that bundle of bones and polished cotton they had passed on the way to Its lair, for instance. Bill felt panic trying to rise and pushed it back. It went, but not easily. He could feel it back there, a live thing, struggling and twisting, trying to get out. Adding to it was the nagging unanswerable question of whether they had killed It or not. Richie said yes, Mike said yes, so did Eddie. But he hadnt liked the frightened doubtful look on Bevs face, or on Stans, as the light died and they crawled back through the small door, away from the susurating collapsing web. So what do we do now? Stan asked. Bill heard the frightened, littleboy tremble in Stans voice and knew the question was aimed directly at him. Yeah, Ben said. What? Damn, I wish we had a flashlight ... or even a can ... candle. Bill thought he heard a stifled sob in the second ellipsis. It frightened him more than anything else. Ben would have been astounded to know it, but Bill thought the fat boy tough and resourceful, steadier than Richie and less apt to cave in suddenly than Stan. If Ben was getting ready to crack, they were on the edge of very bad trouble. It was not the skeleton of the Water Department guy to which Bills own mind kept returning but to Tom Sawyer and Becky Thatcher, lost in McDougals Cave. He would push the thought away and then it would come stealing back. Something else was troubling him, but the concept was too large and too vague for his tired boys mind to grasp. Perhaps it was the very simplicity of the idea that made it elusive they were falling away from each other. The bond that had held them all this long summer was dissolving. It had been faced and vanquished. It might be dead, as Richie and Eddie thought, or It might be wounded so badly It would sleep for a hundred years, or a thousand, or ten thousand. They had faced It, seen It with Its final mask laid aside, and It had been horrible enoughoh, for sure!but once seen, Its physical form was not so bad and Its most potent weapon was taken away from It. They all had, after all, seen spiders before. They were alien and somehow crawlingly dreadful, and he supposed that none of them would ever be able to see another one (if we ever get out of this) without feeling a shudder of revulsion. But a spider was, after all, only a spider. Perhaps at the end, when the masks of horror were laid aside, there was nothing with which the human mind could not cope. That was a heartening thought. Anything except (the deadlights) whatever had been out there, but perhaps even that unspeakable living light which crouched at the doorway to the macroverse was dead or dying. The deadlights, and the trip into the black to the place where they had been, was already growing hazy and hard to recall in his mind. And that wasnt really the point. The point, felt but not grasped, was simply that the fellowship was ending ... it was ending and they were still in the dark. That Other had, through their friendship, perhaps been able to make them something more than children. But they were becoming children again. Bill felt it as much as the others. What now, Bill? Richie asked, finally saying it right out. I dddont nuhnuhknow, Bill said. His stutter was back, alive and well. He heard it, they heard it, and he stood in the dark, smelling the sodden aroma of their growing panic, wondering how long it would be before somebodyStan, most likely it would be Stantore things wide open by saying Well, why dont you know? You got us into this! And what about Henry? Mike asked uneasily. Is he still out there, or what? Oh, Jeez, Eddie said ... almost moaned. I forgot about him. Sure he is, sure he is, hes probably as lost as we are and we could run into him any time ... Jeez, Bill, dont you have any ideas? Your dad works down here! Dont you have any ideas at all? Bill listened to the distant mocking thunder of the water and tried to have the idea that Eddieall of themhad a right to demand. Because yes, correct, he had gotten them into this and it was his responsibility to get them back out again. Nothing came. Nothing. I have an idea, Beverly said quietly. In the dark, Bill heard a sound he could not immediately place. A whispery little sound, but not scary. Then there was a more easily placed sound ... a zipper. What? he thought, and then he realized what. She was undressing. For some reason, Beverly was undressing. What are you doing? Richie asked, and his shocked voice cracked on the last word. I know something, Beverly said in the dark, and to Bill her voice sounded older. I know because my father told me. I know how to bring us back together. And if were not together well never get out. What? Ben asked, sounding bewildered and terrified. What are you talking about? Something that will bring us together forever. Something that will show NuhNuhNo, BBBeverly! Bill said, suddenly understanding, understanding everything. that will show that I love you all, Beverly said, that youre all my friends. Whats she t Mike began. Calmly, Beverly cut across his words. Whos first? she asked. I think 8 In the Lair of It1985 hes dying, Beverly wept. His arm, It ate his arm She reached for Bill, clung to him, and Bill shook her off. Its getting away again! he roared at her. Blood caked his lips and chin. CuhCuhCome on! Richie! BBBen! This tuhtime were gggoing to fuhhinish her! Richie turned Bill toward him, looked at him as you would look at a man who is hopelessly raving. Bill, we have to take care of Eddie. We have to get a tourniquet on him, get him out of here. But Beverly was now sitting with Eddies head in her lap, cradling him. She had closed his eyes. Go with Bill, she said. If you let him die for nothing ... if It comes back in another twentyfive years, or fifty, or even two thousand, I swear Ill ... Ill haunt your ghosts. Go! Richie looked at her for a moment, indecisive. Then he became aware that her face was losing definition, becoming not a face but a pale shape in the growing shadows. The light was fading. It decided him. All right, he said to Bill. This time we chase. Ben was standing in back of the spiderweb, which had begun to decay again. He had also seen the shape swaying high up in it, and he prayed that Bill would not look up. But as the web began to fall in drifts and strands and skeins, Bill did. He saw Audra, sagging as if in a very old and creaky elevator. She dropped ten feet, stopped, swaying from side to side, and then abruptly dropped another fifteen. Her face never changed. Her eyes, chinablue, were wide open. Her bare feet swung back and forth like pendulums. Her hair hung lankly over her shoulders. Her mouth was ajar. AUDRA! he screamed. Bill, come on! Ben shouted. The web was falling all around them now, thudding to the floor and beginning to run. Richie suddenly grabbed Bill around the waist and propelled him forward, shooting for a tenfoothigh gap between the floor and the bottommost crossstrand of the sagging web. Go, Bill! Go! Go! Thats Audra! Bill shouted desperately. ThuhThats AUDRA! I dont give a shit if its the Pope, Richie said grimly. Eddies dead and were going to kill It, if Its still alive. Were going to finish the job this time, Big Bill. Either shes alive or shes not. Now come on! Bill hung back a moment longer, and then snapshots of the children, all the dead children, seemed to flutter through his mind like lost photographs from Georges album. SCHOOL FRIENDS. AAll ruhright. Lets ggo. GuhGuhGod forgive mme. He and Richie ran under the strand of crosswebbing seconds before it collapsed, and joined Ben on the other side. They ran after It as Audra swung and dangled fifty feet above the stone floor, wrapped in a numbing cocoon that was attached to the decaying web. 9 Ben They followed the trail of Its black bloodoily pools of ichor that ran and dripped into the cracks between the flagstones. But as the floor began to rise toward a semicircular black opening at the far side of the chamber, Ben saw something new a trail of eggs. Each was black and roughshelled, perhaps as big as an ostrichegg. A waxy light shone from within them. Ben realized they were semitransparent; he could see black shapes moving inside. Itschildren, he thought, and felt his gorge rise. Its miscarried children. God! God! Richie and Bill had stopped and were staring at the eggs with stupid, dazed wonder. Go on! Go on! Ben shouted. Ill take care of them! Get It! Here! Richie shouted, and threw Ben a pack of Derry Town House matches. Ben caught them. Bill and Richie ran on. Ben watched them in the rapidly dimming light for a moment. They ran into the darkness of Its escapepassage and were lost from sight. Then he looked down at the first of the thinshelled eggs, at the black, mantalike shadow inside, and felt his determination waver. This ... hey guys, this was too much. This was simply too awful. And surely they would die without his help; they had not been so much laid as dropped. But Its time was close ... and if one of them is capable of surviving ... even one ... Summoning all of his courage, summoning up Eddies pale, dying face, Ben brought one Desert Driver boot down on the first egg. It broke with a sodden squelch as some stinking placenta ran out around his boot. Then a spider the size of a rat was scrabbling weakly across the floor, trying to get away, and Ben could hear it in his head, its high mewling cries like the sound of a handsaw being bent rapidly back and forth so that it makes ghostmusic. Ben lurched after it on legs that felt like stilts and brought his foot down again. He felt the spiders body crunch and splatter under the heel of his boot. His gorge clenched and this time there was no way he could hold back. He vomited, then twisted his heel, grinding the thing into the stones, listening to the cries in his head fade to nothing. How many? How many eggs? Didnt I read somewhere that spiders can lay thousands ... or millions? I cant keep doing this, Ill go mad You have to. You have to. Come on, Ben ... get it together! He went to the next egg and repeated the process in the last of the dying light. Everything was repeated the brittle snap, the squelch of liquid, the final coup de grace. The next. The next. The next. Making his way slowly toward the black arch into which his friends had gone. The darkness was complete now, Beverly and the decaying web somewhere behind him. He could still hear the whisper of its collapse. The eggs were pallid stones in the dark. As he reached each one he struck a light from the matchbook and broke it open. In each case he was able to follow the course of the dazed spiderling and crush it before the light flickered out. He had no idea how he was going to proceed if his matches gave out before he had crushed the last of the eggs and killed each ones unspeakable cargo. 10 It1985 Still coming. It sensed them still coming, gaining, and Its fear grew. Perhaps It was not eternal after allthe unthinkable must finally be thought. Worse, It sensed the death of Its young. A third of these hated hateful menboys was walking steadily up Its trail of birth, almost insane with revulsion but continuing nonetheless, methodically stamping the life from each of Its eggs. No! It wailed, lurching from side to side, feeling Its lifeforce running from a hundred wounds, none of them mortal in itself, but each a song of pain, each slowing It. One of Its legs hung by a single living twist of meat. One of Its eyes was blind. It sensed a terrible rupture inside, the result of whatever poison one of the hated menboys had managed to shoot down Its throat. And still they came on, closing the distance, and how could this happen? It whined and mewled, and when It sensed them almost directly behind, It did the only thing It could do now It turned to fight. 11 Beverly Before the last of the light faded and utter dark closed down, she saw Bills wife plunge another twenty feet and then fetch up again. She had begun to spin, her long red hair fanning out. His wife, she thought. But I was his first love, and if he thought some other woman was his first, it was only because he forgot ... forgot Derry. Then she was in darkness, alone with the sound of the falling web and Eddies simple moveless weight. She didnt want to let him go, didnt want to let his face lie on the foul floor of this place. So she held his head in the crook of an arm that had gone mostly numb and brushed his hair away from his damp forehead. She thought of the birds ... that was something she supposed she had gotten from Stan. Poor Stan, who hadnt been able to face this. All of them ... I was their first love. She tried to remember itit was something good to think about in all this darkness, where you couldnt place the sounds. It made her feel less alone. At first it wouldnt come; the image of the birds intervenedcrows and grackles and starlings, spring birds that came back from somewhere while the streets were still running with meltwater and the last patches of crusted dirty snow clung grimly to their shady places. It seemed to her that it was always on a cloudy day that you first heard and saw those spring birds and wondered where they came from. Suddenly they were just back in Derry, filling the white air with their raucous chatter. They lined the telephone wires and roofpeaks of the Victorian houses on West Broadway; they jostled for places on the aluminum branches of the elaborate TV antenna on top of Wallys Spa; they loaded the wet black branches of the elms on Lower Main Street. They settled, they talked to each other in the screamy babbling voices of old countrywomen at the weekly Grange Bingo games, and then, at some signal which humans could not discern, they all took wing at once, turning the sky black with their numbers ... and came down somewhere else. Yes, the birds, I was thinking of them because I was ashamed. It was my father who made me ashamed, I guess, and maybe that was Its doing, too. Maybe. The memory camethe memory behind the birdsbut it was vague and disconnected. Perhaps this one always would be. She had Her thoughts broke off as she realized that Eddie 12 Love and DesireAugust 10th, 1958 comes to her first, because he is the most frightened. He comes to her not as her friend of that summer, or as her brief lover now, but the way he would have come to his mother only three or four years ago, to be comforted; he doesnt draw back from her smooth nakedness and at first she doubts if he even feels it. He is trembling, and although she holds him the darkness is so perfect that even this close she cannot see him; except for the rough cast he might as well be a phantom. What do you want? he asks her. You have to put your thing in me, she says. He tries to pull back but she holds him and he subsides against her. She has heard someoneBen, she thinksdraw in his breath. Bevvie, I cant do that. I dont know how I think its easy. But youll have to get undressed. She thinks about the intricacies of managing cast and shirt, first somehow separating and then rejoining them, and amends, Your pants, anyway. No, I cant! But she thinks part of him can, and wants to, because his trembling has stopped and she feels something small and hard which presses against the right side of her belly. You can, she says, and pulls him down. The surface beneath her bare back and legs is firm, clayey, dry. The distant thunder of the water is drowsy, soothing. She reaches for him. Theres a moment when her fathers face intervenes, harsh and forbidding (I want to see if youre intact) and then she closes her arms around Eddies neck, her smooth cheek against his smooth cheek, and as he tentatively touches her small breasts she sighs and thinks for the first time This is Eddie and she remembers a day in Julycouldit only have been last month?when no one else turned up in the Barrens but Eddie, and he had a whole bunch of Little Lulu comic books and they read together for most of the afternoon, Little Lulu looking for beebleberries and getting in all sorts of crazy situations, Witch Hazel, all of those guys. It had been fun. She thinks of birds; in particular of the grackles and starlings and crows that come back in the spring, and her hands go to his belt and loosen it, and he says again that he cant do that; she tells him that he can, she knows he can, and what she feels is not shame or fear now but a kind of triumph. Where? he says, and that hard thing pushes urgently against her inner thigh. Here, she says. Bevvie, Ill fall on you! he says, and she hears his breath start to whistle painfully. I think thats sort of the idea, she tells him and holds him gently and guides him. He pushes forward too fast and there is pain. Ssssss!she draws her breath in, her teeth biting at her lower lip and thinks of the birds again, the spring birds, lining the roofpeaks of houses, taking wing all at once under low March clouds. Beverly? he says uncertainly. Are you okay? Go slower, she says. Itll be easier for you to breathe. He does move more slowly, and after awhile his breathing speeds up but she understands this is not because there is anything wrong with him. The pain fades. Suddenly he moves more quickly, then stops, stiffens, and makes a soundsome sound. She senses that this is something for him, something extraordinarily special, something like ... like flying. She feels powerful she feels a sense of triumph rise up strongly within her. Is this what her father was afraid of? Well he might be! There was power in this act, all right, a chainbreaking power that was blooddeep. She feels no physical pleasure, but there is a kind of mental ecstasy in it for her. She senses the closeness. He puts his face against her neck and she holds him Hes crying. She holds him. And feels the part of him that made a connection between them begin to fade. It is not leaving her, exactly; it is simply fading, becoming less. When his weight shifts away she sits up and touches his face in the darkness. Did you? Did I what? Whatever it is. I dont know, exactly. He shakes his headshefeels it with her hand against his cheek. I dont think it was exactly like ... you know, like the big boys say. But it was ... it was really something. He speaks low so the others cant hear. I love you, Bevvie. Her consciousness breaks down a little there. Shes quite sure theres more talk, some whispered, some loud, and cant remember what is said. It doesnt matter. Does she have to talk each of them into it all over again? Yes, probably. But it doesnt matter. They have to be talked into it, this essential human link between the world and the infinite, the only place where the bloodstream touches eternity. |
It doesnt matter. What matters is love and desire. Here in this dark is as good a place as any. Better than some, maybe. Mike comes to her, then Richie, and the act is repeated. Now she feels some pleasure, dim heat in her childish unmatured sex, and she closes her eyes as Stan comes to her and she thinks of the birds, spring and the birds, and she sees them, again and again, all lighting at once, filling up the winternaked trees, shockwave riders on the moving edge of natures most violent season, she sees them take wing again and again, the flutter of their wings like the snap of many sheets on the line, and she thinks A month from now every kid in Derry Park will have a kite, theyll run to keep the strings from getting tangled with each other. She thinks again This is what flying is like. With Stan as with the others, there is that rueful sense of fading, of leaving, with whatever they truly need from this actsome ultimateclose but as yet unfound. Did you? she asks again, and although she doesnt know exactly what it is, she knows that he hasnt. There is a long wait, and then Ben comes to her. He is trembling all over, but it is not the fearful trembling she felt in Stan. Beverly, I cant, he says in a tone which purports to be reasonable and is anything but. You can too. I can feel it. She sure can. Theres more of this hardness; more of him. She can feel it below the gentle push of his belly. Its size raises a certain curiosity and she touches the bulge lightly. He groans against her neck, and the blow of his breath causes her bare body to dimple with goosebumps. She feels the first twist of real heat race through hersuddenlythe feeling in her is very large; she recognizes that it is too big (and is he too big, can she take that into herself?) and too old for her, something, some feeling that walks in boots. This is like Henrys M80s, something not meant for kids, something that could explode and blow you up. But this was not the place or time for worry; here there was love, desire, and the dark. If they didnt try for the first two they would surely be left with the last. Beverly, dont Yes. I ... Show me how to fly, she says with a calmness she doesnt feel, aware by the fresh wet warmth on her cheek and neck that he has begun to cry. Show me, Ben. No ... If you wrote the poem, show me. Feel my hair if you want to, Ben. Its all right. Beverly ... I ... I ... Hes not just trembling now; hes shaking all over. But she senses again that this ague is not all fearpartof it is the precursor of the throe this act is all about. She thinks of (the birds) his face, his dear sweet earnest face, and knows it is not fear; it is wanting he feels, a deep passionate wanting now barely held in check, and she feels that sense of power again, something like flying, something like looking down from above and seeing all the birds on the roofpeaks, on the TV antenna atop Wallys, seeing streets spread out maplike, oh desire, right, this was something, it was love and desire that taught you to fly. Ben! Yes! she cries suddenly, and the leash breaks. She feels pain again, and for a moment there is the frightening sensation of being crushed. Then he props himself up on the palms of his hands and that feeling is gone. Hes big, oh yesthe pain is back, and its much deeper than when Eddie first entered her. She has to bite her lip again and think of the birds until the burning is gone. But it does go, and she is able to reach up and touch his lips with one finger, and he moans. The heat is back, and she feels her power suddenly shift to him; she gives it gladly and goes with it. There is a sensation first of being rocked, of a delicious spiralling sweetness which makes her begin to turn her head helplessly from side to side, and a tuneless humming comes from between her closed lips, this is flying, this, oh love, oh desire, oh this is something impossible to deny, binding, giving, making a strong circle binding, giving ... flying. Oh Ben, oh my dear, yes, she whispers, feeling the sweat stand out on her face, feeling their connection, something firmly in place, something like eternity, the number 8 rocked over on its side. I love you so much, dear. And she feels the thing begin to happensomething of which the girls who whisper and giggle about sex in the girls room have no idea, at least as far as she knows; they only marvel at how gooshy sex must be, and now she realizes that for many of them sex must be some unrealized undefined monster; they refer to the act as It. Would you do It, do your sister and her boyfriend do It, do your mom and dad still do It, and how they never intend to do It; oh yes, you would think that the whole girls side of the fifthgrade class was made up of spinsterstobe, and it is obvious to Beverly that none of them can suspect this ... this conclusion, and she is only kept from screaming by her knowledge that the others will hear and think her badly hurt. She puts the side of her hand in her mouth and bites down hard. She understands the screamy laughter of Greta Bowie and Sally Mueller and all the others better now hadnt they, the seven of them, spent most of this, the longest, scariest summer of their lives, laughing like loons? You laugh because whats fearful and unknown is also whats funny, you laugh the way a small child will sometimes laugh and cry at the same time when a capering circus clown approaches, knowing it is supposed to be funny ... but it is also unknown, full of the unknowns eternal power. Biting her hand will not stay the cry, and she can only reassure themand Benby crying out her affirmative in the darkness. Yes! Yes! Yes! Glorious images of flight fill her head, mixing with the harsh calling of the grackles and starlings; these sounds become the worlds sweetest music. So she flies, she flies up, and now the power is not with her or with him but somewhere between them, and he cries out, and she can feel his arms trembling, and she arches up and into him, feeling his spasm, his touch, his total fleeting intimacy with her in the dark. They break through into the lifelight together. Then it is over and they are in each others arms and when he tries to say somethingperhaps some stupid apology that would hurt what she remembers, some stupid apology like a handcuff, she stops his words with a kiss and sends him away. Bill comes to her. He tries to say something, but his stutter is almost total now. You be quiet, she says, secure in her new knowledge, but aware that she is tired now. Tired and damned sore. The insides and backs of her thighs feel sticky, and she thinks its maybe because Ben actually finished, or maybe because she is bleeding. Everything is going to be totally okay. AAAre you shuhshuhshuhhure? Yes, she says, and links her hands behind his neck, feeling the sweaty mat of his hair. You just bet. Duhduhdoes ihih ... does ihihih Shhh ... It is not as it was with Ben; there is passion, but not the same kind. Being with Bill now is the best conclusion to this that there could be. He is kind; tender; just short of calm. She senses his eagerness, but it is tempered and held back by his anxiety for her, perhaps because only Bill and she herself realize what an enormous act this is, and how it must never be spoken of, not to anyone else, not even to each other. At the end, she is surprised by that sudden upsurge and she has time to think Oh! Its going to happen again, I dont know if I can stand it But her thoughts are swept away by the utter sweetness of it, and she barely hears him whispering, I love you, Bev, I love you, Ill always love you saying it over and over and not stuttering at all. She hugs him to her and for a moment they stay that way, his smooth cheek against hers. He withdraws from her without saying anything and for a little while shes alone, pulling her clothes back together, slowly putting them on, aware of a dull throbbing pain of which they, being male, will never know, aware also of a certain exhausted pleasure and the relief of having it over. There is an emptiness down there now, and although she is glad that her sex is her own again, the emptiness imparts a strange melancholy which she could never express ... except to think of bare trees under a white winter sky, empty trees, trees waiting for blackbirds to come like ministers at the end of March to preside over the death of snow. She finds them by groping for their hands. For a moment no one speaks and when someone does, it does not surprise her much that its Eddie. I think when we went right two turns back, we shoulda gone left. Jeez, I knew that, but I was so sweaty and frigged up Been frigged up your whole life, Eds, Richie says. His voice is pleasant. The raw edge of panic is completely gone. We went wrong some other places too, Eddie says, ignoring him, but thats the worst one. If we can find our way back there, we just might be okay. They form up in a clumsy line, Eddie first, Beverly second now, her hand on Eddies shoulder as Mikes is on hers. They begin to move again, faster this time. Eddie displays none of his former nervous care. Were going home, she thinks, and shivers with relief and joy. Home, yes. And that will be good. Weve done our job, what we came for, now we can go back to just being kids again. And that will be good, too. As they move through the dark she realizes the sound of running water is closer. CHAPTER 23 Out 1 Derry9001000 A.M. By ten past nine, Derry windspeeds were being clocked at an average of fiftyfive miles an hour, with gusts up to seventy. The anemometer in the courthouse registered one gust of eightyone, and then the needle dropped all the way back to zero. The wind had ripped the whirling cuplike device on the courthouse roof off its moorings and it flew away into the rainswept dimness of the day. Like George Denbroughs boat, it was never seen again. By ninethirty, the thing the Derry Water Department had sworn was now impossible seemed not only possible but imminent that downtown Derry might be flooded for the first time since August of 1958, when many of the old drains had clogged up or caved in during a freak rainstorm. By quarter of ten, men with grim faces were arriving in cars and pickup trucks along both sides of the Canal, their foulweather gear rippling crazily in the freighttrain wind. For the first time since October of 1957, sandbags began to go up along the Canals cement sides. The arch where the Canal went under the threeway intersection at the heart of Derrys downtown area was full almost to the top; Main Street, Canal Street, and the foot of UpMile Hill were impassable except by foot, and those who splashed and hurried their way toward the sandbagging operation felt the very streets beneath their feet trembling with the frenzied flow of the water, the way a turnpike overpass will tremble when big trucks pass each other. But this was a steady vibration, and the men were glad to be on the north side of downtown, away from that steady rumbling that was felt rather than heard. Harold Gardener shouted at Alfred Zitner, who ran Zitners Realty on the west side of town, asked him if the streets were going to collapse. Zitner said hell would freeze over before something like that happened. Harold had a brief image of Adolf Hitler and Judas Iscariot handing out iceskates and went on heaving sandbags. The water was now less than three inches below the top of the Canals cement walls. In the Barrens the Kenduskeag was already out of its banks, and by noon the luxuriant undergrowth and scrub trees would be poking out of a vast shallow, stinking lake. The men continued to work, pausing only when the supply of sandbags ran out ... and then, at ten of ten, they were frozen by a great rending ripping sound. Harold Gardener later told his wife he thought maybe the end of the world had come. It wasnt downtown falling into the earthnot thenit was the Standpipe. Only Andrew Keene, Norbert Keenes grandson, actually saw it happen, and he had smoked so much Colombian Red that morning that at first he thought it had to be a hallucination. He had been wandering Derrys stormswept streets since about eight oclock, roughly the same time that Dr. Hale was ascending to that great family medical practice in the sky. He was drenched to the skin (except for the twoounce baggie of pot tucked up into his armpit, that was) but totally unaware of it. His eyes widened in disbelief. He had reached Memorial Park, which stood on the flank of Standpipe Hill. And unless he was wrong, the Standpipe now had a pronounced lean, like that fuckedup tower in Pisa that was on all the macaroni boxes. Oh, wow! Andrew Keene cried, his eyes widening even morethey looked as if they might be on small tough springs nowas the splintering sounds began. The Standpipes lean was becoming more and more acute as he stood there with his jeans plastered to his skinny shanks and his drenched paisley headband dripping water into his eyes. White shingles were popping off the downtown side of the great round watertower ... no, not exactly popping off; it was more like they were squirting off. And a definite crinkle had appeared about twenty feet above the Standpipes stone foundation. Water suddenly began to spray out through this crinkle, and now the shingles werent squirting off the Standpipes downtown side; they were spewing into the windstream. A rending sound began to come from the Standpipe, and Andrew could see it moving, like the hand of a great clock inclining from noon to one to two. The baggie of pot fell out of his armpit and fetched up inside his shirt somewhere near his belt. He didnt notice. He was utterly fetched. Large twanging sounds came from inside the Standpipe, as if the strings of the worlds biggest guitar were being broken one by one. These were the cables inside the cylinder, which had provided the proper balance of stress against the waterpressure. The Standpipe began to heel over faster and faster, boards and beams ripping apart, splinters jumping and whirling into the air. FAAAR FUCKING OWWWWT! Andrew Keene shrieked, but it was lost in the Standpipes final crashing fall, and by the rising sound of one and threequarters million gallons of water, seven thousand tons of water, pouring out of the buildings ruptured spouting side. It went in a gray tidal wave, and of course if Andrew Keene had been on the downhill side of the Standpipe, he would have exited the world in no time. But God favors drunks, small children, and the cataclysmically stoned; Andrew was standing in a place where he could see it all and not be touched by a single drop. GREAT FUCKING SPECIAL EFFECTS! Andrew screamed as the water rolled over Memorial Park like a solid thing, sweeping away the sundial beside which a small boy named Stan Uris had often stood watching birds with his fathers field glasses. STEVEN SPIELBERG EAT YOUR HEART OUT! The stone birdbath also went. Andrew saw it for a moment, turning over and over, pedestal for dish and dish for pedestal, and then it was gone. A line of maples and birches separating Memorial Park from Kansas Street were knocked down like so many pins in a bowling alley. They took wild spiky snarls of power lines with them. The water rolled across the street, beginning to spread now, beginning to look more like water than that mindboggling solid wall that had taken sundial, birdbath, and trees, but it still had power enough to sweep almost a dozen houses on the far side of Kansas Street off their foundations and into the Barrens. They went with sickening ease, most of them still whole. Andrew Keene recognized one of them as belonging to the Karl Massensik family. Mr. Massensik had been his sixthgrade teacher, a real pooch. As the house went over the edge and down the slope, Andrew realized he could still see a candle burning brightly in one window, and he wondered briefly if he might be mentally highsiding it, if you could dig the concept. There was an explosion from the Barrens and a brief gout of yellow flame as someones Coleman gas lantern ignited oil pouring out of a ruptured fueltank. Andrew stared at the far side of Kansas Street, where until just forty seconds ago there had been a neat line of middleclass houses. They were Gone City now, and you better believe it, sweet thing. In their places were ten cellarholes that looked like swimmingpools. Andrew wanted to advance the opinion that this was far fucking out, but he couldnt yell anymore. Seemed like his yeller was busted. His diaphragm felt weak and useless. He heard a series of crunching thuds, the sound of a giant with his shoes full of Ritz crackers marching down a flight of stairs. It was the Standpipe rolling down the hill, a huge white cylinder still spouting the last of its water supply, the thick cables that had helped to hold it together flying into the air and then cracking down again like steel bullwhips, digging runnels in the soft earth that immediately filled up with rushing rainwater. As Andrew watched, with his chin resting somewhere between his collarbones, the Standpipe, horizontal now, better than a hundred and twentyfive feet long, flew out into the air. For a moment it seemed frozen there, a surreal image straight out of rubberwalled straitjacketed toodleoo land, rainwater sparkling on its shattered sides, its windows broken, casements hanging, the flashing light on top, meant as a warning for lowflying light planes, still flashing, and then it fell into the street with a final rending crash. Kansas Street had channelled a lot of the water, and now it began to rush toward downtown by way of UpMile Hill. There used to be houses over there, Andrew Keene thought, and suddenly all the strength ran out of his legs. He sat down heavilykersplash. He stared at the broken stone foundation on which the Standpipe had stood for his whole life. He wondered if anyone would ever believe him. He wondered if he believed it himself. 2 The Kill1002 A.M., May 31st, 1985 Bill and Richie saw It turn toward them, Its mandibles opening and closing, Its one good eye glaring down at them, and Bill realized It gave off Its own source of illumination, like some grisly lightningbug. But the light was flickering and uncertain; It was badly hurt. Its thoughts buzzed and racketed (let me go! let me go and you can have everything youve ever wantedmoney,fame, fortune, powerI can give you these things) in his head. Bill moved forward emptyhanded, his eyes fixed on Its single red one. He felt the power growing inside him, investing him, knotting his arms into cords, filling each clenched fist with its own force. Richie walked beside him, his lips pulled back over his teeth. (I can give you your wife backI can do it, only Ishell remember nothing as the seven of you remembered nothing) They were close, very close now. Bill could smell Its stinking aroma and realized with sudden horror that it was the smell of the Barrens, the smell they had taken for the smell of sewers and polluted streams and the burning dump ... but had they ever really believed those were all it had been? It was the smell of It, and perhaps it had been strongest in the Barrens but it had hung over all Derry like a cloud and people just didnt smell it, the way zookeepers dont smell their charges after awhile, or even wonder why the visitors wrinkle their noses when they come in. Us two, he muttered to Richie, and Richie nodded without taking his eyes off the Spider, which now shrank back from them, Its abominable spiny legs clittering, brought to bay at last. (I cant give you eternal life but I can touch you and you will live long long livestwohundred years, three hundred, perhaps five hundredI can make you gods of the Earthif you let me go if you let me go if you let me) Bill? Richie asked hoarsely. With a scream building in him, building up and up and up, Bill charged. Richie ran with him stride for stride. They struck together with their right fists, but Bill understood it was not really their fists they were striking with at all; it was their combined force, augmented by the force of that Other; it was the force of memory and desire; above all else, it was the force of love and unforgotten childhood like one big wheel. The Spiders shriek filled Bills head, seeming to splinter his brains. He felt his fist plunge deep into writhing wetness. His arm followed it in up to the shoulder. He pulled it back, dripping with the Spiders black blood. Ichor poured from the hole he had made. He saw Richie standing almost beneath Its bloated body, covered with Its darkly sparkling blood, standing in the classic boxers stance, his dripping fists pumping. The Spider lashed at them with Its legs. Bill felt one of them rip down his side, parting his shirt, parting skin. Its stinger pumped uselessly against the floor. Its screams were clarionbells in his head. It lunged clumsily forward, trying to bite him, and instead of retreating Bill drove forward, using not just his fist now but his whole body, making himself into a torpedo. He ran into Its gut like a sprinting fullback who lowers his shoulders and simply drives straight ahead. For a moment he felt Its stinking flesh simply give, as if it would rebound and send him flying. With an inarticulate scream he drove harder, pushing forward and upward with his legs, digging at It with his hands. And he broke through; was inundated with Its hot fluids. They ran across his face, in his ears. He snuffled them up his nose in thin squirming streams. He was in the black again, up to his shoulders inside Its convulsing body. And in his clogged ears he could hear a sound like the steady whackWHACKwhackWHACK of a big bass drum, the one that leads the parade when the circus comes to town with its complement of freaks and strutting capering clowns. The sound of Its heart. He heard Richie scream in sudden pain, a sound that rose into a quick, gasping moan and was cut off. Bill suddenly thrust both fisted hands forward. He was choking, strangling in Its pulsing bag of guts and waters. WhackWHACKwhackWHACK He plunged his hands into It, ripping, tearing, parting, seeking the source of the sound; rupturing organs, his slimed fingers opening and closing, his locked chest seeming to swell from lack of air. WhackWHACKwhackWHACK And suddenly it was in his hands, a great living thing that pumped and pulsed against his palms, pushing them back and forth. (NONONONONONONO) Yes! Bill cried, choking, drowning. Yes! Try this, you bitch! TRY THIS ONE OUT! DO YOU LIKE IT? DO YOU LOVE IT? DO YOU? He laced his fingers together over the pulsing narthex of Its heart, palms spread apart in an inverted Vand brought them together with all the force he could muster. There was one final shriek of pain and fear as Its heart exploded between his hands, running out between his fingers in jittering strings. WhackWHACKwhackWHA The scream, fading, dwindling. Bill felt Its body clench around him suddenly, like a fist in a slick glove. Then everything loosened. He became aware that Its body was tilting, slipping slowly off to one side. At the same time he began pulling back, his consciousness leaving him. The Spider collapsed on Its side, a huge bundle of steaming alien meat, Its legs still quivering and jerking, caressing the sides of the tunnel and scraping across the floor in random scrawls. Bill staggered away, breathing in whooping gasps, spitting in an effort to clear his mouth of Its horrible taste. He tripped over his own feet and fell to his knees. And clearly, he heard the Voice of the Other; the Turtle might be dead, but whatever had invested it was not. Son, you did real good. Then it was gone. The power went with it. He felt weak, revulsed, halfinsane. He looked over his shoulder and saw the dying black nightmare of the Spider, still jerking and quivering. Richie! He cried out in a hoarse, breaking voice. Richie, where are you, man? No answer. The light was gone now. It had died with the Spider. He fumbled in the pocket of his matted shirt for the last book of matches. They were there, but they wouldnt light; the heads were soaked with blood. Richie! he screamed again, beginning to weep now. He began to crawl forward, first one hand and then the other groping in the dark. At last one of them struck something which yielded limply to his touch. His hands flew over it ... and stopped as they touched Richies face. Richie! Richie! Still no answer. Struggling in the dark, Bill got one arm under Richies back and the other under his knees. He wobbled to his feet and began to stumble back the way they had come with Richie in his arms. 3 Derry10001015 A.M. At 1000 the steady vibration which had been running through Derrys downtown streets increased to a rumbling roar. The Derry News would later write that the supports of the Canals underground portion, weakened by the savage assault of what amounted to a flash flood, simply collapsed. There were, however, people who disagreed with that view. I was there, I know, Harold Gardener later told his wife. It wasnt just that the Canals supports collapsed. It was an earthquake, thats what it was. It was a fucking earthquake. Either way, the results were the same. As the rumbling built steadily up and up, windows began to shatter, plaster ceilings began to fall, and the inhuman cry of twisting beams and foundations swelled into a frightening chorus. Cracks raced up the bulletpocked brick faade of Machens like grasping hands. The cables holding the marquee of the Aladdin Theater out over the street snapped and the marquee came crashing down. Richards Alley, which ran behind the Center Street Drug, suddenly filled up with an avalanche of yellow brick as the Brian X Dowd Professional Building, erected in 1952, came crashing down. A huge screen of jaundicecolored dust rose in the air and was snatched away like a veil. At the same time the statue of Paul Bunyan in front of the City Center exploded. It was as if that longago art teachers threat to blow it up had finally proved to be dead serious after all. The bearded grinning head rose straight up in the air. One leg kicked forward, the other back, as if Paul had attempted some sort of a split so enthusiastic it had resulted in dismemberment. The statues midsection blew out in a cloud of shrapnel and the head of the plastic axe rose into the rainy sky, disappeared, and then came down again, twirling end over end. It sheared through the roof of the Kissing Bridge, and then its floor. And then, at 1002 A.M., downtown Derry simply collapsed. Most of the water from the ruptured Standpipe had crossed Kansas Street and ended up in the Barrens, but tons of it rushed down into the business district by way of UpMile Hill. Perhaps that was the straw that broke the camels back ... or perhaps, as Harold Gardener told his wife, there really was an earthquake. Cracks raced across the surface of Main Street. They were narrow at first... and then they began to gape like hungry mouths and the sound of the Canal floated up, not muffled now but frighteningly loud. Everything began to shake. The neon sign proclaiming OUTLET MOCCASINS in front of Shorty Squiress souvenir shop hit the street and shorted out in three feet of water. A moment or two later, Shortys building, which stood next to Mr. Paperback, began to descend. Buddy Angstrom was the first to see this phenomenon. He elbowed Alfred Zitner, who looked, gaped, and then elbowed Harold Gardener. Within a space of seconds the sandbagging operation stopped. The men lining both sides of the Canal only stood and stared toward downtown in the pouring rain, their faces stamped with identical expressions of horrified wonder. Squiress Souvenirs and Sundries appeared to have been built on some huge elevator which was now on the way down. It sank into the apparently solid concrete with ponderous stately dignity. When it came to a stop, you could have dropped to your hands and knees on the flooded sidewalk and entered through one of the thirdfloor windows. Water sprayed up all around the building, and a moment later Shorty himself appeared on the roof, waving his arms madly for rescue. Then he was obliterated as the officebuilding next door, the one which housed Mr. Paperback at ground level, also sank into the ground. Unfortunately, this one did not go straight down as Shortys building had done; the Mr. Paperback building developed a marked lean (for a moment, in fact, it bore a strong resemblance to that fuckedup tower in Pisa, the one on the macaroni boxes). As it tilted, bricks began to shower from its top and sides. Shorty was struck by several. Harold Gardener saw him reel backward, hands to his head... and then the top three floors of the Mr. Paperback building slid off as neatly as pancakes from the top of a stack. Shorty disappeared. Someone on the sandbag line screamed, and then everything was lost in the grinding roar of destruction. Men were knocked off their feet or sent wobbling and staggering back from the Canal. Harold Gardener saw the buildings which faced each other across Main Street lean forward, like ladies kibbitzing over a cardgame, their heads almost touching. The street itself was sinking, cracking, breaking up. Water splashed and sprayed. And then, one after another, buildings on both sides of the street simply swayed past their centers of gravity and crashed into the streetthe Northeast Bank, The Shoeboat, Alveys Smokes n Jokes, Bailleys Lunch, Bandlers Record and Music Barn. Except that by then there was really no street for them to crash into. The street had fallen into the Canal, stretching like taffy at first and then breaking up into bobbing chunks of asphalt. Harold saw the trafficisland at the threestreet intersection suddenly drop out of sight, and as water geysered up, he suddenly understood what was going to happen. Gotta get out of here! he screamed at Al Zitner. Its gonna backwater! Al! Its gonna backwater! Al Zitner gave no sign that he had heard. His was the face of a sleepwalker, or perhaps of a man who has been deeply hypnotized. He stood in his soaked redandbluechecked sportcoat, in his opencollared Lacoste shirt with the little alligator on the left boob, in his blue socks with the crossed white golfclubs knitted into their sides, in his brown L. L. Beans boat shoes with the rubber soles. He was watching perhaps a million dollars of his own personal investments sinking into the street, three or four millions of his friends investmentsthe guys he played poker with, the guys he golfed with, the guys he skied with at his timesharing condo in Rangely. Suddenly his home town, Derry, Maine, for Christs sake, looked bizarrely like that fuckedup city where the wogs pushed people around in those long skinny canoes. Water roiled and boiled between the buildings that were still standing. Canal Street ended in a jagged black diving board over the edge of a churning lake. It was really no wonder Zitner hadnt heard Harold. Others, however, had come to the same conclusion Gardener had come toyou couldnt drop that much shit into a raging body of water without causing a lot of trouble. Some dropped the sandbags they had been holding and took to their heels. Harold Gardener was one of these, and so he lived. Others were not so lucky and were still somewhere in the general area as the Canal, its throat now choked with tons of asphalt, concrete, brick, plaster, glass, and about four million dollars worth of assorted merchandise, backsurged and poured over its concrete sleeve, carrying away men and sandbags impartially. Harold kept thinking it meant to have him; no matter how fast he ran the water kept gaining. He finally escaped by clawing his way up a steep embankment covered with shrubbery. He looked back once and saw a man he believed to be Roger Lernerd, the head loan officer at Harolds credit union, trying to start his car in the parkinglot of the Canal MiniMall. |
Even over the roar of the water and the bellowing wind, Harold could hear the Kcars little sewingmachine engine cranking and cranking and cranking as smooth black water ran rockerpanel high on both sides of it. Then, with a deep thundering cry, the Kenduskeag poured out of its banks and swept both the Canal MiniMall and Roger Lernerds bright red Kcar away. Harold began climbing again, grabbing onto branches, roots, anything that looked solid enough to take his weight. Higher ground, that was the ticket. As Andrew Keene might have said, Harold Gardener was really into the concept of higher ground that morning. Behind him he could hear downtown Derry continuing to collapse. The sound was like artillery fire. 4 Bill Beverly! he shouted. His back and arms were one solid throbbing ache. Richie now seemed to weigh at least five hundred pounds. Put him down, then, his mind whispered. Hes dead, you know damn well he is, so why dont you just put him down? But he wouldnt, couldnt, do that. Beverly! he shouted again. Ben! Anyone! He thought This is where It threw meand Richieexcept It threw us fartherso much farther. What was that like? Im losing it, forgetting ... Bill? It was Bens voice, shaky and exhausted, somewhere fairly close. Where are you? Over here, man. Ive got Richie. He got... hes hurt. Keep talking. Ben was closer now. Keep talking, Bill. We killed It, Bill said, walking toward where Bens voice had come from. We killed the bitch. And if Richies dead Dead? Ben called, alarmed. He was very close now... and then his hand groped out of the dark and pawed lightly at Bills nose. What do you mean, dead? I ... he ... They were supporting Richie together now. I cant see him, Bill said. Thats the thing. I cuhcuhhan t suhsuhsee him! Richie! Ben shouted, and shook him. Richie, come on! Come on, goddammit! Bens voice was blurring now, becoming shaky. RICHIE WILL YOU WAKE THE FUCK UP? And in the dark, Richie said in a sleepy, irritable, justcomingoutofit voice All rye, Haystack. All rye. We doan need no stinkin batches.... Richie! Bill screamed. Richie, are you all right? Bitch threw me, Richie muttered in that same tired, justcomingoutofsleep voice. I hit something hard. Thats all ... all I remember. Wheres Bewie? Back this way, Ben said. Quickly, he told them about the eggs. I stamped over a hundred. I think I got all of them. I pray to God you did, Richie said. He was starting to sound better. Put me down, Big Bill. I can walk.... Is the water louder? Yes, Bill said. The three of them were holding hands in the dark. Hows your head? Hurts like hell. What happened after I got knocked out? Bill told them as much as he could bring himself to tell. And Its dead, Richie marvelled. Are you sure, Bill? Yes, Bill said. This time Im really shuhhure. Thank God, Richie said. Hold onto me, Bill, I gotta barf. Bill did, and when Richie was done they walked on. Every now and then his foot struck something brittle that rolled off into the darkness. Parts of the Spiders eggs that Ben had tromped to pieces, he supposed, and shivered. It was good to know they were going in the right direction, but he was still glad he couldnt see the remains. Beverly! Ben shouted. Beverly! Here Her cry was faint, almost lost in the steady rumble of the water. They moved forward in the dark, calling to her steadily, zeroing in. When they finally reached her, Bill asked if she had any matches left. She put half a pack in his hand. He lit one and saw their faces spring into ghostly beingBen with his arm around Richie, who was standing slumped, blood running from his right temple, Beverly with Eddies head in her lap. Then he turned the other way. Audra was lying crumpled on the flagstones, her legs asprawl, her head turned away. The webbing had mostly melted off her. The match burned his fingers and he let it drop. In the darkness he misjudged the distance, tripped over her, and nearly went sprawling. Audra! Audra, can you hhhear mme? He got an arm under her back and sat her up. He slipped a hand under the sheaf of her hair and pressed his fingers against the side of her neck. Her pulse was there a slow, steady beat. He lit another match, and as it flared he saw her pupils contract. But that was an involuntary function; the fix of her gaze did not change, even when he brought the match close enough to her face to redden her skin. She was alive, but unresponsive. Hell, it was worse than that and he knew it. She was catatonic. The second match burned his fingers. He shook it out. Bill, I dont like the sound of that water, Ben said. I think we ought to get out of here. How will we do it without Eddie? Richie murmured. We can do it, Bev said. Bill, Bens right. We have to get out. Im taking her. Of course. But we ought to go now. Which way? Youll know, Beverly said softly. You killed It. Youll know, Bill. He picked Audra up as he had picked Richie up and went back to the others. The feel of her in his arms was disquieting, creepy; she was like a breathing waxwork. Which way, Bill? Ben asked. I dddont (youll know, you killed It and youll know) Well, ccome on, Bill said. Lets see if we cant find out. Beverly, gruhgruhhab these. He handed her the matches. What about Eddie? she asked. We have to take him out. How ccan wwe? Bill asked. Its... BBeverly, the pluhhace is ffalling apart. We gotta get him out of here, man, Richie said. Come on, Ben. Between them they managed to hoist up Eddies body. Beverly lit them back to the fairytale door. Bill took Audra through it, holding her up from the floor as best he could. Richie and Ben carried Eddie through. Put him down, Beverly said. He can stay here. Its too dark, Richie sobbed. You know... its too dark. Eds ... he ... No, its okay, Ben said. Maybe this is where hes supposed to be. I think maybe it is. They put him down, and Richie kissed Eddies cheek. Then he looked blindly up at Ben. You sure? Yeah. Come on, Richie. Richie got up and turned toward the door. Fuck you, Bitch! he cried suddenly, and kicked the door shut with his foot. It made a solid chukking sound as it closed and latched. Whyd you do that? Beverly asked. I dont know, Richie said, but he knew well enough. He looked back over his shoulder just as the match Beverly was holding went out. Billthe mark on the door? What about it? Bill panted. Richie said Its gone. 5 Derryl1030 A.M. The glass corridor connecting the adult library to the Childrens Library suddenly exploded in a single brilliant flare of light. Glass flew out in an umbrella shape, whickering through the straining, whipping trees which dotted the library grounds. Someone could have been severely hurt or even killed by such a deadly fusillade, but there was no one there, either inside or out. The library had not been opened that day at all. The tunnel which had so fascinated Ben Hanscom as a boy would never be replaced; there had been so much costly destruction in Derry that it seemed simpler to leave the two libraries as separate unconnected buildings. In time, no one on the Derry City Council could even remember what that glass umbilicus had been for. Perhaps only Ben himself could really have told them how it was to stand outside in the still cold of a January night, your nose running, the tips of your fingers numb inside your mittens, watching the people pass back and forth inside, walking through winter with their coats off and surrounded by light. He could have told them... but maybe it wasnt the sort of thing you could have gotten up and testified about at a City Council meetinghow you stood out in the cold dark and learned to love the light. All of thats as may be; the facts were just these the glass corridor blew up for no apparent reason, no one was hurt (which was a blessing, since the final toll taken by that mornings stormin human terms, at leastwas sixtyseven killed and better than three hundred and twenty injured), and it was never rebuilt. After May 31st of 1985, if you wanted to get from the Childrens Library to the adult library, you had to walk outside to do it. And if it was cold, or raining, or snowing, you had to put on your coat. 6 Out1054A.M., May 31st, 1985 Wait, Bill gasped. Give me a chance... rest. Let me help you with her, Richie said again. They had left Eddie back in the Spiders lair, and that was something none of them wanted to talk about. But Eddie was dead and Audra was still aliveat least, technically. Ill do it, Bill said between choked gasps for air. Bullshit. Youll give yourself a fucking heart attack. Let me help you, Big Bill. Hows your hhhead? Hurts, Richie said. Dont change the subject. Reluctantly, Bill let Richie take her. It could have been worse; Audra was a tall girl whose normal weight was one hundred and forty pounds. But the part shed been scheduled to play in Attic Room was that of a young woman being held hostage by a borderline psychotic who fancied himself a political terrorist. Because Freddie Firestone had wanted to shoot all of the attic sequences first, Audra had gone on a strict poultrycottagecheesetunafish diet and lost twenty pounds. Still, after stumblestaggering along with her in the dark for a quarter of a mile (or a half, or threequarters of a mile, or who knew), that one hundred and twenty felt more like two hundred. ThThanks, mmman, he said. Dont mention it. Your turn next, Haystack. Beepbeep, Richie, Ben said, and Bill grinned in spite of himself. It was a tired grin, and it didnt last long, but a little was better than none. Which way, Bill? Beverly asked. That water sounds louder than ever. I dont really fancy drowning down here. Straight ahead, then left, Bill said. Maybe we better try to go a little faster. They went on for half an hour, Bill calling the lefts and rights. The sound of the water continued to swell until it seemed to surround them, a scary Dolby stereo effect in the dark. Bill felt his way around a corner, one hand trailing over damp brick, and suddenly water was running over his shoes. The current was shallow and fast. Give me Audra, he said to Ben, who was panting loudly. Upstream now. Ben passed her carefully back to Bill, who managed to sling her over his shoulder in a firemans carry. If shed only protest... move... do something. Hows matches, Bev? Not many. Half a dozen, maybe. Bill ... do you know where youre going? I think I dddo, he said. Come on. They followed him around the corner. The water foamed about Bills ankles, then it was up to his shins, and then it was thighdeep. The thunder of the water had deepened to a steady bass roar. The tunnel they were in was shaking steadily. For awhile Bill thought the current was going to become too strong to walk against, but then they passed a feederpipe that was pouring a huge jet of water into their tunnethe marvelled at the whitewater force of itand the current slacked off somewhat, although the water continued to deepen.It I saw the water coming out of that feederpipe! Saw it! HHHey! he shouted. Can yyyou guys see aanything? Its been getting lighter for the last fifteen minutes or so! Beverly shouted back. Where are we, Bill? Do you know? I thought I did, Bill almost said. No! Come on! He had believed they must be approaching the concretechannelled section of the Kenduskeag that was called the Canal ... the part that went under downtown and came out in Bassey Park. But there was light down here, light, and surely there could be no light in the Canal under the city. But it brightened steadily just the same. Bill was beginning to have serious problems with Audra. It wasnt the currentthat had slackenedit was the depth. Pretty soon Ill be floating her, he thought. He could see Ben on his left and Beverly on his right; by turning his head slightly, he could see Richie behind Ben. The footing was getting decidedly odd. The bottom of the tunnel was now heaped and mounded with detritusbricks, it felt like. And up ahead, something was sticking out of the water like the prow of a ship that is in the process of sinking. Ben floundered toward it, shivering in the cold water. A soggy cigar box floated into his face. He pushed it aside and grabbed at the thing sticking out of the water. His eyes widened. It appeared to be a large sign. He was able to read the letters AL, and below that, FUT. And suddenly he knew. Bill! Richie! Bev! He was laughing with astonishment. What is it, Ben? Beverly shouted. Grabbing it with both hands, Ben rocked it back. There was a grating sound as one side of the sign scraped along the wall of the tunnel. Now they could read ALADDI, and, below that, BACK TO THE FUTURE. Its the marquee for the Aladdin, Richie said. How The street caved in, Bill whispered. His eyes were widening. He stared up the tunnel. The light was brighter still up ahead. What, Bill? What the fuck happened? Bill? Bill? What All these drains! Bill said wildly. All these old drains! Theres been another flood! And I think this time He began to flounder ahead again, holding Audra up. Ben, Bev, and Richie fell in behind him. Five minutes later Bill looked up and saw blue sky. He was looking through a crack in the ceiling of the tunnel, a crack that widened to better than seventy feet across as it ran away from where he stood. The water was broken by many islands and archipelagos up aheadpiles of bricks, the back deck of a Plymouth sedan with its trunk sprung open and pouring water, a parkingmeter leaning against the tunnel wall at a drunken slant, its red VIOLATION flag up. The footing had become almost impossible nowminimountains that rose and fell with no rhyme or reason, inviting a broken ankle. The water ran mildly around their armpits. Mild now, Bill thought. But if wed been here two hours ago, even one, I think we might have gotten the ride of our lives. What the fuck is this, Big Bill? Richie asked. He was standing at Bills left elbow, his face soft with wonder as he looked up at the rip in the roof of the tunnelexcept its not the roof of any tunnel, Bill thought. Its Main Street. At least it used to be. I think most of downtown Derry is now in the Canal and being carried down the Kenduskeag River. Pretty soon itll be in the Penobscot and then it will be in the Atlantic Ocean and good fucking riddance. Can you help me with Audra, Richie? I dont think I can Sure, Richie said. Sure, Bill. No sweat. He took Audra from Bill. In this light, Bill could see her better than he perhaps wanted toher pallor masked but not hidden by the dirt and ordure that smeared her forehead and caked her cheeks. Her eyes were still wide open... wide open and innocent of all sense. Her hair hung lank and wet. She might as well have been one of those inflatable dollies they sold at the Pleasure Chest in New York or along the Reeperbahn in Hamburg. The only difference was her slow, steady respiration... and that might have been a clockwork trick, no more than that. How are we going to get up from here? he asked Richie. Get Ben to give you ten fingers, Richie said. You can yank Bev up, and the two of you can get your wife. Ben can boost me and well get Ben. And after that Ill show you how to set up a volleyball tournament for a thousand sorority girls. Beepbeep, Richie. Beepbeep your ass, Big Bill. The tiredness was going through him in steady waves. He caught Beverlys level gaze and held it for a moment. She nodded to him slightly, and he made a smile for her. Give me ten fingers, BBBen? Ben, who also looked unutterably weary, nodded. A deep scratch ran down one cheek. I think I can handle that. He stooped slightly and laced his hands together. Bill hiked one foot, stepped into Bens hand, and jumped up. It wasnt quite enough. Ben lifted the step he had made with his hands and Bill grabbed the edge of the brokenin tunnel roof. He yanked himself up. The first thing he saw was a whiteandorange crash barrier. The second thing was a crowd of milling men and women beyond the barrier. The third was Freeses Department Storeonly it had an oddly bulgedout, foreshortened look. It took him a moment to realize that almost half of Freeses had sunk into the street and the Canal beneath. The top half had slued out over the street and seemed in danger of toppling over like a pile of badly stacked books. Look! Look! Theres someone in the street! A woman was pointing toward the place where Bills head had poked out of the crevasse in the shattered pavement. Praise God, theres someone else! She started forward, an elderly woman with a kerchief tied over her head peasantstyle. A cop held her back. Not safe out there, Mrs. Nelson. You know it. Rest of the street might go any time. Mrs. Nelson, Bill thought. I remember you. Your sister used to sit George and me sometimes. He raised his hand to show her he was all right, and when she raised her own hand in return, he felt a sudden surge of good feelingsand hope. He turned around and lay flat on the sagging pavement, trying to distribute his weight as evenly as possible, the way you were supposed to do on thin ice. He reached down for Bev. She grasped his wrists and, with what seemed to be the last of his strength, he pulled her up. The sun, which had disappeared again, now ran out from behind a brace of mackerelscale clouds and gave them their shadows back. Beverly looked up, startled, caught Bills eyes, and smiled. I love you, Bill, she said. And I pray shell be all right. Thuhhank you, Bewie, he said, and his kind smile made her start to cry a little. He hugged her and the small crowd gathered behind the crash barrier applauded. A photographer from the Derry News snapped a picture. It appeared in the June 1st edition of the paper, which was printed in Bangor because of water damage to the Newss presses. The caption was simple enough, and true enough for Bill to cut the picture out and keep it tucked away in his wallet for years to come SURVIVORS, the caption read. That was all, but that was enough. It was six minutes of eleven in Derry, Maine. 7 DerryLater the Same Day The glass corridor between the Childrens Library and the adult library had exploded at 1030 A.M. At 1033, the rain stopped. It didnt taper off; it stopped all at once, as if Someone Up There had flicked a toggle switch. The wind had already begun to fall, and it fell so rapidly that people stared at each other with uneasy, superstitious faces. The sound was like the winddown of a 747s engines after it has been safely parked at the gate. The sun peeked out for the first time at 1047. By midafternoon the clouds had burned away entirely, and the day had come off fair and hot. By 330 P.M. the mercury in the Orange Crush thermometer outside the door of Secondhand Rose, Secondhand Clothes read eightythreethe highest reading of the young season. People walked through the streets like zombies, not talking much. Their expressions were remarkably similar a kind of stupid wonder that would have been funny if it was not also so frankly pitiable. By evening reporters from ABC, CBS, NBC, and CNN had arrived in Derry, and the network news reporters would bring some version of the truth home to most people; they would make it real... although there were those who might have suggested that reality is a highly untrustworthy concept, something perhaps no more solid than a piece of canvas stretched over an interlacing of cables like the strands of a spiderweb. The following morning Bryant Gumble and Willard Scott of the Today show would be in Derry. During the course of the program, Gumble would interview Andrew Keene. Whole Standpipe just crashed over and rolled down the hill, Andrew said. It was like wow. You know what I mean? Like Steven Spielberg eat your heart out, you know? Hey, I always got the idea looking at you on TV that you were, you know, a lot bigger. Seeing themselves and their neighbors on TVthat would make it real. It would give them a place from which to grasp this terrible, ungraspable thing. It had been a FREAK STORM. In the days following, THE DEATHCOUNT would rise in THE WAKE OF THE KILLER STORM. It was, in fact, THE WORST SPRING STORM IN MAINE HISTORY. All of these headlines, as terrible as they were, were usefulthey helped to blunt the essential strangeness of what had happened... or perhaps strangeness was too mild a word. Insanity might have been better. Seeing themselves on TV would help make it concrete, less insane. But in the hours before the news crews arrived, there were only the people from Derry, walking through their rubblestrewn, mudslicked streets with expressions of stunned unbelief on their faces. Only the people from Derry, not talking much, looking at things, occasionally picking things up and then tossing them down again, trying to figure out what had happened during the last seven or eight hours. Men stood on Kansas Street, smoking, looking at houses lying upside down in the Barrens. Other men and women stood beyond the whiteandorange crash barriers, looking into the black hole that had been downtown until ten that morning. The headline of that Sundays paper read WE WILL REBUILD, VOWS DERRY MAYOR, and perhaps they would. But in the weeks that followed, while the City Council wrangled over how the rebuilding should begin, the huge crater that had been downtown continued to grow in an unspectacular but steady way. Four days after the storm, the office building of the Bangor Hydroelectric Company collapsed into the hole. Three days after that, the Flying Doghouse, which sold the best kraut and chilidogs in eastern Maine, fell in. Drains backed up periodically in houses, apartment buildings, and businesses. It got so bad in the Old Cape that people began to leave. June 10th was the first evening of horseracing at Bassey Park; the first pace was scheduled for 800 P.M. and that seemed to cheer everyone up. But a section of bleachers collapsed as the trotters in the first race turned into the home stretch, and half a dozen people were hurt. One of them was Foxy Foxworth, who had managed the Aladdin Theater until 1973. Foxy spent two weeks in the hospital, suffering from a broken leg and a punctured testicle. When he was released, he decided to go to his sisters in Somersworth, New Hampshire. He wasnt the only one. Derry was falling apart. 8 They watched the orderly slam the back doors of the ambulance and go around to the passenger seat. The ambulance started up the hill toward the Derry Home Hospital. Richie had flagged it down at severe risk of life and limb, and had argued the irate driver to a draw when the driver insisted he just didnt have any more room. He had ended up stretching Audra out on the floor. Now what? Ben asked. There were huge brown circles under his eyes and a grimy ring of dirt around his neck. Im ggoing back to the Town House, Bill said. GGonna sleep for about suhhixteen hours. I second that, Richie said. He looked hopefully at Bev. Got any cigarettes, purty lady? No, Beverly said. I think Im going to quit again. Sensible enough idea. They began to walk slowly up the hill, the four of them side by side. Its ooover, Bill said. Ben nodded. We did it. You did it, Big Bill. We all did it, Beverly said. I wish we could have brought Eddie up. I wish that more than anything. They reached the corner of Upper Main and Point Street. A kid in a red rainslicker and green rubber boots was sailing a paper boat along the brisk run of water in the gutter. He looked up, saw them looking at him, and waved tentatively. Bill thought it was the boy with the skateboardthe one whose friend had seen Jaws in the Canal. He smiled and stepped toward the boy. Its all right nnnow, he said. The boy studied him gravely, and then grinned. The smile was sunny and hopeful. Yeah, he said. I think it is. Bet your aaass. The kid laughed. You ggonna be careful on thuhhat skateboard? Not really, the kid said, and this time Bill laughed. He restrained an urge to ruffle the kids hairthat probably would have been resentedand returned to the others. Who was that? Richie asked. A friend, Bill said. He stuffed his hands in his pockets. Do you remember it? When we came out before? Beverly nodded. Eddie got us back to the Barrens. Only we ended up on the other side of the Kenduskeag somehow. The Old Cape side. You and Haystack pushed the lid off one of those pumpingstations, Richie said to Bill, because you had the most weight. Yeah, Ben said. We did. The sun was out, but it was almost down. Yeah, Bill said. And we were all there. But nothing lasts forever, Richie said. He looked back down the hill they had just climbed and sighed. Look at this, for instance. He held his hands out The tiny scars in the palms were gone. Beverly puguer nands out; Ben did the same; Bill added his. All were dirty but unmarked. Nothing lasts forever, Richie repeated. He looked up at Bill, and Bill saw tears cut slowly through the dirt on Richies cheeks. Except maybe for love, Ben said. And desire, Beverly said. How about friends? Bill asked, and smiled. What do you think, Trashmouth? Well, Richie said, smiling and rubbing his eyes, Ah got to thank about it, boy; Ah say, Ah say Ah got to thank about it. Bill put his hands out and they joined theirs with his and stood there for a moment, seven who had been reduced to four but who could still make a circle. They looked at each other. Ben was crying now too, the tears spilling from his eyes. But he was smiling. I love you guys so much, he said. He squeezed Bevs and Richies hands tighttighttight for a moment, and then dropped them. Now could we see if theyve got such a thing as breakfast in this place? And we ought to call Mike. Tell him were okay. Good thinnin, senhorr, Richie said. Every now an then I theenk you might turn out okay. Watchoo theenk, Beeg Beel? I theenk you ought to go fuck yourself, Bill said. They walked into the Town House on a wave of laughter, and as Bill pushed through the glass door, Beverly caught sight of something which she never spoke of but never forgot. For just a moment she saw their reflections in the glassonly there were six, not four, because Eddie was behind Richie and Stan was behind Bill, that little halfsmile on his face. 9 OutDusk,August 10th 1958 The sun sits neatly on the horizon, a slightly oblate red ball that throws a flat feverish light over the Barrens. The iron cover on top of one of the pumpingstations rises a little, settles, rises again, and begins to slide. PPPush it, BuhBen, its bruhbreaking my shoulder The cover slides farther, tilts, and falls into the shrubbery that has grown up around the concrete cylinder. Seven children come out one by one and look around, blinking owlishly in silent wonder. They are like children who have never seen daylight before. Its so quiet, Beverly says softly. The only sounds are the loud rush of water and ine somnolent hum of insects. The storm is over but the Kenduskeag is still very high. Closer to town, not far from the place where the river is corseted in concrete and called a canal, it has overflowed its banks, although the flooding is by no means seriousafew wet cellars is the worst of it. This time. Stan moves away from them, his face blank and thoughtful. Bill looks around and at first he thinks Stan has seen a small fire on the riverbankfire is his first impression a red glow almost too bright to look at. But when Stan picks the fire up in his right hand the angle of the light changes, and Bill sees its nothing but a Coke bottle, one of the new clear ones, which someone has dropped by the river. He watches as Stan reverses it, holds it by the neck, and brings it down on a shelf of rock jutting out of the bank. The bottle breaks, and Bill is aware they are all watching Stan now as he pokes through the shattered remains of the bottle, his face sober and studious and absorbed. At last he picks up a narrow wedge of glass. The westering sun throws red glints from it, and Bill thinks again Like a fire. Stan looks up at him and Bill suddenly understands it is perfectly clear to him, and perfectly right. He steps forward toward Stan with his hands held out, palms up. Stan backs away, into the water. Small black bugs stitch along just above the surface, and Bill can see an iridescent dragonfly go buzzing off into the reeds along the far bank like a small flying rainbow. A frog begins a steady bass thud, and as Stan takes his left hand and draws the edge of glass down his palm, peeling skin and bringing thin blood, Bill thinks in a kind of ecstasy Theres so much life down here! Bill? Sure. Both. Stan cuts his other hand. There is pain, but not much. A whippoorwill has begun to call somewhere, a cool sound, peaceful. Bill thinks That whippoorwill is raising the moon. He looks at his hands, both of them bleeding now, and then around him. The others are thereEddie with his aspirator clutched tightly in one hand; Ben with his big belly pushing palely out through the tattered remains of his shirt; Richie, his face oddly naked without his glasses; Mike, silent and solemn, his normally full lips compressed to a thin line. And Beverly, her head up, her eyes wide and clear, her hair still somehow lovely in spite of the dirt that mats it. All of us. All of us are here. And he sees them, really sees them, for the last time, because in some way he understands that they will never all be together again, the seven of themnot this way. No one talks. Beverly holds out her hands, and after a moment Richie and Ben hold out theirs. Mike and Eddie do the same. Stan cuts them one by one as the sun begins to slip behind the horizon, cooling that red furnaceglow to a dusky rosepink. The whippoorwill cries again, Bill can see the first faint swirls of mist on the water, and he feels as if he has become a part of everythingthis is a brief ecstasy which he will no more talk about than Beverly will later talk about the brief reflection she sees of two dead men who were, as boys, her friends. A breeze touches the trees and bushes, making them sigh, and he thinks This is a lovely place, and Ill never forget it. Its lovely, and they are lovely; each one of them is gorgeous. The whippoorwill cries again, sweet and liquid, and for a moment Bill feels at one with it, as if he could sing and then be gone into the duskas if he could fly away, brave in the air. He looks at Beverly and she is smiling at him. She closes her eyes and holds her hands out to either side. Bill takes her left; Ben her right. Bill can feel the warmth of her blood mixing with his own. The others join in and they stand in a circle, all of their hands now sealed in that peculiarly intimate way. Stan is looking at Bill with a kind of urgency; a kind of fear. SwuhSwear to muhme that youll ccccome buhback, Bill says. Swear to me that if IhIhIt isnt dddead, youll cuhhome back. Swear, Ben said. Swear. Richie. YesIswear. Bev. Swear it, Mike Hanlon mutters. Yeah. Swear. Eddie, his voice a thin and reedy whisper. I swear too, Stan whispers, but his voice falters and he looks down as he speaks. II swuhswuhswear. That was it; that was all. But they stand there for awhile longer, feeling the power that is in their circle, the closed body that they make. The light paints their faces in pale fading colors; the sun is now gone and sunset is dying. They stand together in a circle as the darkness creeps down into the Barrens, filling up the paths they have walked this summer, the clearings where they have played tag and guns, the secret places along the riverbanks where they have sat and discussed childhoods long questions or smoked Beverlys cigarettes or where they have merely been silent, watching the passage of the clouds reflected in the water. The eye of the day is closing. At last Ben drops his hands. He starts to say something, shakes his head, and walks away. Richie follows him, then Beverly and Mike, walking together. No one talks; they climb the embankment to Kansas Street and simply take leave of one another. And when Bill thinks it over twentyseven years later, he realizes that they really never did all get together again. |
Four of them quite often, sometimes five, and maybe six once or twice. But never all seven. Hes the last to go. He stands for a long time with his hands on the rickety white fence, looking down into the Barrens as, overhead, the first stars seed the summer sky. He stands under the blue and over the black and watches the Barrens fill up with darkness. I never want to play down there again, he thinks suddenly and is amazed to find the thought is not terrible or distressing but tremendously liberating. He stands there a moment longer and then turns away from the Barrens and starts home, walking along the dark sidewalk with his hands in his pockets, glancing from time to time at the houses of Derry, warmly lit against the night. After a block or two he begins to walk faster, thinking of supper... and a block or two after that, he begins to whistle. DERRY THE LAST INTERLUDE The ocean, in these times, is a perfect fleet of ships; and we can hardly fail to encounter many, in running over. It is merely crossing, said Mr. Micawber, trifling with his eyeglass, merely crossing. The distance is quite imaginary. Charles Dickens, David Copperfield June 4th, 1985 Bill came in about twenty minutes ago and brought me this bookCarole found it on one of the tables in the library and gave it to him when he asked for it. I thought Chief Rademacher might have taken it, but apparently he didnt want anything to do with it. Bills stutter is disappearing again, but the poor man has aged four years in the last four days. He told me he expects Audra to be discharged from Derry Home Hospital (where I myself yet tarry) tomorrow, only to take a private ambulance north to the Bangor Mental Health Institute. Physically shes fineminor cuts and bruises that are already healing. Mentally... You raise her hand and it stays up, Bill said. He was sitting by the window, twiddling a can of diet soda between his hands. It just floats there until someone puts it down again. Her reflexes are there, but very slow. The EEG they did shows a severely repressed alpha wave. Shes cccatatonic, Mike. I said, Ive got an idea. Maybe not such a good one. If you dont like it, just say so. What? Im going to be in here another week, I said. Instead of sending Audra up to Bangor, why dont you take her to my place, Bill? Spend the week with her. Talk to her, even if she doesnt talk back. Is she... is she continent? No, Bill said bleakly. Can youI mean, would you Would I change her? He smiled, and it was such a painful smile that I had to look away for a moment. It was the way my father smiled the time he told me about Butch Bowers and the chickens. Yes. I think I could do that much. I wont tell you to take it easy on yourself when youre obviously not prepared to do that, I said, but please remember that you yourself agreed that much or all of whats happened was almost certainly ordained. That may include Audras part in this. I shshould have kept my mouth shut about where I was ggoing. Sometimes its better to say nothingso thats what I did. All right, he said at last. If you really mean it I mean it. Theyve got my housekeys down at the Patient Services Desk. Theres a couple of Delmonico steaks in the freezer. Maybe that was ordained, too. Shes eating mostly soft foods and, uh, luhliquids. Well, I said, holding onto my smile, maybe therell be cause for a celebration. Theres a pretty good bottle of wine on the top shelf in the pantry, too. Mondavi. Domestic, but good. He came over and gripped my hand. Thank you, Mike. Any time, Big Bill. He let go of my hand. Richie flew back to California this morning. I nodded. Think youll stay in touch? MMaybe, he said. For awhile, anyway. But ... He looked at me levelly. Its going to happen again, I think. The forgetting? Yes. In fact, I think its already started. Just little things so far. Details. But I think its going to spread. Maybe thats best. Maybe. He looked out the window, still twiddling his can of diet soda, almost surely thinking about his wife, so wideeyed and silent and beautiful and plastic. Catatonic. The sound of a door slamming shut and locked. He sighed. Maybe it is. Ben? Beverly? He looked back at me and smiled a little. Bens invited her to come back to Nebraska with him, and shes agreed to go, at least for awhile. You know about her friend in Chicago? I nodded. Beverly told Ben and Ben told me yesterday. If I may understate the case (grotesquely understate the case), Beverlys later description of her wonderful fantastic husband, Tom, was much truer than her original one. Wonderful fantastic Tom kept Bev in emotional, spiritual, and sometimes physical bondage for the last four years or so. Wonderful fantastic Tom got here by beating the information out of Bevs only close woman friend. She told me shes going to fly back to Chicago the week after next and file a missingpersons report on him. Tom, I mean. Smart enough, I said. No ones ever going to find him down there. Or Eddie either, I thought but did not say. No, I suppose not, Bill said. And when she goes back, Im betting Ben will go with her. And you know something else? Something really crazy? What? I dont think she really remembers what happened to Tom. I just stared at him. Shes forgotten or forgetting, Bill said. And I cant remember what the doorway looked like anymore. The ddoorway into Its place. I try to think of it and the craziest thing happensI get this ihimage of gggoats walking over a bridge. From that story The Three Billy Goats Gruff. Crazy, huh? Theyll trace Tom Rogan to Derry eventually, I said. Hell have left a paper trail a mile wide. Rentacar, plane tickets. Im not so sure of that, Bill said, lighting a cigarette. I think he might have paid cash for his plane ticket and given a phony name. Maybe bought a cheap car here or stole one. Why? Oh, come on, Bill said. Do you think he came all this way to give her a spanking? Our eyes met for a long moment and then he stood up. Listen, Mike ... Too hip, gotta split, I said. I can dig it. He laughed at that, laughed hard, and when he had sobered he said Thanks for the use of your place, Mikey. Im not going to swear to you itll make any difference. It has no therapeutic qualities that Im aware of. Well ... Ill see you. He did an odd thing then, odd but rather lovely. He kissed my cheek. God bless, Mike. Ill be around. Things may be okay, Bill, I said. Dont give up hope. They may be okay. He smiled and nodded, but I think the same word was in both of our minds Catatonic. June 5th, 1985 Ben and Beverly came in today to say goodbye. Theyre not flyingBens rented a great big Cadillac from the Hertz people and theyre going to drive, not hurrying. Theres something in their eyes when they look at each other, and Id bet my pensionplan that if theyre not making it now, they will be by the time they get to Nebraska. Beverly hugged me, told me to get well quickly, and then cried. Ben also hugged me, and asked for the third or fourth time if I would write. I told him I would indeed write, and so I will ... for awhile, at least. Because this time its happening to me, as well. Im forgetting things. As Bill said, right now its only small things, details. But it feels like the sort of thing thats going to spread. It could be that in a month or a year, this notebook will be all Ill have to remind me of what happened here in Derry. I suppose the words themselves might begin to fade, eventually leaving this book as blank as when I first picked it up in the schoolsupplies department at Freeses. Thats an awful thought and in the daytime it seems wildly paranoid... but, do you know, in the watches of the night it seems perfectly logical. This forgetting... the prospect fills me with panic, but it also offers a sneaking sort of relief. It suggests to me more than anything else that this time they really did kill It; that there is no need of a watchman to stand and wait for the cycle to begin again. Dull panic, sneaking relief. Its the relief Ill embrace, I think, sneaking or not. Bill called to say he and Audra had moved in. There is no change in her. Ill always remember you. Thats what Beverly told me just before she and Ben left. I think I saw a different truth in her eyes. June 6th, 1985 Interesting piece in the Derry News today, on page one. The story was headed STORM CAUSES HENLEY TO GIVE UP AUDITORIUM EXPANSION PLANS. The Henley in question is Tim Henley, a multimillionaire developer who came into Derry like a whirlwind in the late sixtiesit was Henley and Zitner who organized the consortium responsible for building the Derry Mall (which, according to another piece on page one, is probably going to be declared a total loss). Tim Henley was determined to see Derry grow. There was a profitmotive, yes indeed, but there was more to it than that Henley genuinely wanted to see it happen. His sudden abandonment of the auditorium expansion suggests several things to me. That Henley may have soured on Derry is only the most obvious. I think its also possible that hes in the process of losing his shirt because of the destruction of the mall. But the article also suggests that Henley is not alone; that other investors and potential investors in Derrys future may be rethinking their options. Of course, Al Zitner wont have to bother; God retired him when downtown collapsed. Of the others, those who thought like Henley are now facing a rather difficult problemhow do you rebuild an urban area which is now at least fifty percent underwater? I think that, after a long and ghoulishly vital existence, Derry may be dying... like a nightshade whose time to bloom has come and gone. Called Bill Denbrough late this afternoon. No change in Audra. An hour ago I put through another call, this one to Richie Tozier in California. His answering machine fielded the call, with Creedence Clearwater Revival music playing in the background. Those machines always fuck up my timing somehow. I left my name and number, hesitated, and added that I hoped he was able to wear his contact lenses again. I was about to hang up when Richie himself picked up the phone and said, Mikey! How you be? His voice was pleased and warm ... but there was an obvious bewilderment there as well. He was wearing the verbal expression of a man who has been caught utterly flatfooted. Hello, Richie, I said. Im doing pretty well. Good. How much pain you having? Some. Its going away. The itch is worse. Ill be damn glad when they finally decide to unstrap my ribs. By the way, I liked the Creedence. Richie laughed. Shit, that aint Creedence, thats Rock and Roll Girls, from Fogartys new album. Centerfield, its called. You havent heard any of it? Huhuh. You got to get it, its great. Its just like ... He trailed off for a moment and then said, Its just like the old days. Ill pick it up, I said, and I probably will. I always liked John Fogarty. Green River was my alltime Creedence favorite, I guess. Get back home, he says. Just before the fade he says it. What about Bill? He and Audra are keeping house for me while Im in here. Good. Thats good. He paused for a moment. You want to hear something fucking bizarre, ole Mikey? Sure, I said. I had a pretty good idea what he was going to say. Well ... I was sitting here in my study, listening to some of the new Cashbox hot prospects, going over some ad copy, reading memos... theres about two mountains of stuff backed up, and Im looking at roughly a month of twentyfivehour days. So I had the answering machine turned on, but with the volume turned up so I could intercept the calls I wanted and just let the dimwits talk to the tape. And the reason I let you talk to the tape as long as I did was because at first you didnt have the slightest idea who I was. Jesus, thats right! How did you know that? Because were forgetting again. All of us this time. Mikey, are you sure? What was Stans last name? I asked him. There was silence on the other end of the linea long silence. In it, faintly, I could hear a woman talking in Omaha .... or maybe she was in Ruthven, Arizona, or Flint, Michigan. I heard her, as faint as a spacetraveller leaving the solar system in the nosecone of a burnedout rocket, thank someone for the cookies. Then Richie said, uncertainly I think it was Underwood, but that isnt Jewish, it it? It was Uris. Uris! Richie cried, sounding both relieved and shaken. Jesus, I hate it when I get something right on the tip of my tongue and cant quite pick it off. Someone brings out a Trivial Pursuit game, I say Excuse me but I think the diarrheas coming back so maybe Ill just go home, okay? But you remember, anyhow, Mikey. Like before. No. I looked it up in my address book. Another long silence. Then You didnt remember? Nope. No shit? No shit. Then this time its really over, he said, and the relief in his voice was unmistakable. Yes, I think so. That longdistance silence fell againall the miles between Maine and California. I believe we were both thinking the same thing it was over, yes, and in six weeks or six months, we will have forgotten all about each other. Its over, and all its cost us is our friendship and Stan and Eddies lives. Ive almost forgotten them, you know it? Horrible as it may sound, I have almost forgotten Stan and Eddie. Was it asthma Eddie had, or chronic migraine? Ill be damned if I can remember for sure, although I think it was migraine. Ill ask Bill. Hell know. Well, you say hi to Bill and that pretty wife of his, Richie said with a cheeriness that sounded canned. I will, Richie, I said, closing my eyes and rubbing my forehead. He remembered Bills wife was in Derry... but not her name, or what had happened to her. And if youre ever in L.A., you got the number. Well get together and mouth some chow. Sure. I felt hot tears behind my eyes. And if you get back this way, the same thing goes. Mikey? Right here. I love you, man. Same here. Okay. Keep your thumb on it. Beepbeep, Richie. He laughed. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Stick it in your ear, Mike. Ah say, in yo ear, boy. He hung up and so did I. Then I lay back on my pillows with my eyes shut and didnt open them for a long time. June 7th, 1985 Police Chief Andrew Rademacher, who took over from Chief Borton in the late sixties, is dead. It was a bizarre accident, one I cant help associating with what has been happening in Derry... what has just ended in Derry. The combination policestationcourthouse stands on the edge of the area that fell into the Canal, and while it didnt go, the upheavalor the floodmust have caused structural damage of which no one was aware. Rademacher was working late in his office last night, the story in the paper says, as he has every night since the storm and the flood. The Police Chiefs office has moved from the third to the fifth floor since the old days, to just below an attic where all sorts of records and useless city artifacts are stored. One of those artifacts was the trampchair I have described earlier in these pages. It was made of iron and weighed better than four hundred pounds. The building shipped a quantity of water during the downpour of May 31st, and that must have weakened the attic floor (or so the paper says). Whatever the reason, the trampchair fell from the attic directly onto Chief Rademacher as he sat at his desk, reading accident reports. He was killed instantly. Officer Bruce Andeen rushed in and found him lying on the ruins of his shattered desk, his pen still in one hand. Talked to Bill on the phone again. Audra is taking some solid food, he says, but otherwise there is no change. I asked him if Eddies big problem had been asthma or migraine. Asthma, he said promptly. Dont you remember his aspirator? Sure, I said, and did. But only when Bill mentioned it. Mike? Yeah? What was his last name? I looked at my address book lying on the nighttable, but didnt pick it up. I dont quite remember. It was like Kerkorian, Bill said, sounding distressed, but that wasnt quite it. Youve got everything written down, though. Right? Right, I said. Thank God for that. Have you had any ideas about Audra? One, he said, but its so crazy I dont want to talk about it. You sure? Yeah. All right. Mike, its scary, isnt it? Forgetting like this? Yes, I said. And it is. June 8th, 1985 Raytheon, which had been scheduled to break ground on its Derry plant in July, has decided at the last minute to build in Waterville instead. The editorial on page one of the News expresses dismay... and, if I read correctly between the lines, a little fright. I think I know what Bills idea is. Hell have to act quickly, before the last of the magic departs this place. If it hasnt already. I guess what I thought before wasnt so paranoid after all. The names and addresses of the others in my little book are fading. The color and quality of the ink combine to make those entries look as if they were written fifty or seventyfive years before the others Ive jotted in there. This has happened in the last four or five days. Im convinced that by September their names will be utterly gone. I suppose I could preserve them; I could just keep copying them. But Im also convinced that each would fade in its turn, and that very soon it would become an exercise in futilitylike writing I will not throw spitballs in class five hundred times. I would be writing names that meant nothing for a reason I didnt remember. Let it go, let it go. Bill, act quickly... but be careful! June 9th, 1985 Woke up in the middle of the night from a terrible nightmare I couldnt remember, got panicky, couldnt breathe. Reached for the callbutton and then couldnt use it. Had a terrible vision of Mark Lamonica answering the bell with a hypo ... or Henry Bowers with his switchblade. I grabbed my address book and called Ben Hanscom in Nebraska... the address and number have faded still more, but they are still legible. No go, Joe. Got a recorded phonecompany voice telling me service to that number has been cancelled. Was Ben fat, or did he have something like a club foot? Lay awake until dawn. June 10th, 1985 They tell me I can go home tomorrow. I called Bill and told him thatI suppose I wanted to warn him that his time is getting shorter all the time. Bill is the only one I remember clearly and Im convinced that Im the only one he remembers clearly. Because we are both still here in Derry, I suppose. All right, he said. By tomorrow well be out of your hair. You still got your idea? Yeah. Looks like its time to try it. Be careful. He laughed and said something I both do and dont understand You cant be cccareful on a skuhhateboard, man. How will I know how it turned out, Bill? Youll know, he said, and hung up. My hearts with you, Bill, no matter how it turns out. My heart is with all of them, and I think that, even if we forget each other, well remember in our dreams. Im almost done with this diary nowand I suppose a diary is all that it will ever be, and that the story of Derrys old scandals and eccentricities has no place outside these pages. Thats fine with me; I think that, when they let me out of here tomorrow, it might finally be time to start thinking about some sort of new life ... although just what that might be is unclear to me. I loved you guys, you know. I loved you so much. EPILOGUE BILL DENBROUGH BEATS THE DEVIL (II) I knew the bride when she used to do the Pony, I knew the bride when she used to do the Stroll. I knew the bride when she used to wanna party, I knew the bride when she used to rock and roll. Nick Lowe You cant be careful on a skateboard, man. some kid 1 Noon of a summer day. Bill stood naked in Mike Hanlons bedroom, looking at his lean body in the mirror on the door. His bald head gleamed in the light which fell through the window and cast his shadow along the floor and up the wall. His chest was hairless, his thighs and shanks skinny but overlaid with ropes of muscle. Still, he thought, its an adults body we got here, no question about that. Theres the pot belly that comes with a few too many good steaks, a few too many bottles of Kirin beer, a few too many poolside lunches where you had the Reuben or the French dip instead of the diet plate. Your seats dropped, too, Bill old buddy. You can still serve an ace if youre not too hung over and if your eyes in, but you cant hustle after the old Dunlop the way you could when you were seventeen. You got lovehandles and your balls are starting to get that middleaged dangly look. Theres lines on your face that werent there when you were seventeen.... Hell, they werent there on your first author photo, the one where you tried so hard to look as if you knew something ... anything. Youre too old for what youve got in mind, Billyboy. Youll kill both of you. He put on his underpants. If wed believed that, we never could have ... have done whatever it was we did. Because he didnt really remember what it was they had done, or what had happened to turn Audra into a catatonic wreck. He only knew what he was supposed to do now, and he knew that if he didnt do it now, he would forget that, too. Audra was sitting downstairs in Mikes easy chair, her hair hanging lankly to her shoulders, staring with rapt attention at the TV, which was currently showing Dialing for Dollars. She didnt speak and would only move if you led her. This is different. Youre just too old, man. Believe it. I wont. Then die here in Derry. Big fucking deal. He put on athletic socks, the one pair of jeans he had brought, the tank top hed bought at the Shirt Shack in Bangor the day before. The tank was bright orange. Across the front it said WHERE THE HELL IS DERRY, MAINE? He sat down on Mikes bedthe one he had shared for the last week of nights with his warm but corpselike wifeand put on his sneakers... a pair of Keds, which he had also bought yesterday in Bangor. He stood up and looked at himself in the mirror again. He saw a man pressing middle age dressed up in a kids clothes. You look ludicrous. What kid doesnt? Youre no kid. Give this up! Fuck, lets rock and roll a little, Bill said softly, and left the room. 2 In the dreams he will have in later years, he is always leaving Derry alone, at sunset. The town is deserted; everyone has left. The Theological Seminary and the Victorian houses on West Broadway brood black against a lurid sky, every summer sunset you ever saw rolled up into one. He can hear his footfalls echoing back as they rap along the concrete. The only other sound is water rushing hollowly through the stormdrains 3 He rolled Silver out into the driveway, put him on the kickstand, and checked the tires again. The front one was okay but the back one felt a little mushy. He got the bike pump that Mike had bought and firmed it up. When he put the pump back, he checked the playing cards and the clothespins. The bikes wheels still made those exciting machinegun sounds Bill remembered from his boyhood. Good deal. Youve gone crazy. Maybe. Well see. He went back into Mikes garage again, got the 3in1, and oiled the chain and sprocket. Then he stood up, looked at Silver, and gave the bulb of the oogahhorn a light, experimental squeeze. It sounded good. He nodded and went into the house. 4 and he sees all those places again, intact, as they were then the hulking brick fort of Derry Elementary, the Kissing Bridge with its complex intaglio of initials, highschool sweethearts ready to crack the world open with their passion who had grown up to become insurance agents and car salesmen and waitresses and beauticians; he sees the statue of Paul Bunyan against that bleeding sunset sky and the leaning white fence which ran along the Kansas Street sidewalk at the edge of the Barrens. He sees them as they were, as they always will be in some part of his mind ... and his heart breaks with love and horror. Leaving, leaving Derry, he thinks. We are leaving Derry, and if this was a story it would be the last halfdozen pages or so; get ready to put this one up on the shelf and forget it. The suns going down and theres no sound but my footfalls and the water in the drains. This is the time of 5 Dialing for Dollars had given way to Wheel of Fortune. Audra sat passively in front of it, her eyes never leaving the set. Her demeanor did not change when Bill snapped the TV off. Audra, he said, going to her and taking her hand. Come on. She didnt move. Her hand lay in his, warm wax. Bill took her other hand from the arm of Mikes chair and pulled her to her feet. He had dressed her that morning much as he had dressed himselfshe was wearing Levis and a blue shell top. She would have looked quite lovely if not for her wideeyed vacant stare. Cuhcome on, he said again, and led her through the door, into Mikes kitchen and, eventually, outside. She came willingly enough... although she would have plunged off the back porch stoop and gone sprawling in the dirt if Bill had not put an arm around her waist and guided her down the steps. He led her over to where Silver stood heeled over on his kickstand in the bright summer noonlight. Audra stood beside the bike, looking serenely at the side of Mikes garage. Get on, Audra. She didnt move. Patiently, Bill worked at getting her to swing one of her long legs over the carrier mounted on Silvers back fender. At last she stood there with the package carrier between her legs, not quite touching her crotch. Bill pressed his hand lightly to the top of her head and Audra sat down. He swung onto Silvers saddle and put up the kickstand with his heel. He prepared to reach behind him for Audras hands and draw them around his middle, but before he could do it they crept around him of their own accord, like small dazed mice. He looked down at them, his heart beating faster, seeming to pump in his throat as much as in his chest. It was the first independent action Audra had taken all week, so far as he knew... the first independent action she had taken since It happened ... whatever It had been. Audra? There was no answer. He tried to crane his neck around and see her but couldnt quite make it. There were only her hands around his waist, the nails showing the last chips of a red polish that had been put on by a bright, lively, talented young woman in a small English town. Were going for a ride, Bill said, and he began to roll Silver forward toward Palmer Lane, listening to the gravel crunch under the tires. I want you to hold on, Audra. I think... I think I may go sort of fffast. If I dont lose my guts. He thought of the kid he had met earlier during his stay in Derry, when It had still been happening. You cant be careful on a skateboard, the kid had said. Truer words were never spoken, kid. Audra? You ready? No answer. Had her hands tightened the tiniest bit across his middle? Probably just wishful thinking. He reached the end of the driveway and looked right. Palmer Lane ran straight to Upper Main Street, where a left turn would take him onto the hill running downtown. Downhill. Picking up speed. He felt a tremor of fear at the image, and a disquieting thought (old bones break easy, Billyboy) ran through his mind almost too quickly to read and was gone. But... But it wasnt all disquiet, was it? No. It was desire as well ... the feeling hed had when he saw the kid walking along with the skateboard under his arm. The desire to go fast, to feel the wind race past you without knowing if you were racing toward or running away from, to just go. To fly. Disquiet and desire. All the difference between world and wantthe difference between being an adult who counted the cost and a child who just got on it and went, for instance. All the world between. Yet not that much difference at all. Bedfellows, really. The way you felt when the rollercoaster car approached the top of the first steep grade, where the ride really begins. Disquiet and desire. What you want and what youre scared to try for. Where youve been and where you want to go. Something in a rockandroll song about wanting the girl, the car, the place to stand and be. Oh please God can you dig it. Bill closed his eyes for a moment, feeling the soft dead weight of his wife behind him, feeling the hill somewhere ahead of him, feeling his own heart inside him. Be brave, be true, stand. He began to push Silver forward again. You want to rock and roll a little, Audra? No answer. But that was all right. He was ready. Hold on, then. He began to pedal. It was hard going at first. Silver wobbled alarmingly back and forth, Audras weight adding to the imbalance... yet she must be doing some balancing, even unconsciously, or they would have crashed right away. Bill stood on the pedals, hands squeezing the handlegrips with maniacal tightness, his head turned skyward, his eyes slits, the cords on his neck standing out. Gonna fall splat right here in the street, split her skull and mine (no you aint go for it Bill go for it go for the son of a bitch) He stood on the pedals, revolving them, feeling every cigarette hed smoked over the last twenty years in his elevated bloodpressure and the race of his heart. Fuck that, too! he thought, and the rush of crazy exhilaration made him grin. The playing cards, which had been firing isolated shots, now began to clickclock faster. They were new, nice new Bikes, and they made a good loud sound. Bill felt the first touch of breeze on his bald pate, and his grin widened. I made that breeze, he thought. I made it by pumping these damn pedals. The STOP sign at the end of the lane was coming up. Bill began to brake... and then (his grin still widening, showing more and more of his teeth) he began to pump again. Ignoring the STOP sign, Bill Denbrough swept to the left, onto Upper Main Street above Bassey Park. Again Audras weight fooled him and they almost overbalanced and crashed. The bike wavered, wobbled, then righted itself. That breeze was stronger now, cooling the sweat on his forehead, evaporating it, rushing past his ears with a low intoxicating sound that was a little like the sound of the ocean in a conch shell but was really like nothing else on earth. Bill supposed it was a sound the kid with the skateboard was familiar with. But its a sound youll fall out of touch with, kid, he thought. Things have a way of changing. Its a dirty trick, so be prepared for it. Pedaling faster now, finding a surer balance in speed. The ruins of Paul Bunyan on the left, like a fallen colossus. Bill shouted Hiyo Silver, AWAYYYYY! Audras hands tightened around his middle; he felt her stir against his back. But there was no urge to turn and try to see her now ... no urge, no need. He pedaled faster, laughing out loud, a tall skinny bald man on a bike crouched over the handlebars to lessen the windresistance. People turned to look as he raced alongside Bassey Park. Now Upper Main Street began to incline toward the cavedin center of town at a steeper angle, and a voice inside whispered to him that if he didnt brake soon he would find himself unable; he would simply go sweeping into the sunken remains of the threeway intersection like a bat out of hell and kill both of them. Instead of braking he began to pedal again, urging the bike to go even faster. Now he was flying down Main Street Hill and he could see the whiteandorange crash barriers, the smudgepots with their smoky Halloween flames marking the edge of the cavein, he could see the tops of buildings which jutted out of the streets like the figments of a madmans imagination. Hiyo Silver, AWAYYYYYYY! Bill Denbrough cried deliriously, and rushed down the hill toward whatever there would be, aware for one last time of Derry as his place, aware most of all that he was alive under a real sky, and that all was desire, desire, desire. He raced down the hill on Silver he raced to beat the devil. 6 leaving. So you leave, and there is an urge to look back, to look back just once as the sunset fades, to see that severe New England skyline one final timethe spires, the Standpipe, Paul with his axe slung over his shoulder. |
But it is perhaps not such a good idea to look backallthe stories say so. Look what happened to Lots wife. Best not to look back. Best to believe there will be happily ever afters all the way aroundandso there may be; who is to say there will not be such endings? Not all boats which sail away into darkness never find the sun again, or the hand of another child; if life teaches anything at all, it teaches that there are so many happy endings that the man who believes there is no God needs his rationality called into serious question. You leave and you leave quick when the sun starts to go down, he thinks in this dream. Thats what you do. And if you spare a last thought, maybe its ghosts you wonder about ... the ghosts of children standing in the water at sunset, standing in a circle, standing with their hands joined together, their faces young, sure, but tough ... tough enough, anyway, to give birth to the people they will become, tough enough to understand, maybe, that the people they will become must necessarily birth the people they were before they can get on with trying to understand simple mortality. The circle closes, the wheel rolls, and thats all there is. You dont have to look back to see those children; part of your mind will see them forever, live with them forever, love with them forever. They are not necessarily the best part of you, but they were once the repository of all you could become. Children I love you. I love you so much. So drive away quick, drive away while the last of the light slips away, drive away from Derry, from memory ... but not from desire. That stays, the bright cameo of all we were and all we believed as children, all that shone in our eyes even when we were lost and the wind blew in the night. Drive away and try to keep smiling. Get a little rock and roll on the radio and go toward all the life there is with all the courage you can find and all the belief you can muster. Be true, be brave, stand. All the rest is darkness. 7 Hey! Hey mister, you look out! Damn fools gonna Words whipped by in the slipstream, as meaningless as pennants in a breeze or untethered balloons. Here came the crash barriers; he could smell the sooty aroma of kerosene from the smudgepots. He saw the yawning darkness where the street had been, heard sullen water rushing down there in the tangled darkness, and laughed at the sound. He dragged Silver hard left, so close to the crash barriers now that the leg of his jeans actually whispered along one of them. Silvers wheels were less than three inches from the place where the tar ended in empty space, and he was running out of maneuvering room. Up ahead the water had eroded all of the street and half the sidewalk in front of Cashs Jewelry Store. Barriers closed off what was left of the sidewalk; it had been severely undercut. Bill? It was Audras voice, dazed and a little thick. She sounded as if she had just awakened from a deep sleep. Bill, where are we? What are we doing? Hi yo, Silver! Bill shouted, pointing the rushing gantry that was Silver directly at the crash barrier jutting out at right angles to the empty Cash show window. HI YO SILVER AWAYYYYY! Silver struck the barrier at better than forty miles an hour and it went flying, the centerboard in one direction, the Ashaped supports in two others. Audra cried out and squeezed Bill so tightly that he lost his breath. Up and down Main Street, Canal Street, and Kansas Street, people stood in doorways and on sidewalks, watching. Silver shot out onto the bridge of undercut sidewalk. Bill felt his left hip and knee chip the side of the jewelry store. He felt Silvers rear wheel sag suddenly and understood that the sidewalk was falling in behind them and then Silvers forward motion carried them back onto solid roadway. Bill swerved to avoid an overturned trashcan and barrelled out into the street again. Brakes squealed. He saw the grille of a big truck approaching and still couldnt seem to stop laughing. He ran through the space the heavy truck wound up occupying a full second before it got there. Shit, time to spare! Yelling, tears squirting from his eyes, Bill blew Silvers oogahhorn, listening to each hoarse bray embed itself in the days bright light. Bill, youre going to kill us both! Audra cried out, and although there was terror in her voice, she was also laughing. Bill heeled Silver over, and this time he felt Audra leaning with him, making the bike easier to control, helping to make the two of them exist with it, at least for this small compact moment of time, as three living things. Do you think so? he shouted back. I know so! she cried, and then grabbed his crotch, where there was a huge and cheerful erection. But dont stop! He had nothing to say about it, however. Silvers speed was bleeding away on UpMile Hill, the heavy roar of the playing cards becoming single gunshots again. Bill stopped and turned to her. She was pale, wideeyed, obviously scared and confused... but awake, aware, and laughing. Audra, he said, laughing with her. He helped her off Silver, leaned the bike against a handy brick wall, and embraced her. He kissed her forehead, her eyes, her cheeks, her mouth, her neck, her breasts. She hugged him while he did it. Bill, whats been happening? I remember getting off the plane at Bangor, and I cant remember a thing after that. Are you all right? Yes. Am I? Yes. Now. She pushed him away so she could look at him. Bill, are you still stuttering? No, Bill said, and kissed her. My stutter is gone. For good? Yes, he said. I think this time its gone for good. Did you say something about rock and roll? I dont know. Did I? I love you, she said. He nodded and smiled. When he smiled he looked very young, bald head or not. I love you too, he said. And what else counts? 8 He awakens from this dream unable to remember exactly what it was, or much at all beyond the simple fact that he has dreamed about being a child again. He touches his wifes smooth back as she sleeps her warm sleep and dreams her own dreams; he thinks that it is good to be a child, but it is also good to be grownup and able to consider the mystery of childhood ... its beliefs and desires. I will write about all of this one day, he thinks, and knows its just a dawn thought, an afterdreaming thought. But its nice to think so for awhile in the mornings clean silence, to think that childhood has its own sweet secrets and confirms mortality, and that mortality defines all courage and love. To think that what has looked forward must also look back, and that each life makes its own imitation of immortality a wheel. Or so Bill Denbrough sometimes thinks on those early mornings after dreaming, when he almost remembers his childhood, and the friends with whom he shared it. This book was begun in Bangor, Maine, on September 9th, 1981, and completed in Bangor, Maine, on December 28th, 1985. Grateful acknowledgment is made for permission to reprint excerpts from the following copyrighted material. The acknowledgments are in the order in which the excerpts appear in the book. My Town by Michael Stanley. 1983 by Bema Music Co.Michael Stanley Music Co. The Return of the Exile from Poems by George Seferis. Translation copyright 1960 by Rex Warner. Reprinted by permission of David R. Godine, Publisher, Inc. My My Hey Hey by Neil Young and Jeff Blackburn. 1979 Silver Fiddle. Used by permission. All rights reserved. Paterson by William Carlos Williams. Copyright 1946, 1948, 1949, 1951, 1958, 1963 Florence Williams. Reprinted by permission of New Directions Publishing Corporation. No Surrender, Glory Days, and Born in the U.S.A. by Bruce Springsteen. 1984 Bruce Springsteen. ASCAP. All rights reserved. I Heard It Through the Grapevine words and music by Norman Whitfield and Barrett Strong. 1966 Jobete Music Co., Inc. Used by permission. International copyright secured. All rights reserved. The RubberbandMan by Tom Bell and Linda Creed. 1976 Mighty Three Music. Administered by the Mighty Three Music Group. Splish Splash by Bobby Darin and Jean Murray. 1958 Unart Music Corp. renewed 1986 CBS Catalogue Partnership. All rights controlled and administered by CBS Unart Catalog Inc. All rights reserved. International copyright secured. Used by permission. Books of Blood, Volume I, by Clive Barker. Copyright 1984. Reprinted by permission of The Berkeley Publishing Group. Summertime Blues by Eddie Cochran and Jerry Capehart. 1958 WarnerTamerlane Publishing Corp., Rightsong Music, Elvis Presley Music and Gladys Music. Used by permission of WarnerTamerlane Publishing Corp. All rights reserved. Earth Angel. 1954, renewal 1982 by Dootsie Williams Publications. Recorded by the Penguins, Dootone Records. DoReMi by Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II. Copyright 1959 by Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II. Williamson Music Co., owner of publication and allied rights throughout the Western Hemisphere and Japan. International copyright secured. All rights reserved. Used by permission. Mean Streets, a film by Martin Scorsese. 1973 Warner Bros. Inc. All rights reserved. Dont It Make You Wanta Go Home by Joe South. Copyright 1969 by Lowery Music Co., Inc., Atlanta, GA. International copyright secured. All rights reserved. Used by permission. Heres to the State of Richard Nixon by Phil Ochs. 1974 Warner Bros. Inc. ASCAP. All rights reserved. Used with permission. Whole Lot of Shakin Goin On by David Curlee Williams. Used by permission. Rock and Roll Is Here to Stay by David White. Published by Golden Egg MusicSingular Music. By permission of American Mechanical Rights Agency Inc. Bristol Stomp words and music by Kal Mann and Dave Appell. 1961 Kalmann Music, Inc. Its Still Rock and Roll to Me by Billy Joel. 1980 Impulsive Music April Music Inc. All rights controlled and administered by April Music Inc. All rights reserved. International copyright secured. Used by permission. Light My Fire words and music by The Doors. 1967 Doors Music Company. All rights reserved. Used by permission. My Toot Toot by Sidney Simien. 1985 Flat Town Music Company and SidSam Publishing Company. All rights reserved. Used by permission. Tutti Frutti by Dorothy La Bostrie and Richard Penniman. 1955, renewed 1983 Venice Music Corp. All rights controlled and administered by Blackwood Music Inc. under license from ATV Music (Venice). All rights reserved. International copyright secured. Used by permission. Diana by Paul Anka. Copyright 1957, 1963, renewed 1985 by Spanka Music Corp.Management Agency and Music Publishing, Inc. International copyright secured. All rights reserved. Reproduced by permission. High School Confidential by Ron Hargrave and Jerry Lee Lewis. By permission of Penron Music. Travelogue for Exiles from Collected Poems 19401978 by Karl Shapiro. Copyright 1942 and renewed 1970 by Karl Shapiro. Reprinted by permission of Random House, Inc. You Got to Lose words and music by Earl Hooker. Copyright 1969 by Duchess Music Corporation. Rights administered by MCA Music, a division of MCA Inc., New York, N.Y. Used by permission. All rights reserved. The Girl Cant Help It If the Menfolks Stop and Stare words and music by Robert W. Troup. 1956 Twentieth Century Music Corp., renewed 1984 Robert W. Troup. Assigned 1984 Londontown Music, Inc. Dont Back Down by Brian Wilson. 1964 Irving Music, Inc. (BMI). All rights reserved. International copyright secured. Surfin U.S.A. music by Chuck Berry, words by Brian Wilson. Copyright 1958, 1963 by Arc Music Corporation. Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. ShBoom (Life Could Be a Dream) by James Keyes, Claude Feaster, Carl Feaster, Floyd F. McRae, and James Edwards. Copyright 1954 by Progressive Music Publishing Co., Inc. Copyright renewed, assigned to Unichappell Music, Inc. (Rightsong Music, Publisher). International copyright secured. All rights reserved. Used by permission. I Knew the Bride When She Used to Rock n Roll by Nick Lowe. Anglo Rock Inc. Used with permission. a cognizant original v5 release november 13 2010 |
Table of Contents Title Page Dedication Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Chapter 9 Chapter 10 Chapter 11 Chapter 12 Chapter 13 Chapter 14 Chapter 15 Chapter 16 Chapter 17 Chapter 18 Chapter 19 Chapter 20 Chapter 21 Chapter 22 Chapter 23 Chapter 24 Chapter 25 Chapter 26 Chapter 27 Chapter 28 Chapter 29 Chapter 30 Chapter 31 Chapter 32 Chapter 33 Chapter 34 Chapter 35 Chapter 36 Chapter 37 Chapter 38 Chapter 39 Chapter 40 Chapter 41 Chapter 42 Chapter 43 Chapter 44 Chapter 45 Chapter 46 Chapter 47 Chapter 48 Chapter 49 Chapter 50 Chapter 51 Chapter 52 Chapter 53 Chapter 54 Chapter 55 Chapter 56 Chapter 57 Chapter 58 Chapter 59 Chapter 60 Chapter 61 Chapter 62 Chapter 63 Chapter 64 Chapter 65 Chapter 66 Chapter 67 Chapter 68 Chapter 69 Chapter 70 Chapter 71 Chapter 72 Chapter 73 Chapter 74 Chapter 75 Chapter 76 Chapter 77 Chapter 78 Chapter 79 Chapter 80 Chapter 81 Chapter 82 Chapter 83 Chapter 84 Chapter 85 Chapter 86 Chapter 87 Chapter 88 Chapter 89 Chapter 90 Chapter 91 Chapter 92 Chapter 93 Chapter 94 Chapter 95 Chapter 96 Chapter 97 Chapter 98 Chapter 99 Chapter 100 Chapter 101 Chapter 102 Chapter 103 Chapter 104 Chapter 105 Chapter 106 Chapter 107 Chapter 108 Chapter 109 Chapter 110 Chapter 111 Chapter 112 Chapter 113 Chapter 114 Chapter 115 Chapter 116 Chapter 117 Chapter 118 Chapter 119 Chapter 120 Chapter 121 Chapter 122 Chapter 123 Chapter 124 Chapter 125 Chapter 126 Chapter 127 Chapter 128 Chapter 129 Chapter 130 Chapter 131 Chapter 132 Chapter 133 Chapter 134 Chapter 135 Chapter 136 Chapter 137 Chapter 138 Chapter 139 Chapter 140 Chapter 141 Chapter 142 Copyright Page ONCE UPON A TIME, THERE WAS A TERROR. . . . The Eyes of the Dragon A tale of archetypal heroes and sweeping adventures, of dragons and princes and evil wizards, here is epic fantasy as only Stephen King could envision it. A kingdom is in turmoil after old King Roland dies and his worthy successor, Prince Peter, is imprisoned by the evil Flagg and his pawn, young Prince Thomas. But Flaggs evil plot is not perfect, for he knows naught of Thomass terrible secretor Prince Peters daring plan to escape to claim what is rightfully his. . . . Stephen King has taken the classic fairy tale and transformed it into a masterpiece of fiction for the ages. The sorcery of Stephen King . . . is expertly seductive. . . . The kind of book that keeps you up, redeyed with fatigue, until two a.m. because its not possible to stop turning the pages. The Washington Post Book World SIGNET Published by New American Library, a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA Penguin Group (Canada). 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario M4P 2Y3. Canada (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.) Penguin Books Ltd., 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England Penguin Ireland, 25 St. Stephens Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd.) Penguin Group (Australia), 250 Camberwell Road. Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty. Ltd.) Penguin Books India Pvt. Ltd., 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi 110 017, India Penguin Group (NZ), cnr Airborne and Rosedale Roads, Albany, Auckland 1310, New Zealand (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd.) Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty.) Ltd., 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196, South Africa Penguin Books Ltd., Registered Offices 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England First Signet Printing, January 1988 Copyright Stephen King, 1987 Illustrations copyright David Palladini, 1987 All rights reserved REGISTERED TRADEMARKMARCA REGISTRADA Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book. PUBLISHERS NOTE This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the authors imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or thirdparty Web sites or their content. The scanning, uploading and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the authors rights is appreciated. eISBN 9781101138076 httpus.penguingroup.com This story is for my great friend BEN STRAUB, and for my daughter, NAOMI KING. 1 Once, in a kingdom called Delain, there was a King with two sons. Delain was a very old kingdom and it had had hundreds of Kings, perhaps even thousands; when time goes on long enough, not even historians can remember everything. Roland the Good was neither the best nor the worst King ever to rule the land. He tried very hard not to do anyone great evil and mostly succeeded. He also tried very hard to do great works, but, unfortunately, he didnt succeed so well at that. The result was a very mediocre King; he doubted if he would be remembered long after he was dead. And his death might come at any time now, because he had grown old, and his heart was failing. He had perhaps one year left, perhaps three. Everyone who knew him, and everyone who observed his gray face and shaking hands when he held court, agreed that in five years at the very most a new King would be crowned in the great plaza at the foot of the Needle . . . and it would only be five years with Gods grace. So everyone in the Kingdom, from the richest baron and the most foppishly dressed courtier to the poorest serf and his ragged wife, thought and talked about the King in waiting, Rolands elder son, Peter. And one man thought and planned and brooded on something else how to make sure that Rolands younger son, Thomas, should be crowned King instead. This man was Flagg, the Kings magician. 2 Although Roland the King was oldhe admitted to seventy years but was surely older than thathis sons were young. He had been allowed to marry late because he had met no woman who pleased his fancy, and because his mother, the great Dowager Queen of Delain, had seemed immortal to Roland and to everyone elseand that included her. She had ruled the Kingdom for almost fifty years when, one day at tea, she put a freshly cut lemon in her mouth to ease a troublesome cough that had been plaguing her for a week or better. At that particular teatime, a juggler had been performing for the amusement of the Dowager Queen and her court. He was juggling five cunningly made crystal balls. Just as the Queen put the slice of lemon into her mouth, the juggler dropped one of his glass spheres. It shattered on the tiled floor of the great East Courtroom with a loud report. The Dowager Queen gasped at the sound. When she gasped, she pulled the lemon slice down her throat and choked to death very quickly. Four days later, the coronation of Roland was held in the Plaza of the Needle. The juggler did not see it; he had been beheaded on the executioners block behind the Needle three days before that. A King without heirs makes everybody nervous, especially when the King is fifty and balding. It was thus in Rolands best interest to marry soon, and to make an heir soon. His close advisor, Flagg, made Roland very aware of this. He also pointed out that at fifty, the years left to him in which he could hope to create a child in a womans belly were only a few. Flagg advised him to take a wife soon, and never mind waiting for a lady of noble birth who would take his fancy. If such a lady had not come into view by the time a man was fifty, Flagg pointed out, she probably never would. Roland saw the wisdom of this and agreed, never knowing that Flagg, with his lank hair and his white face that was almost always hidden behind a hood, understood his deepest secret that he had never met the woman of his fancy because he had never really fancied women at all. Women worried him. And he had never fancied the act that puts babies in the bellies of women. That act worried him, too. But he saw the wisdom of the magicians advice, and six months after the Dowager Queens funeral, there was a much happier event in the Kingdomthe marriage of King Roland to Sasha, who would become the mother of Peter and Thomas. Roland was neither loved nor hated in Delain. Sasha, however, was loved by all. When she died giving birth to the second son, the Kingdom was plunged into darkest mourning that lasted a year and a day. She had been one of six women Flagg had suggested to his King as possible brides. Roland had known none of these women, who were all similar in birth and station. They were all of noble blood but none of royal blood; all were meek and pleasant and quiet. Flagg suggested no one who might take his place as the mouth closest to the Kings ear. Roland chose Sasha because she seemed the quietest and meekest of the half dozen, and the least likely to frighten him. So they were wed. Sasha of the Western Barony (a very small barony indeed) was then seventeen years old, thirtythree years younger than her husband. She had never seen a man with his drawers off before her wedding night. When, on that occasion, she observed his flaccid penis, she asked with great interest Whats that, Husband? If she had said anything else, or if she had said what she said in a slightly different tone of voice, the events of that nightand this entire historymight have taken another course; in spite of the special drink Flagg had given him an hour before, at the end of the wedding feast, Roland might simply have slunk away. But he saw her then exactly as she wasa very young girl who knew even less about the babymaking act than he didand observed her mouth was kind, and began to love her, as everyone in Delain would grow to love her. It is Kings Iron, he said. It doesnt look like iron, said Sasha, doubtfully. It is before the forge, he said. Ah! said she. And where is the forge? If you will trust me, said he, getting into bed with her, I will show you, for you have brought it from the Western Barony with you but did not know it. 3 The people of Delain loved her because she was kind and good. It was Queen Sasha who created the Great Hospital, Queen Sasha who wept so over the cruelty of the bearbaiting in the Plaza that King Roland finally outlawed the practice, Queen Sasha who pleaded for a Remission of Kings Taxes in the year of the great drought, when even the leaves of the Great Old Tree went gray. Did Flagg plot against her, you might ask? Not at first. These were relatively small things in his view, because he was a real magician, and had lived hundreds and hundreds of years. He even allowed the Remission of Taxes to pass, because the year before, Delains navy had smashed the Anduan pirates, who had plagued the Kingdoms southern coast for over a hundred years. The skull of the Anduan pirateking grinned from a spike outside the palace walls and Delains treasury was rich with recovered plunder. In larger matters, matters of state, it was still Flaggs mouth which was closest to King Rolands ear, and so Flagg was at first content. 4 Although Roland grew to love his wife, he never grew to love that activity which most men consider sweet, the act which produces both the lowliest cooks prentice and the heir to the highest throne. He and Sasha slept in separate bedrooms, and he did not visit her often. These visits would happen no more than five or six times in a year, and on some of those occasions no iron could be made at the forge, in spite of Flaggs ever more potent drinks and Sashas unfailing sweetness. But, four years after the marriage, Peter was made in her bed. And on that one night, Roland had no need of Flaggs drink, which was green and foaming and which always made him feel a little strange in his head, as if he had gone crazy. He had been hunting that day in the Preserves with twelve of his men. Hunting was the thing that Roland had always loved most of allthe smell of the forest, the crisp tang of the air, the sound of the horn, and the feel of the bow as an arrow left on a true, hard course. Gunpowder was known but rare in Delain, and to hunt game with an iron tube was considered low and contemptible in any case. Sasha was reading in bed when he came to her, his ruddy, bearded face alight, but she laid her book on her bosom and listened raptly to his story as he told it, his hands moving. Near the end, he drew back to show her how he had drawn back the bow and had let FoeHammer, his fathers great arrow, fly across the little glen. When he did this, she laughed and clapped and won his heart. The Kings Preserves had almost been hunted out. In these modern days it was rare to find so much as a goodsized deer in them, and no one had seen a dragon since time out of mind. Most men would have laughed if you had suggested there might still be such a mythy creature left in that tame forest. But an hour before sundown on that day, as Roland and his party were about to turn back, that was just what they found . . . or what found them. The dragon came crashing and blundering out of the underbrush, its scales glowing a greenish copper color, its sootcaked nostrils venting smoke. It had not been a small dragon, either, but a male just before its first molting. Most of the party were thunderstruck, unable to draw an arrow or even to move. It stared at the hunting party, its normally green eyes went yellow, and it fluttered its wings. There was no danger that it could fly away from themits wings would not be well developed enough to support it in the air for at least another fifty years and two more moltingsbut the babywebbing which holds the wings against a dragons body until its tenth or twelfth year had fallen away, and a single flutter stirred enough wind to topple the head huntsman backward out of his saddle, his horn flying from his hand. Roland was the only one not stunned to utter movelessness, and although he was too modest to say so to Sasha, there was real heroism in his next few actions, as well as a sportsmans zest for the kill. The dragon might well have roasted most of the surprised party alive, if not for Rolands prompt action. He gigged his horse forward five steps, and nocked his great arrow. He drew and fired. The arrow went straight to the markthat one gilllike soft spot under the dragons throat, where it takes in air to create fire. The worm fell dead with a final fiery gust, which set all the bushes around it alight. The squires put this out quickly, some with water, some with beer, and not a few with pissand, now that I think of it, most of the piss was really beer, because when Roland went ahunting, he took a great lot of beer with him, and he was not stingy with it, either. The fire was out in five minutes, the dragon gutted in fifteen. You still could have boiled a kettle over its steaming nostrils when its tripes were let out upon the ground. The dripping ninechambered heart was carried to Roland with great ceremony. He ate it raw, as was the custom, and found it delicious. He only regretted the sad knowledge that he would almost certainly never have another. Perhaps it was the dragons heart that made him so strong that night. Perhaps it was only his joy in the hunt, and in knowing he had acted quickly and coolheadedly when all the others were sitting stunned in their saddles (except, of course, for the head huntsman, who had been lying stunned on his back). For whatever reason, when Sasha clapped her hands and cried, Well done, my brave Husband!, he fairly leaped into her bed. Sasha greeted him with open eyes and a smile that reflected his own triumph. That night was the first and only time Roland enjoyed his wifes embrace in sobriety. Nine months laterone month for each chamber of the dragons heartPeter was born in that same bed, and the Kingdom rejoiced there was an heir to the throne. 5 You probably thinkif you have bothered to think about it at allthat Roland must have stopped taking Flaggs strange green drink after the birth of Peter. Not so. He still took it occasionally. This was because he loved Sasha, and wanted to please her. In some places, people assume that only men enjoy sex, and that a woman would be grateful to be left alone. The people of Delain, however, held no such peculiar ideasthey assumed that a woman took normal pleasure in that act which produced earths most pleasurable creatures. Roland knew he was not properly attentive to his wife in this matter, but he resolved to be as attentive as he could, even if this meant taking Flaggs drink. Only Flagg himself knew how rarely the King went to his Queens bed. Some four years after the birth of Peter, on New Years Day, a great blizzard visited Delain. It was the greatest, save one, in living memorythe other Ill tell you of later. Heeding an impulse he could not explain even to himself, Flagg mixed the King a draught of double strengthperhaps it was something in the wind that urged him to do it. Ordinarily, Roland would have made a grimace at the awful taste and perhaps put it aside, but the excitement of the storm had caused the annual New Years Day party to be especially gay, and Roland had become very drunk. The blazing fire on the hearth reminded him of the dragons final explosive breath, and he had toasted the head, which was mounted on the wall, many times. So he drank the green potion off at a single gulp, and an evil lust fell upon him. He left the dining hall at once and visited Sasha. In the course of trying to love her, he hurt her. Please, Husband, she cried, sobbing. Im sorry, he mumbled. Huzzz . . . He fell heavily asleep beside her and remained insensible for the next twenty hours. She never forgot the strange smell that had been on his breath that night. It had been a smell like rotten meat, a smell like death. Whatever, she wondered, had he been eating . . . or drinking? Roland never touched Flaggs drink again, but Flagg was well satisfied, nevertheless. Nine months later, Sasha gave birth to Thomas, her second son. She died bringing him forth. Such things happened, of course, and while everyone was saddened, no one was really surprised. They believed they knew what had happened. But the only people in the Kingdom who really knew the circumstances of Sashas death were Anna Crookbrows, the midwife, and Flagg, the Kings magician. Flaggs patience with Sashas meddling had finally run out. 6 Peter was only five when his mother died, but he remembered her dearly. He thought her sweet, tender, loving, full of mercy. But five is a young age, and most of his memories were not very specific. There was one clear memory which he held in his mind, howeverit was of a reproach she had made to him. Much later, the memory of this reproach became vital to him. It had to do with his napkin. Every first of Fivemonth, a feast was held at court to celebrate the spring plantings. In his fifth year, Peter was allowed to attend for the first time. Custom decreed that Roland should sit at the head of the table, the heir to the throne at his right hand, the Queen at the foot of the table. The practical result of this was that Peter would be out of her reach during the meal, and so Sasha coached him carefully beforehand on how he should behave. She wanted him to show up well, and to be mannerly. And, of course, she knew that during the meal he would be on his own, because his father had no idea of manners at all. Some of you may wonder why the task of instructing Peter on his manners fell to Sasha. Did the boy not have a governess? (Yes, as a matter of fact he had two.) Were there no servants whose service was dedicated wholly to the little prince? (Battalions of them.) The trick was not to get these people to take care of Peter but to keep them away. Sasha wanted to raise him herself, at least as much as she could. She had very definite ideas about how her son should be raised. She loved him dearly and wanted to be with him for her own selfish reasons. But she also realized that she had a deep and solemn responsibility in the matter of Peters nurture. This little boy would be King someday, and above all else, Sasha wanted him to be good. A good boy, she thought, would be a good King. Great banquets in the Kings Hall were not very neat affairs, and most nannies wouldnt have been very concerned about the little boys table manners. Why, he is to be the King! they would have said, a little shocked at the idea that they should correct him in such piddling matters. Who cares if he spills the gravy boat? Who cares if he dribbles on his ruff, or even wipes his hands on it? Did not King Alan in the old days sometimes vomit into his plate and then command his court jester to come nigh and drink this nice hot soup? Did not King John often bite the heads off live trout and then put the flopping bodies into the bodices of the serving girls dresses? Will not this banquet end up, as most banquets do, with the participants throwing food across the table at each other? Undoubtedly it would, but by the time things degenerated to the foodthrowing stage, she and Peter would long since have retired. What concerned Sasha was that attitude of who cares. She thought it was the worst idea anyone could ever plant in the head of a little boy destined to be King. So Sasha instructed Peter carefully, and she observed him carefully on the night of the banquet. And later, as he lay sleepy in his bed, she talked to him. Because she was a good mother, she first complimented him lovingly on his behavior and mannersand this was right, because for the most part they had been exemplary. But she knew that no one would correct him where he went wrong unless she did it herself, and she knew she must do it now, in these few years when he idolized her. So when she was finished complimenting him, she said You did one thing wrong, Pete, and I never want to see you do it again. Peter lay in his bed, his dark blue eyes looking at her solemnly. What was that, Mother? You didnt use your napkin, said she. You left it folded by your plate, and it made me sorry to see it. You ate the roast chicken with your fingers, and that was fine, because that is how men do it. But when you put the chicken down again, you wiped your fingers on your shirt, and that is not right. But Father . . . and Mr. Flagg . . . and the other nobles . . . Bother Flagg, and bother all the nobles in Delain! she cried with such force that Peter cringed back in his bed a little. He was afraid and ashamed for having made those roses bloom in her cheeks. What your father does is right, for he is the King, and what you do when you are King will always be right. But Flagg is not King, no matter how much he would like to be, and the nobles are not Kings, and you are not King yet, but only a little boy who forgot his manners. She saw he was afraid, and smiled. She laid her hand on his brow. Be calm, Peter, she said. It is a small thing, but still importantbecause youll be King in your own time. Now run and fetch your slate. But its bedtime Bother bedtime, too. Bedtime can wait. Bring your slate. Peter ran for his slate. Sasha took the chalk tied to the side and carefully printed three letters. Can you read this word, Peter? Peter nodded. There were only a few words that he could read, although he knew most of the Great Letters. This happened to be one of the words. It says GOD. Yes, thats right. Now write it backward and see what you find. Backward? Peter said doubtfully. Yes, thats right. Peter did so, his letters staggering childishly across the slate below his mothers neat printing. He was astounded to find another of the few words he could read. DOG! Mamma! It says DOG! Yes. It says dog. The sadness in her voice quenched Peters excitement at once. His mother pointed from GOD to DOG. These are the two natures of man, she said. Never forget them, because someday you will be King and Kings grow to be great and tallas great and tall as dragons in their ninth moltings. Father isnt great and tall, objected Peter. Roland was, in fact, short and rather bowlegged. Also, he carried a great belly in front of him from all the beer and mead he had consumed. Sasha smiled. He is, though. Kings grow invisibly, Peter, and it happens all at once, as soon as they grasp the scepter and the crown is put on their heads in the Plaza of the Needle! They do? Peters eyes grew large and round. He thought that the subject had wandered far from his failure to use his napkin at the banquet, but he was not sorry to see such an embarrassing topic lost in favor of this tremendously interesting one. Besides, he had already resolved that he would never forget to use his napkin againif it was important to his mother, then it was important to him. Oh yes, they do. Kings grow most awfully big, and thats why they have to be specially careful, for a very big person could crush smaller ones under his feet just taking a walk, or turning around, or sitting down quickly in the wrong place. Bad Kings do such things often. I think even good Kings cannot avoid doing them sometimes. I dont think I understand Then listen a moment longer. She tapped the slate again. Our preachers say that our natures are partly of God and partly of Old Man Splitfoot. Do you know who Old Man Splitfoot is, Peter? Hes the devil. Yes. But there are few devils outside of madeup stories, Petemost bad people are more like dogs than devils. Dogs are friendly but stupid, and thats the way most men and women are when they are drunk. When dogs are excited and confused, they may bite; when men are excited and confused, they may fight. Dogs are great pets because they are loyal, but if a pet is all a man is, he is a bad man, I think. Dogs can be brave, but they may also be cowards that will howl in the dark or run away from danger with their tails between their legs. A dog is just as eager to lick the hand of a bad master as he is to lick the hand of a good one, because dogs dont know the difference between good and bad. A dog will eat slops, vomit up the part his stomach cant stand, and then go back for more. She fell silent for a moment, perhaps thinking of what was going on in the banqueting hall right nowmen and women roaring with goodnatured drunken laughter, flinging food at each other, and sometimes turning aside to vomit casually on the floor beside their chairs. Roland was much the same, and sometimes this made her sad, but she did not hold it against him, nor did she tax him with it. It was his way. He might promise to reform in order to please her, and he might even do it, but he would not be the same man afterward. Do you understand these things, Peter? Peter nodded. Fine! Now, tell me. She leaned toward him. Does a dog use a napkin? Humbled and ashamed, Peter looked down at the counterpane and shook his head. Apparently the conversation hadnt wandered as far as he had thought. Perhaps because the evening had been very full and because he was now very tired, tears rose in his eyes and spilled down his cheeks. He struggled against the sobs that wanted to come. He locked them in his chest. Sasha saw this and admired it. Dont cry over an unused napkin, my love, said Sasha, for that was not my intention. She rose, her full and pregnant belly before her. The delivery of Thomas was now very near. Your behavior was otherwise exemplary. Any mother in the Kingdom would have been proud of a young son who behaved himself half so well, and my heart is full with admiration for you. I only tell you these things because I am the mother of a prince. That is sometimes hard, but it cannot be changed, and i truth, I would not change it if I could. But remember that someday lives will depend on your every waking motion; lives may even depend on dreams which come to you in sleep. Lives may not depend on whether or not you use your napkin after the roast chicken . . . but they may. They may. Lives have depended on less, at times. All I ask is that in everything you do, you try to remember the civilized side of your nature. The good sidethe God side. Will you promise to do that, Peter? I promise. Then all is well. She kissed him lightly. Luckily, I am young and you are young. We will talk of these things more, when you have more understanding. They never did, but Peter never forgot the lesson he always used his napkin, even when those around him did not. 7 So Sasha died. She has little more part in this story, yet there is one further thing about her you should know she had a dollhouse. This dollhouse was very large and very fine, almost a castle in miniature. When the time of her marriage came round, Sasha mustered as much cheer as she could, but she was sad to be leaving everyone and everything at the great house in the Western Barony where she had grown upand she was a little bit nervous, too. She told her mother, I have never been married before and do not know if I shall like it. But of all the childish things she left behind, the one she regretted most was the dollhouse she had had ever since she was a little girl. Roland, who was a kind man, somehow discovered this, and although he was also nervous about his future life (after all, he had never been married before, either), he found time to commission Quentin Ellender, the greatest craftsman in the land, to build his new wife a new dollhouse. I want it to be the finest dollhouse a young lady ever had, he told Ellender. I want her to look at it once and forget about her old dollhouse forever. As youll no doubt realize, if Roland really meant this, it was a foolish thing to say. No one ever forgets a toy that made him or her supremely happy as a child, even if that toy is replaced by one like it that is much nicer. Sasha never forgot her old dollhouse, but she was quite impressed with the new one. Anyone who was not a total idiot would have been. Those who saw it declared it was Quentin Ellenders best work, and it may have been. It was a country house in miniature, very like the one Sasha had lived in with her parents in rolling Western Barony. Everything in it was small, but so cunningly made you would swear it must really work . . . and most things in it did! The stove, for instance, really got hot and would even cook tiny portions of food. If you put a piece of hard coal no bigger than a matchbox in it, it would burn all day . . . and if you reached into the kitchen with your clumsy bigpersons finger and happened to touch the stove while the coal was burning, it would give you a burn for your pains. There were no faucets and no flushing toilets, because the Kingdom of Delain did not know about such thingsand doesnt even to this daybut if you were very careful, you could pump water from a hand pump that stood not much taller than your pinkie finger. There was a sewing room with a spinning wheel that really spun and a loom that really wove. The spinet in the parlor would really play, if you touched the keys with a toothpick, and the tone was true. People who saw this said it was a miracle, and surely Flagg must have been involved somehow. When Flagg heard such stories, he only smiled and said nothing. He had not been involved in the dollhouse at allhe thought it a silly project, in truthbut he also knew it was not always necessary to make claims and tell people how wonderful you were to achieve greatness. Sometimes all you had to do was look wise and keep your mouth shut. In Sashas dollhouse were real Kashamin rugs, real velvet curtains, real china plates; the cold cabinet really kept things cold. |
The wainscoting in the receiving parlor and the front hall was of cherished ironwood. There was glass in all the windows and a manycolored fanlight over the wide front doors. All in all it was the jolliest dollhouse any child ever dreamed of. Sasha clapped her hands over it with real delight at the wedding party when it was unveiled, and thanked her husband for it. Later she went to Ellenders workshop and not only thanked him but curtsied deeply before him, an act that was almost unheard ofin that day and age, Queens did not curtsy to mere artisans. Roland was pleased and Ellender, whose sight had failed noticeably in the course of the project, was deeply touched. But it did not make her forget her old dear dollhouse at home, as ordinary as it seemed when compared with this one, and she did not spend as many rainy afternoons playing with itrearranging the furniture, lighting the stove and watching the chimneys smoke, pretending that there was a high tea going on or that there was to be a great dinner party for the Queenas she had before, even as an older girl of fifteen and sixteen. One of the reasons was very simple. There was no fun making ready for a pretend party at which the Queen would be in attendance when she was the Queen. And maybe that one reason was really all the reasons. She was a grownup now, and she discovered that being a grownup was not quite what she had suspected it would be when she was a child. She had thought then that she would make a conscious decision one day to simply put her toys and games and little makebelieves away. Now she discovered that was not what happened at all. Instead, she discovered, interest simply faded. It became less and less and less, until a dust of years drew over the bright pleasures of childhood, and they were forgotten. 8 Peter, a little boy who would someday be King, had dozens of toysno, if I am to tell you the truth, he had thousands of toys. He had hundreds of lead soldiers with which he fought great battles, and dozens of play horses. He had games and balls and jacks and marbles. He had stilts that made him five feet high. He had a magical springstick on which he could bounce, and all the drawing paper he wanted in a time when paper was extremely hard to make and only wealthy people could afford to have it. But of all the toys in the castle, the one he loved the best was his mothers dollhouse. He had never known the one in the Western Barony, and so to him this was the dollhouse of dollhouses. He would sit before it for hours on end when the rain poured down outside, or when the winter wind shrieked out of a blue throat filled with snow. When he fell ill with Childrens Tattoo (a disease which we call chicken pox), he had a servant bring it to him on a special table that went over his bed and played with it almost ceaselessly until he was well. He loved to imagine the tiny people that would fill the house; sometimes they were almost so real he could see them. He talked for them in different voices and invented them all. They were the King family. There was Roger King, who was brave and powerful (if not very tall, and slightly bowlegged), and who had once killed a dragon. There was lovely Sarah King, his wife. And there was their little boy, Petie, who loved and was loved by them. Not to mention, of course, all the servants he invented to make the beds, stoke the stove, fetch the water, cook the meals, and mend the clothes. Because he was a boy, some of the stories he made up to go with the house were a little more bloodthirsty than the stories Sasha had made up to go with hers as a little girl. In one of them, the Anduan pirates were all around the house, wanting to get in and slaughter the family. There was a famous fight. Dozens of pirates were killed, but in the end they were too many. They made to attack for the final time. But just before they did, the Kings Own Guardthis part was played by Peters lead soldiersarrived and killed every one of those rotten Anduan seadogs. In another story, a nest of dragons burst out of a nearby wood (usually the nearby wood was under Sashas sofa by the window), meaning to burn up the house with their furious breath. But Roger and Petie rushed out with their bows and killed every one. Until the ground was black with their icky old blood, Peter told his father the King that night at dinner, and this made Roland roar with approval. After Sasha died, Flagg told Roland that he did not believe it was right for a boy to be playing with dollhouses. It might not make him a sissy, Flagg said, but then again, it might. Certainly it would not sound well, if the tale got out to the general population. And such stories always did. The castle was full of servants. Servants saw everything, and their tongues wagged. Hes only six, Roland said, uneasy. Flagg, with his white, hungry face far back in his deep hood and his magical spells, always made him uneasy. Six is old enough to train a boy in the way he should go, Sire, Flagg said. Think you well on it. Your judgment will be right in this, as in all things. Think you well on it, Flagg said, and that was just what King Roland did, In fact, I should think it fair to say that he never thought on anything so hard during his entire twentysomeyear reign as King of Delain. That probably sounds strange to you, if you have thought of all the duties a King hasweighty matters such as putting taxes on some things or ending them on others, whether or not to declare war, whether to pardon or condemn. What, you might say, was a decision over whether or not to allow a little boy to play with a dollhouse next to those other things? Maybe nothing, maybe much. I will let you make up your mind on that. I will tell you that Roland was not the smartest King who had ever ruled in Delain. Thinking well had always been very hard work for him. It made him feel as if boulders were rolling around in his head. It made his eyes water and his temples throb. When he thought deeply, his nose got stuffed up. As a boy, his studies in composition and mathematics and history had made his head ache so badly that he had been allowed to give them up at twelve and do what he did best, which was to hunt. He tried very hard to be a good King, but he had a feeling that he could never be good enough, or smart enough, to solve the Kingdoms problems or to make many decisions the right way, and he knew if he made them the wrong way, people would suffer for it. If he had heard Sasha telling Peter about Kings after the banquet, he would have agreed completely. Kings really were bigger than other people, and sometimesa lot of timeshe wished he were smaller. If you have ever in your life had serious questions about whether or not you were good enough for some task, then you will know how he felt. What you may not know is that such worries start to feed on themselves after awhile. Even if that feeling that you arent good enough to get the job done isnt true at first, it can become true in time. This had happened to Roland, and over the years he had come to rely more and more on Flagg. He was sometimes troubled by the idea that Flagg was King in all but namebut these worries came only late at night. In the daytime he was only grateful for Flaggs support. If not for Sasha, Roland might have been a much worse King than he really was, and that was because the little voice he sometimes heard in the night when he couldnt sleep held much more of the truth than his daytime gratitudes. Flagg really was running the Kingdom, and Flagg was a very bad man. We will have to speak more of him later, unfortunately, but well let him go for now, and good riddance. Sasha had broken Flaggs power over Roland a little. Her own advice was good and practical, and it was much more kind and just than the magicians. She never really liked Flaggfew in Delain did, and many shuddered at his very namebut her dislike was mild. Her feelings might have been much different if she had known how carefully Flagg watched her, and with what growing poisonous hate. 9 Once Flagg really did set out to poison Sasha. This was after she asked Roland to pardon a pair of army deserters whom Flagg had wanted beheaded in the Plaza of the Needle. Deserters, he had argued, were a bad example. If one or two were allowed to get away without paying the full penalty, others might try it. The only way to discourage them, he said, was to show them the heads of those who had already tried it. Other wouldbe deserters would look at those flyblown heads with their staring eyes and think twice about the seriousness of their service to the King. Sasha, however, had discovered facts about the case from one of her maids that Roland didnt know. The mother of the older boy had fallen gravely ill. There were three younger brothers and two younger sisters in the family. All might have died in the bitter cold of the Delain winter if the boy hadnt left his encampment, gone home, and chopped wood for his mother. The younger boy had gone because he was the olders best friend, and his sworn blood brother. Without the younger boy, it might have taken two weeks to chop enough wood to keep the family through the winter. With both of them working at top speed, it had taken only six days. This was putting it in a different light. Roland had loved his own mother very much, and would gladly have died for her. He made inquiries and found out that Sasha had the right of the story. He also found out that the deserters had left only after a sadistic sergeant major had repeatedly refused to relay their requests for compassionate leave to their superior, and that as soon as four cords of wood had been chopped, they had gone back, although both had known they must be courtmartialed and face the headsmans axe. Roland pardoned them. Flagg nodded, smiled, and said only Your will is Delains will, Sire. Not for all the gold in the Four Kingdoms would he have allowed Roland to see the sick fury that rose in his heart when his will was balked. Rolands pardon of the boys was greatly praised in Delain, because many of Rolands subjects also knew the true facts and those who didnt know them were quickly informed by the rest. Rolands wise and compassionate pardon of the two was remembered when other, less humane decrees (which were, as a rule, also the magicians ideas) were imposed. All of this made no difference to Flagg. He had wanted them killed, and Sasha had interfered. Why could Roland not have married another? He had known none of them, and cared for women not at all. Why not another? Well, it didnt matter. Flagg smiled at the pardon, but he swore in his heart then that he would attend Sashas funeral. On the night Roland signed the pardon, Flagg went to his gloomy basement laboratory. There he donned a heavy glove and took a deathwatch spider from a cage where he had kept her for twenty years, feeding her newborn baby mice. Each of the mice he fed the spider was poisoned and dying; Flagg did this to increase the potency of the spiders own poison, which was already potent beyond belief. The spider was blood red and as big as a rat. Her bloated body quivered with venom; venom dripped from her stinger in clear drops that burned smoking holes in the top of Flaggs worktable. Now die, my pretty, and kill a Queen, Flagg whispered, and crushed the spider to death in his glove, which was made of a magical steel mesh which resisted the poisonyet still that night, when he went to bed, his hand was swelled and throbbing and red. Poison from the spiders crushed, twisted body gushed into the goblet. Flagg poured brandy over the deadly stuff, then stirred the two together. When he took the spoon from the glass, its bowl was twisted and misshapen. The Queen would take one sip and fall dying on the floor. Her death would be quick but extremely painful, Flagg thought with satisfaction. Sasha was in the habit of taking a glass of brandy each night, because she often had trouble falling asleep. Flagg rang for a servant to come and take the drink to her. Sasha never knew how close she came to death that night. Moments after brewing the deadly drink, before the servant knocked, Flagg poured it down the drain in the center of his floor and stood listening to it hiss and bubble away into the pipe. His face was twisted with hate. When the hissing had died away, he flung the crystal goblet into the far corner with all his force. It shattered like a bomb. The servant knocked and was admitted. Flagg pointed to where the shards glittered. Ive broken a goblet, he said. Clean it up. Use a broom, idiot. If you touch the pieces, youll regret it. 10 He poured the poison down the drain at the last moment because he realized he might well be caught. If Roland had loved the young Queen just a little less, Flagg would have chanced it. But he was afraid that Roland, in his wounded fury at the loss of his wife, would never rest until he found the killer and saw his head on the spike at the very tip of the Needle. It was the one crime he would see avenged, no matter who had committed it. And would he find the murderer? Flagg thought he might. Hunting, after all, was the thing Roland did best. So Sasha escapedthat timeprotected by Flaggs fear and her husbands love. And in the meantime, Flagg still had the Kings ear in most matters. Concerning the dollhouse, howeverin that matter, you could say Sasha won, even though Flagg had by then succeeded in ridding himself of her. 11 Not long after Flagg made his disparaging comments about dollhouses and royal sissies, Roland crept into the dead Queens morning room unseen and watched his son at play. The King stood just inside the door, his brow deeply furrowed. He was thinking much harder than he was used to thinking, and that meant the boulders were rolling around in his head and his nose was stuffy. He saw that Peter was using the dollhouse to tell himself stories, to make believe, and that the stories he made up were not sissy stories at all. They were stories of blood and thunder and armies and dragons. They were, in other words, stories after the Kings own heart. He discovered in himself a wistful desire to join his son, to help him make up even better tales in which the dollhouse and all its fascinating contents and its makebelieve family figured. Most of all, he saw that Peter was using Sashas dollhouse to keep Sasha alive in his heart, and Roland approved of this most of all, because he missed his wife sorely. Sometimes he was so lonely he almost cried. Kings, of course, do not cry . . . and if, on one or two occasions after Sasha had died, he awoke with the case on his pillow damp, what of that? The King left the room as silently as he had come. Peter never saw him. Roland lay awake most of that night, thinking deeply about what he had seen, and although it was hard for him to endure Flaggs disapproval, he saw him the next morning in a private audience, before his resolve could weaken, and told him he had thought the matter over carefully and decided Peter should be allowed to play with the dollhouse as long as he wished. He said he believed it was doing the boy no harm. With that out, he settled back uneasily to wait for Flaggs rebuttal. But no rebuttal came. Flagg only raised his eyebrowsthis Roland barely saw in the deep shadow of the hood Flagg always woreand said, Your will, Sire, is the will of the Kingdom. Roland knew from the tone that Flagg thought his decision was a bad one, but the tone also told him Flagg would not dispute it further. He was deeply relieved to be let off so cheaply. Later that day, when Flagg suggested that the farmers of the Eastern Barony could stand higher taxes in spite of the drought that had killed most of their crops the year before, Roland agreed eagerly. In truth, having the old fool (for so Flagg thought Roland to be in his deeper thoughts) go against his wishes in the matter of the dollhouse seemed a very minor thing to the magician. The rise in taxes for the Eastern Barony was the important thing. And Flagg had a deeper secret, one which pleased him well. In the end he had succeeded in murdering Sasha, after all. 12 In those days, when a Queen or any woman of royal birth was taken to bed to deliver a child, a midwife was called in. The doctors were all men, and no man was allowed to be with a woman when she was about to have a child. The midwife who delivered Peter was Anna Crookbrows, of the Third Southard Alley. She was called again when Sashas time with Thomas came around. Anna was past fifty at the time when Sashas second labor began, and a widow. She had one son of her own, and in his twentieth year he contracted the Shaking Disease, which always killed its victims in terrible pain after some years of suffering. She loved this boy very much, and at last, after every other idea had proved useless, she went to Flagg. This had been ten years before, neither prince yet born and Roland himself still a royal bachelor. He received her in his dank basement rooms, which were near the dungeonsduring their interview the uneasy woman could sometimes hear the lost screams of those who had been locked away from the suns light for years and years. And, she thought with a shudder, if the dungeons were near, then the torture chambers must also be near. Nor did Flaggs apartment itself make her feel any easier. Strange designs were drawn on the floor in many colors of chalk. When she blinked, the designs seemed to change. In a cage hung from a long black manacle, a twoheaded parrot cawed and sometimes talked to itself, one head speaking, the other head answering. Musty books frowned down at her. Spiders spun in dark corners. From the laboratory came a mixture of strange chemical smells. Yet she stammered out her story somehow and then waited in an agony of suspense. I can cure your son, he said finally. Anna Crookbrowss ugly face was transformed into something near beauty by her joy. My Lord! she gasped, and could think of no more, so she said it again. Oh, my Lord! But in the shadow of his hood, Flaggs white face remained distant and brooding, and she felt afraid again. What would you pay for such a miracle? he asked. Anything, she gasped, and meant it. Oh my Lord Flagg, anything! I ask for one favor, he said. Will you give it? Gladly! I dont know what it is yet, but when the time comes, I shall. She had fallen on her knees before him, and now he bent toward her. His hood fell back, and his face was terrible indeed. It was the white face of a corpse with black holes for eyes. And if you refuse what I ask, woman . . . I shall not refuse! Oh my Lord, I shall not! I shall not! I swear it on my dear husbands name! Then it is well. Bring your son to me tomorrow night, after dark. She led the poor boy in the next night. He trembled and shook, his head nodded foolishly, his eyes rolled. There was a slick of drool on his chin. Flagg gave her a dark, plumcolored potion in a beaker. Have him drink this, he said. It will blister his mouth, but have him drink every drop. Then get the fool out of my sight. She murmured to him. The boys shaking increased for a moment as he tried to nod his head. He drank all of the liquid and then doubled over, screaming. Get him out, Flagg said. Yes, get him out! one of the parrots two heads cried. Get him out, no screaming allowed here! the other head screamed. She got him home, sure that Flagg had murdered him. But the next day the Shaking Disease had left her son completely, and he was well. Years passed. When Sashas labor with Thomas began, Flagg called for her and whispered in her ear. They were alone in his deep rooms, but even so, it was better that such a dread command be whispered. Anna Crookbrowss face went deadly white, but she remembered Flaggs words If you refuse . . . And would not the King have two children? She had only one. And if the King wanted to remarry and have even more, let him. In Delain, women were plentiful. So she went to Sasha, and spoke encouragingly, and at a critical moment a little knife glittered in her hand. No one saw the one small cut she made. A moment later, Anna cried Push, my Queen! Push, for the baby comes! Sasha pushed. Thomas came from her as effortlessly as a boy zipping down a slide. But Sashas lifeblood gushed out upon the sheet. Ten minutes after Thomas came into the world, his mother was dead. And so Flagg was not concerned about the piffling matter of the dollhouse. What mattered was that Roland was growing old, there was no meddling Queen to stand in his way, and now he had not one son to choose from but two. Peter was, of course, the elder, but that did not really matter. Peter could be gotten out of the way if time should prove him unsuitable for Flaggs purposes. He was only a child, and could not defend himself. I have told you that Roland never thought longer or harder on any matter during his entire reign than he did on this one questionwhether or not Peter should be allowed access to Sashas dollhouse, cunningly crafted by the great Ellender. I have told you that the result of his thought was a decision that ran against Flaggs wishes. I have also told you that Flagg considered this of little importance. Was it? That you must decide for yourself, after you have heard me to the end. 13 Now let many long years pass, all in a twinklingone of the great things about tales is how fast time may pass when not much of note is happening. Real life is never that way, and it is probably a good thing. Time only passes faster in histories, and what is a history except a grand sort of tale where passing centuries are substituted for passing years? During those years, Flagg watched both boys carefullyhe watched them over the aging Kings shoulder as they grew up, calculating which should be King when Roland was no more. It did not take him long to decide it should be Thomas, the younger. By the time Peter was seven, he knew he did not like the boy. When Peter was nine, Flagg made a strange and unpleasant discovery he feared Peter, as well. The boy had grown up strong and straight and handsome. His hair was dark, his eyes a dark blue that is common to people of the Western Barony. Sometimes, when Peter looked up quickly, his head cocked a certain way, he resembled his father. Otherwise, he was Sashas son almost entirely in his looks and ways. Unlike his short father with his bowlegged walk and his clumsy way of moving (Roland was graceful only when he was horsed), Peter was tall and lithe. He enjoyed the hunt and hunted well, but it was not his life. He also enjoyed his lessonsgeography and history were his particular favorites. His father was puzzled and often impatient with jokes; the point of most had to be explained to him, and that took away all the fun. What Roland liked was when the jesters pretended to slip on banana peels, or knocked their heads together, or when they staged pie fights in the Great Hall. Such things were about as far as Rolands idea of good fun extended. Peters wit was much quicker and more subtle, as Sashas had been, and his rollicking, boyish laughter often filled the palace, making the servants smile at each other approvingly. While many boys in Peters position would have become too conscious of their own grand place in the scheme of things to play with anyone not of their own class, Peter became best friends with a boy named Ben Staad when both children were eight. Bens family was not royalty, and though Andrew Staad, Bens father, had some faint claim to the High Blood of the kingdom on his mothers side, they could not even rightly be called nobility. Squire was probably the kindest term one could have applied to Andy Staad, and squires son to his boy. Even so, the onceprosperous Staad family had fallen upon hard times, and while there could have been queerer choices for a princes best friend, there couldnt have been many. They met at the annual Farmers Lawn Party when Peter was eight. The Lawn Party was a yearly ritual most Kings and Queens viewed as tiresome at best; they were apt to put in a token appearance, drink the quick traditional toast, and then be away after bidding the farmers enjoy themselves and thanking them for another fruitful year (this was also part of the ritual, even if the crops had been poor). If Roland had been that sort of King, Peter and Ben would never had gotten the chance to know each other. But, as you might have guessed, Roland loved the Farmers Lawn Party, looked forward to it each year, and usually stayed until the very end (and more than once was carried away drunk and snoring loudly). As it happened, Peter and Ben were paired in the threelegged sackrace, and they won it . . . although it ended up being much closer than at first it seemed it would be. Leading by almost six lengths, they took a bad spill and Peters arm was cut. Im sorry, my prince! Ben cried. His face had gone pale, and he may have been visualizing the dungeons (and I know his mother and father, watching anxiously from the sidelines, were; if it werent for bad luck, Andy Staad was fond of growling, the Staads would have no luck at all); more likely he was just sorry for the hurt he fancied he had caused, or was amazed to see that the blood of the future King was as red as his own. Dont be a fool, Peter said impatiently. It was my fault, not yours. I was clumsy. Hurry and get up. Theyre catching us. The two boys, made into a single clumsy threelegged beast by the sack into which Peters left leg and Bens right one had been tightly tied, managed to get up and lurch on. Both had been badly winded by the fall, however, and their long lead had been cut to almost nothing. Approaching the finish line, where crowds of farmers (not to mention Roland, standing among them without the slightest feeling of awkwardness, or of being somewhere he shouldnt) were cheering deliriously, two huge, sweating farm boys began to close in. That they would overtake Peter and Ben in the last ten yards of the race seemed almost inevitable. Faster, Peter! Roland bellowed, swinging a huge mug of mead with such enthusiasm that he poured most of it onto his own head. In his excitement he never noticed. Jackrabbit, son! Be a jackrabbit! Those clodbusters are almost up your butt and over your back! Bens mother began to moan, cursing the fate that had caused her son to be paired up with the prince. If they lose, hell have our Ben thrown into the deepest dungeon in the castle, she moaned. Hush, woman, Andy said. Hed not. Hes a good King. He believed it, but he was still afraid. Staad luck was, after all, Staad luck. Ben, meanwhile, had begun to giggle. He couldnt believe he was doing it, but he was. Be a jackrabbit, did he say? Peter also began to giggle. His legs ached terribly, blood was trickling down his right arm, and sweat was flooding his face, which was starting to turn an interesting plum color, but he was also unable to stop. Yes, thats what he said. Then lets hop! They didnt look much like jackrabbits as they crossed the finish line; they looked like a pair of strange crippled crows. It was really a miracle they didnt fall, but somehow they didnt. They managed three ungainly leaps. The third one took them across the finish line, where they collapsed, howling with laughter. Jackrabbit! Ben yelled, pointing at Peter. Jackrabbit yourself! Peter yelled, pointing back. They slung their arms about each other, still laughing, and were carried on the shoulders of many strong farmers (Andrew Staad was one of them, and bearing the combined weight of his son and the prince was something he never forgot) to where Roland slipped blue ribbands over their necks. Then he kissed each of them roughly on the cheek and poured the remaining contents of his mug over their heads, to the wild cheers and huzzahs of the farmers. Never, even in the memory of the oldest gaffer there that day, had such an extraordinary race been run. The two boys spent the rest of the day together and, it soon appeared, would be content to spend the rest of their lives together. Because even a boy of eight has certain duties (and if he is to be the King someday he has even more), the two of them could not be together all they wanted to be, but when they could be, they were. Some sniffed at the friendship, and said it wasnt right for the King in waiting to be friends with a boy who was little better than a common barony clodbuster. Most, however, looked upon it with approval; it was said more than once over deep cups in the meadhouses of Delain that Peter had gotten the best of both worldshis mothers brains and his fathers love of the common folk. There was apparently no meanness in Peter. He never went through a period when he pulled the wings off flies or singed dogs tails to see them run. In fact, he intervened in the matter of a horse which was to be destroyed by Yosef, the Kings head groom . . . and it was when this tale made its way to Flagg that the magician began to fear the Kings oldest son, and to think perhaps he did not have as long to put the boy out of the way as he had once thought. For in the affair of the horse with the broken leg, Peter had displayed courage and a depth of resolve which Flagg did not like at all. 14 Peter was passing through the stableyard when he saw a horse tethered to the hitching rail just outside the main barn. The horse was holding one of its rear legs off the ground. As Peter watched, Yosef spat on his hands and picked up a heavy maul. What he meant to do was obvious. Peter was both frightened and appalled. He rushed over. Who told you to kill this horse? he asked. Yosef, a hardy and robust sixty, was a palace fixture. He was not apt to brook the interference of a snotnosed brat easily, prince or no. He fixed Peter with a thunderous, heavy look that was meant to wilt the boy. Peter, then just nine, reddened, but did not wilt. He seemed to see a look in the horses mild brown eyes which said, Youre my only hope, whoever you are. Do what you can, please. My father, and his father before him, and his father before him, Yosef said, seeing now that he was going to have to say something, like it or not. Thats who told me to kill it. A horse with a broken leg is no good to any living thing, least of all to itself. He raised the maul a little. You see this hammer as a murder weapon, but when youre older, youll see it for what it really is in cases such as these . . . a mercy. Now stand back, so you dont get splashed. He raised the maul in both hands. Put it down, Peter said. Yosef was thunderstruck. He had never been interfered with in such a way. Here! Here! What are you asaying? You heard me. I said put that hammer down. As he said these words Peters voice deepened. Yosef suddenly realizedreally, really realizedthat it was the future King standing here in this dusty stableyard, commanding him. If Peter had actually said as muchif he had stood there in the dust squeaking, Put that down, put it down, I said, Im going to be King someday, King, do you hear, so you put that down!, Yosef would have laughed contemptuously, spat, and ended the brokenlegged horses life with one hard swing of his deeply muscled arms. But Peter did not have to say any such thing; the command was clear in his voice and eyes. Your father shall hear of this, my princeling, Yosef said. And when he hears it from you, it will be for the second time, Peter replied. I will let you go about your work with no further complaint, Lord High Groom, if I may put a single question to you which you answer yes. Ask your question, Yosef said. He was impressed with the boy, almost against his will. When he had told Yosef that he, Peter, would tell his father of the incident first, Yosef believed he meant what he saidthe simple truth shone in the lads eyes. Also, he had never been called Lord High Groom before, and he rather liked it. Has the horse doctor seen this animal? Peter asked. Yosef was thunderstruck. That is your question? That? Yes. |
Dear creeping gods, no! he cried, and, seeing Peter flinch, he lowered his voice, squatted before the boy, and attempted to explain. A horse with a broken leg is a goner, yHighness. Always a goner. Leg never mends right. Theres apt to be blood poisoning. Turrible pain for the horse. Turrible pain. In the end, its poor heart is apt to burst, or it takes a brain fever and goes mad. Now do you understand what I meant when I said this hammer was mercy rather than murder? Peter thought long and gravely, with his head down. Yosef was silent, squatting before him in an almost unconscious posture of deference, allowing him the full courtesy of time. Peter raised his head and asked You say everyone says this? Everyone, yHighness. Why, my father Then well see if the horse doctor says it, too. Oh . . . PAH! the groom bellowed, and threw the hammer all the way across the courtyard. It sailed into a pigpen and struck head down in the mud. The pigs grunted and squealed and cursed him in their piggy Latin. Yosef, like Flagg, was not used to being balked, and took no notice of them. He got up and stalked away. Peter watched him, troubled, sure that he must be in the wrong and knowing he was apt to face a severe whipping for this little piece of work. Then, halfway across the yard, the head groom turned, and a reluctant, grim little smile hit across his face like a single sunray on a gray morning. Go get your horse doctor, he said. Get him yourself, son. Youll find him in his animal surgery at the far end of Third Eastrd Alley, I reckon. Ill give you twenty minutes. If youre not back with him by then, Im putting my maul into yon horses brains, prince or no prince. Yes, Lord Head Groom! Peter yelled. Thank you! He raced away. When he returned with the young horse doctor, puffing and out of breath, Peter was sure that the horse must be dead; the sun told him three times twenty minutes had passed. But Yosef, curious, had waited. Horse doctoring and veterinary medicine were then very new things in Delain, and this young man was only the third or fourth who had practiced the trade, so Yosefs look of sour distrust was far from surprising. Nor had the horse doctor been happy to be dragged away from his surgery by the sweating, wideeyed prince, but he became less irritated now that he had a patient. He knelt before the horse and felt the broken leg gently with his hands, humming through his nose as he did so. The horse shifted once as something he did pained her. Be steady, nag, the horse doctor said calmly, be oh so steady. The horse quieted. Peter watched all this in an agony of suspense. Yosef watched with his maul leaning nearby and his arms folded across his chest. His opinion of the horse doctor had gone up a little. The fellow was young, but his hands moved with gentle knowledge. At last the horse doctor nodded and stood up, dusting stableyard grime from his hands. Well? Peter asked anxiously. Kill her, the horse doctor said briskly to Yosef, ignoring Peter altogether. Yosef picked up his maul at once, for he had expected no other conclusion to the affair. But he found no satisfaction in being proved correct; the stricken look on the young boys face went straight to his heart. Wait! Peter cried, and although his small face was full of distress, that deepness was in his voice again, making him sound much, much older than his years. The horse doctor looked at him, startled. You mean shell die of blood poisoning? Peter asked. What? the horse doctor asked, eyeing Peter with a new care. Shell die of blood poisoning if shes allowed to live? Or her heart will burst? Or she will run mad? The horse doctor was clearly puzzled. What are you talking about? Blood poisoning? There is no blood poisoning here. The break is healing quite cleanly, in fact. He looked at Yosef with some disdain. I have heard such stories as these before. There is no truth in them. If you think not, you have much to learn, my young friend, Yosef said. Peter ignored this. It was now his turn to be bewildered. He asked the young horse doctor, Why do you tell the head groom to kill a horse which may heal? Your Highness, the horse doctor said briskly, this horse would need to be poulticed every day and every night for a month or more to keep any infection from settling in. The effort might be made, but to what end? The horse would always limp. A horse that limps cant work. A horse that limps cant run for idlers to bet on. A horse that limps can only eat and eat and never earn its provender. Therefore, it should be killed. He smiled, satisfied. He had proved his case. Then, as Yosef started forward with his hammer again, Peter said, Ill put on the poultices. If a day should come when I cant, then Ben Staad will. And shell be good because shell be my horse, and Ill ride her even if she limps so badly she makes me seasick. Yosef burst out laughing and clapped the boy on his back so hard his teeth rattled. Your heart is kind as well as brave, my boy, but lads promise quick and regret at leisure. Youd not be true to it, I reckon. Peter looked at him calmly. I mean what I say. Yosef stopped laughing all at once. He looked at Peter closely and saw that the boy did indeed mean it . . . or at least thought he did. There was no doubt in his face. Well! I cant tarry here all day, the horse doctor said, adopting his former brisk and selfimportant manner. Ive given you my diagnosis. My bill will be presented to the Treasury in due course. . . . Perhaps youll pay it out of your allowance, Highness. In any case, what you decide to do is not my business. Good day. Peter and the head groom watched him walk out of the stableyard, trailing a long afternoon shadow at his heels. Hes full of dung, Yosef said when the horse doctor was out the gate, beyond earshot, and thus unable to contradict his words. Mark me, yHighness, and save yself a lot o grief. There never was a horse what busted a leg and didnt get blood poisoning. Its Gods way. Ill want to talk to my father about this, Peter said. And so I think you must, Yosef said heavily . . . but as Peter trudged away, he smiled. He thought the boy had done right well for himself. His father would be honorbound to see the boy was whipped for interfering with his elders, but the head groom knew that Roland set a great store by both of his sons in his old agePeter perhaps a bit more than Thomasand he believed that the boy would get his horse. Of course, he would also get a heartbreak when the horse died, but, as the horse doctor had quite rightly said, that was not his business. He knew about the training of horses; the training of princes was best left in other hands. Peter was whipped for interfering in the head grooms affairs, and although it was no solace to his stinging bottom, Peters mind understood that his father had afforded him great honor by administering the whipping himself, instead of handing Peter over to an underling who might have tried to curry favor by making it easy on the boy. Peter could not sleep on his back for three days and was not able to eat sitting down for nearly a week, but the head groom was also right about the horseRoland allowed Peter to keep her. It wont take up your time for long, Peter, Roland advised him. If Yosef says it will die, it will die. Rolands face was a bit pale and his old hands were trembling. The beating had pained him more than it had pained Peter, who really was his favorite . . . although Roland foolishly fancied no one knew this but himself. I dont know, Peter said. I thought that horsedoctoring fellow knew what he was talking about. It turned out that the horsedoctoring fellow had. The horse did not take blood poisoning, and it did not die, and in the end its limp was so slight that even Yosef was forced to admit it was hardly noticeable. At least, when shes fresh, he amended. Peter was more than just faithful about putting on the poultices; he was nearly religious. He changed old for new three times a day and did it a fourth time before he went to bed. Ben Staad did stand in for Peter from time to time, but those times were few. Peter named the horse Peony, and they were great friends ever after. Flagg had most assuredly been right about one thing on the day he advised Roland against letting Peter play with the dollhouse servants were everywhere, they see everything, and their tongues wag. Several servants had witnessed the scene in the stableyard, but if every servant who later claimed to have been there really had been, there would have been a mob of them crowded around the edges of the stableyard that hot summer day. That had, of course, not been the case, but the fact that so many of them found the event worth lying about was a sign that Peter was regarded as an interesting figure indeed. They talked about it so much that it became something of a nine days wonder in Detain. Yosef also talked; so, for that matter, did the young horse doctor. Everything that they said spoke well for the young princeYosefs word in particular carried much weight, because he was greatly respected. He began to call Peter the young King, something he had never done before. I believe God spared the nag because the young King stood up for her so bravelike, he said. And he worked at them poultices like a slave. Brave, he is; hes got the heart of a dragon. Hell make a King someday, all right Ai! You should have heard his voice when he told me to hold the maul! It was a great story, all right, and Yosef drank on it for the next seven yearsuntil Peter was arrested for a hideous crime, judged guilty, and sentenced to imprisonment in the cell atop the Needle for the rest of his life 15 Perhaps you are wondering what Thomas was like, and some of you may already be casting him in a villains part, as a willing coschemer in Flaggs plot to snatch the crown away from its rightful owner. That was not really the case at all, although to some it always seemed so, and of course Thomas did play a part. He did not seem, I admit, to be a really good boyat least, not at first glance. He was surely not a good boy in the way that Peter was a good boy, but no brother would have looked really good beside Peter, and Thomas knew it well by the time he was fourthat was the year after the famous sackrace, and the one in which the famous stableyard incident took place. Peter rarely lied and never cheated. Peter was smart and kind, tall and handsome. He looked like their mother, who had been so deeply loved by the King and the people of Delain. How could Thomas compare with goodness like that? A simple question with a simple answer. He couldnt. Unlike Peter, Thomas was the spitting image of his father. This pleased the old man a little, but it didnt give him the pleasure most men feel when they have a son who carries the clear stamp of their features. Looking at Thomas was too much like looking into a sly mirror. He knew that Thomass fine blond hair would gray early and then begin to fall out; Thomas would be bald by the time he was forty. He knew that Thomas would never be tall, and if he had his fathers appetite for beer and mead, he would be carrying a big belly before him by the time he was twentyfive. Already his toes had begun to turn in, and Roland guessed Thomas would walk with his own bowlegged swagger. Thomas was not exactly a good boy, but you must not think that made him a bad boy. He was sometimes a sad boy, often a confused boy (he took after his father in another way, as wellhard thinking made his nose stuffy and his head feel like boulders were rolling around inside), and often a jealous boy, but he wasnt a bad boy. Of whom was he jealous? Why, of his brother, of course. He was jealous of Peter. It wasnt enough that Peter would be King, Oh no! It wasnt enough that their father liked Peter best, or that the servants liked Peter best, or that their teachers liked Peter best because he was always ready at lessons and didnt need to be coaxed. It wasnt enough that everyone liked Peter best, or that Peter had a best friend. There was one more thing. When anyone looked at Thomas, his father the King most of all, Thomas thought he knew they were thinking We loved your mother and you killed her in your coming. And what did we get out of the pain and death you caused her? A dull little boy with a round face that has hardly any chin, a dull little boy who couldnt make all fifteen of the Great Letters until he was eight. Your brother Peter was able to make them all when he was six. What did we get? Not much. Why did you come, Thomas? What good are you? Throne insurance? Is that all you are? Throne insurance in case Peter the Precious should fall off his limping nag and crack his head open? Is that all? Well, we dont want you. None of us want you. None of us want you. . . . The part Thomas played in his brothers imprisonment was dishonorable, but even so he was not a really bad boy. I believe this, and hope that in time you will come to believe it, too. 16 Once, as a boy of seven, Thomas spent a whole day laboring in his room, carving his father a model sailboat. He did it with no way of knowing that Peter had covered himself with glory that day on the archery range, with his father in attendance. Peter was not, ordinarily, much of a bowmanin that area, at least, Thomas would turn out to be far superior to his older brotherbut on that one day, Peter had shot the junior course of targets like one inspired. Thomas was a sad boy, a confused boy, and he was often an unlucky boy. Thomas had thought of the boat because sometimes, on Sunday afternoons, his father liked to go out to the moat which surrounded the palace and float a variety of model boats. Such simple pleasures made Roland extremely happy, and Thomas had never forgotten one day when his father had taken himand just himalong. In those days, his father had an advisor whose only job was to show Roland how to make paper boats, and the King had conceived a great enthusiasm for them. On this day, a hoary old carp had risen out of the mucky water and swallowed one of Rolands paper boats whole. Roland had laughed like a boy and declared it was better than a tale about a sea monster. He hugged Thomas very tight as he said so. Thomas never forgot that daythe bright sunshine, the damp, slightly moldy odor of the moat water, the warmth of his fathers arms, the scratchiness of his beard. So, feeling particularly lonely one day, he had hit on the idea of making his father a sailboat. It would not be a really great job, and Thomas knew ithe was almost as clumsy with his hands as he was at memorizing his lessons. But he also knew that his father could have any craftsman in Delaineven the great Ellender himself, who was now almost completely blindmake him boats if he so desired. The crucial difference, Thomas thought, would be that Rolands own son had taken a whole day to carve him a boat for his Sunday pleasure. Thomas sat patiently by his window, urging the boat out of a block of wood. He used a sharp knife, nicked himself times without number, and cut himself quite badly once. Yet he kept on, aching hands or no. As he worked he daydreamed of how he and his father would go out on Sunday afternoon and sail the boat, just the two of them all alone, because Peter would be riding Peony in the woods or off playing with Ben. And he wouldnt even mind if that same carp came up and ate his wooden boat, because then his father would laugh and hug him and say it was better than a story of sea monsters eating Anduan clipper ships whole. But when he got to the Kings chamber Peter was there and Thomas had to wait for nearly half an hour with the boat hidden behind his back while his father extolled Peters bowmanship. Thomas could see that Peter was uncomfortable under the unceasing barrage of praise. He could also see that Peter knew Thomas wanted to talk to their father, and that Peter kept trying to tell their father so. It didnt matter, none of it mattered. Thomas hated him anyway. At last Peter was allowed to escape. Thomas approached his father, who looked at him kindly enough now that Peter was gone. I made you something, Dad, he said, suddenly shy. He held the boat behind his back with hands that were suddenly wet and clammy with sweat. Did you now, Tommy? Roland said. Why, that was kind, wasnt it? Very kind, Sire, said Flagg, who happened to be idling nearby. He spoke casually but watched Thomas with bright interest. What is it, lad? Show me! I remembered how much you liked to have a boat or two out on the moat Sunday afternoons, Dad, and . . . He wanted desperately to say, and I wanted you to take me out with you again sometime, so I made this, but he found he could not utter such a thing. . . .and so I made you a boat. . . . I spent a whole day . . . cut myself . . . and . . . and . . . Sitting in his window seat, carving the boat, Thomas had made up a long, eloquent speech which he would utter before bringing the boat out from behind his back and presenting it with a flourish to his father, but now he could hardly remember a word of it, and what he could remember didnt seem to make any sense. Horribly tonguetied, he took the sailboat with its awkward flapping sail out from behind his back and gave it to Roland. The King turned it over in his big, shortfingered hands. Thomas stood and watched him, totally unaware that he had forgotten to breathe. At last Roland looked up. Very nice, very nice, Tommy. Canoe, isnt it? Sailboat. Dont you see the sail? he wanted to cry. It took me an hour alone just to tie the knots, and it isnt my fault one of them came loose so it flaps! The King fingered the striped sail, which Thomas had cut from a pillowcase. So it is . . . of course it is. At first I thought it was a canoe and this was some Oranian girls washing. He tipped a wink at Flagg, who smiled vaguely at the air and said nothing. Thomas suddenly felt he might vomit quite soon. Roland looked at his son more seriously, and beckoned for him to come close. Timidly, hoping for the best, Thomas did so. Its a good boat, Tommy. Sturdy, like yourself, a bit clumsy like yourself, but goodlike yourself. And if you want to give me a really fine present, work hard in your own bowmanship classes so you can take a firstclass medal as Pete did today. Thomas had taken a first in the lowercircle bowmanship courses the year before, but his father seemed to have forgotten this in his joy over Peters accomplishment. Thomas did not remind him; he merely stood there, looking at the boat in his fathers big hands. His cheeks and forehead had flushed to the color of old brick. When it was at last down to just two boysPeter and Lord Towsons sonthe instructor decreed they should draw back another forty koner. Towsons boy looked downcast, but Peter just walked to the mark and nocked an arrow. I saw the look in his eyes, and I said to myself Hes won! By all the gods that are, he hasnt even fired an arrow yet and hes won! And so he had! I tell you, Tommy, you should have been there! You should have . . . The King prattled on, putting aside the boat Thomas had labored a whole day to make, with barely a second look. Thomas stood and listened, smiling mechanically, that dull, bricklike flush never leaving his face. His father would never bother to take the sailboat he had carved out to the moatwhy should he? The sailboat was as pukey as Thomas felt. Peter could probably carve a better one blindfolded, and in half the time. It would look better to their father, at least. A miserable eternity later, Thomas was allowed to escape. I believe the boy worked very hard on that boat, Flagg remarked carelessly. Yes, I suppose he did, Roland said. Wretchedlooking thing, isnt it? Looks a little like a dog turd with a handkerchief sticking out of it. And like something I would have made when I was his age, he added in his own mind. Thomas could not hear thoughts . . . but a hellish trick of acoustics brought Rolands words to him just as he left the Great Hall. Suddenly the horrible green pressure in his stomach was a thousand times worse. He ran to his bedroom and was sick in a basin. The next day, while idling behind the outer kitchens, Thomas spied a halfcrippled old dog foraging for garbage. He seized a rock and threw it. The stone flew to the mark. The dog yipped and fell down, badly hurt. Thomas knew his brother, although five years older, could not have made such a shot at half the distancebut that was a cold satisfaction, because he also knew that Pete never would have thrown a rock at a poor, hungry dog in the first place, especially one as old and decrepit as this one obviously was. For a moment, compassion filled Thomass heart and his eyes filled with tears. Then, for no reason at all, he thought of his father saying, Looks a little like a dog turd with a handerchief sticking out of it. He gathered up a handful of rocks, and went over to where the dog lay on its side, dazed and bleeding from one ear. Part of him wanted to let the dog alone, or perhaps heal it as Peter had healed Peonyto make it his very own dog and love it forever. But part of him wanted to hurt it, as if hurting the dog would ease some of his own hurt. He stood above it, undecided, and then a terrible thought came to him Suppose that dog was Peter? That decided the case. Thomas stood over the old dog and threw stones at it until it was dead. No one saw him, but if someone had, he or she would have thought There is a boy who is bad . . . bad, and perhaps even evil. But the person who saw only the cruel murder of that dog would not have seen what happened the day beforewould not have seen Thomas throwing up into a basin and crying bitterly as he did it. He was often a confused boy, often a sadly unlucky boy, but I stick to what I saidhe was never a bad boy, not really. I also said that no one saw the stoning of the mongrel dog behind the outer kitchens, but that was not quite true. Flagg saw it that night, in his magic crystal. He saw it . . . and was well pleased by it. 17 Roland . . . Sasha . . . Peter . . . Thomas. Now there is only one more we must speak of, isnt there? Now there is only the shadowy fifth. The time has come to speak of Flagg, as dreadful as that may be. Sometimes the people of Delain called him Flagg the Hooded; sometimes simply the dark manfor, in spite of his white corpses face, he was a dark man indeed. They called him well preserved, but they used the term in a way that was uneasy rather than complimentary. He had come to Delain from Garlan in the time of Rolands grandfather. In those days he had appeared to be a thin and sternfaced man of about forty. Now, in the closing years of Rolands reign, he appeared to be a thin and sternfaced man of about fifty. Yet it had not been ten years, or even twenty, between then and nowit had been seventysix years in all. Babies who had been sucking toothlessly at their mothers breasts when Flagg first came to Delain had grown up, married, had children, grown old, and died toothlessly in their beds or their chimney corners. But in all that time, Flagg seemed to have aged only ten years. It was magic, they whispered, and of course it was good to have a magician at court, a real magician and not just a stage conjurer who knew how to palm coins or hide a sleeping dove up his sleeve. Yet in their hearts, they knew there was nothing good about Flagg. When the people of Delain saw him coming, with his eyes peeking redly out from his hood, they quickly found business on the far side of the street. Did he really come from Garlan, with its far vistas and its purple dreaming mountains? I do not know. It was and is a magical land where carpets sometimes fly, and where holy men sometimes pipe ropes up from wicker baskets, climb them, and disappear at the tops, never to be seen again. A great many seekers of knowledge from more civilized lands like Delain and Andua have gone to Garlan. Most disappear as completely and as permanently as those strange mystics who climb the floating ropes. Those who do return dont always come back changed for the better. Yes, Flagg might well have come to Delain from Garlan, but if he did, it was not in the reign of Rolands grandfather but much, much earlier. He had, in fact, come to Delain often. He came under a different name each time, but always with the same load of woe and misery and death. This time he was Flagg. The time before he had been known as Bill Hinch, and he had been the Kings Lord High Executioner. Although that time was two hundred and fifty years past, his was a name mothers still used to frighten their children when they were bad. If you dont shut up that squalling, I reckon Bill Hinch will come and take you away! they said. Serving as Lord High Executioner under three of the bloodiest Kings in Delains long history, Bill Hinch had made an end to hundredsthousands, some saidof prisoners with his heavy axe. The time before that, four hundred years before the time of Roland and his sons, he came as a singer named Browson, who became a close advisor to the King and a Queen. Browson disappeared like smoke after drumming up a great and bloody war between Delain and Andua. The time before that . . . Ah, but why go on? Im not sure I could if I wanted to. When times are long enough, even the storytellers forget the tales. Flagg always showed up with a different face and a different bag of tricks, but two things about him were always the same. He always came hooded, a man who seemed almost to have no face, and he never came as a King himself, but always as the whisperer in the shadows, the man who poured poison into the porches of Kings ears. Who was he, really, this dark man? I do not know. Where did he wander between visits to Delain? I do not know that, either. Was he never suspected? Yes, by a fewby historians and spinners of tales like me, mostly. They suspected that the man who now called himself Flagg had been in Delain before, and never to any good purpose. But they were afraid to speak. A man who could live among them for seventysix years and appear to age only ten was obviously a magician; a man who had lived for ten times as long, perhaps longer than that . . . such a man might be the devil himself. What did he want? That question I think I can answer. He wanted what evil men always want to have power and use that power to make mischief. Being a King did not interest him because the heads of Kings all too often found their way to spikes on castle walls when things went wrong. But the advisors to Kings . . . the spinners in the shadows . . . such people usually melted away like evening shadows at dawning as soon as the headsmans axe started to fall. Flagg was a sickness, a fever looking for a cool brow to heat up. He hooded his actions just as he hooded his face. And when the great trouble cameas it always did after a span of yearsFlagg always disappeared like shadows at dawn. Later, when the carnage was over and the fever had passed, when the rebuilding was complete and there was again something worth destroying, Flagg would appear once more. 18 This time, Flagg had found the Kingdom of Delain in exasperatingly healthy condition. Landry, Rolands grandfather, was a drunken old fool, easy to influence and twist, but a heart attack had taken him too soon. Flagg knew by then that Lita, Rolands mother, was the last person he wanted holding the scepter. She was ugly but goodhearted and strongwilled. Such a Queen was not a good growth medium for Flaggs brand of insanity. If he had come earlier in Landrys reign, there would have been time to put Lita out of the way, as he expected to put Peter out of the way. But hed had only six years, and that was not long enough. Still, she had accepted him as an advisor, and that was something. She did not like him much but she accepted himmostly because he could tell wonderful fortunes with cards. Lita loved hearing bits of gossip and scandal about those in her court and her Cabinet, and the gossip and scandal were doubly good because she got to hear not only what had happened but what would happen. It was hard to rid yourself of such an amusing diversion, even when you sensed that a person able to do such tricks might be dangerous. Flagg never told the Queen any of the darker news he sometimes saw in the cards. She wanted to know who had taken a lover or who had had words with his wife or her husband. She did not want to know about dark cabals and murderous plans. What she wanted from the cards was relatively innocent. During the long, long reign of Lita, Flagg was chagrined to find his main accomplishment was to be not turned out. He was able to maintain a foothold but to do little more than that. Oh, there were a few bright spotsthe encouragement of bad blood between two powerful squires in the Southern Barony and the discrediting of a doctor who had found a cure for some blood infections (Flagg wanted no cures in the Kingdom that were not magicalwhich is to say, given or withheld at his own whim) were examples of Flaggs work during that period. It was all pretty small change. Under Rolandpoor bowlegged, insecure Rolandthings marched more quickly toward Flaggs goal. Because he did have a goal, you know, in his fuzzy, malevolent sort of way, and this time it was grand indeed. He planned nothing more nor less than the complete overthrow of the monarchya bloody revolt that would plunge Delain into a thousand years of darkness and anarchy. Give or take a year or two, of course. 19 In Peters cool gaze he saw the very possible derailment of all his plans and careful work. More and more Flagg came to believe that getting rid of Peter was a necessity. Flagg has overstayed in Delain this time and he knew it. The muttering had begun. The work so well begun under Rolandthe steady rises in taxes, the midnight searches of small farmers barns and silage sheds for unreported crops and foodstuffs, the arming of the Home Guardsmust continue to its end under Thomas. He did not have time to wait through the reign of Peter as he had through that of his grandmother. Peter might not even wait for the mutterings of the people to come to his ears; Peters first command as King might well be that Flagg should be sent eastward out of the Kingdom and forbidden ever to come again, on pain of death. Flagg might murder an advisor before he could give the young King such advice, but the hell of it was, Peter would need no advisor. He would advise himselfand when Flagg saw the cool, unafraid way the boy, now fifteen and very tall, looked at him, he thought that Peter might already have given himself that advice. The boy liked to read, and he liked history, and in the last two years, as his father grew steadily grayer and frailer, he had been asking a lot of questions of his fathers other advisors, and of some of his teachers. Many of these questionstoo manyhad to do either with Flagg or with roads which would lead to Flagg if followed far enough. That the boy was asking such questions at fourteen and fifteen was bad. That he was getting comparatively honest answers from such timid, watchful men as the Kingdoms historians and Rolands advisors was much worse. It meant that, in the minds of these people, Peter was already almost Kingand that they were glad. They welcomed him and rejoiced in him, because he would be an intellectual, like them. And they also welcomed him because, unlike them, he was a brave boy who might well grow into a lionhearted King whose tale would be the stuff of legends. In him, they saw again the coming of the White, that ancient, resilient, yet humble force that has redeemed humankind again and again and again. He had to be put out of the way. Had to be. Flagg told himself this each night when he retired in the blackness of his inner chambers, and it was his first thought when he awoke in that blackness the next morning. He must be put out of the way, the boy must be put out of the way. But it was harder than it seemed. |
Roland loved and would have died for either of his sons, but he loved Peter with a particular fierceness. Smothering the boy in his cradle, making it look as if the Baby Death had taken him, would have once perhaps been possible, but Peter was now a healthy teenager. Any accident would be examined with all the raging scrutiny of Rolands grief, and Flagg had thought more than once that the final irony might be this Suppose Peter really did die an accidental death, and he, Flagg, was somehow blamed for it? A small miscalculation while shinnying up a drainpipe . . . a slip while crawling around on a stable roof playing Dare You with his friend Staad . . . a tumble from his horse. And what would the result be? Might not Roland, wild in his grief and growing senile and confused in his mind, see willful murder in what was really an accident? And might his eye not turn on Flagg? Of course. His eye would turn to Flagg before it turned to anyone else. Rolands mother had mistrusted him, and he knew that, deep down, Roland mistrusted him as well. He had been able to hold that mistrust in check with mingled fear and fascination, but Flagg knew that if Roland ever had reason to think Flagg had caused, or even played a part in, the death of his son Flagg could actually imagine situations where he might have to interfere in Peters behalf to keep the boy safe. It was damnable. Damnable! He must be put out of the way. Must be put out of the way! Must! As the days and weeks and months passed, the drumbeat of this thought in Flaggs head grew ever more urgent. Every day Roland grew older and weaker; every day Peter grew older and wiser and thus a more dangerous opponent. What was to be done? Flaggs thoughts turned and turned and turned on this. He grew morose and irritable. Servants, especially Peters butler, Brandon, and Brandons son, Dennis, gave him a wide berth, and spoke to each other in whispers of the terrible smells that sometimes came from his laboratory late at night. Dennis in particular, who would someday take the place of his good old da as Peters butler, was terrified of Flagg, and once asked his father if he might say a word about the magician. To make him safe, is all Im thinking, Dennis said. Not a word, Brandon said, and fixed Dennis, who was only a boy himself, with a forbidding look. Not a word will you say. The mans dangerous. Then is that not all the more reason? Dennis began timidly. A dullard may mistake the rattle of a BiterSnake for the sound of pebbles in a hollow gourd and put out his hand to touch it, Brandon said, but our prince is no dullard, Dennis. Now fetch me another glass of bundlegin, and say no more ont. So Dennis did not speak of it to Peter, but his love of his young master and his fear of the Kings hooded advisor both grew after that short exchange. Whenever he saw Flagg sweeping up one of the corridors of the castle in his long hooded robe he would draw aside, trembling, thinking BiterSnake! BiterSnake! Watch for him, Peter! And listen for him! Then, one night when Peter was sixteen, just as Flagg had begun to believe that there really might not be any way to put an end to the boy without unacceptable risk to himself, an answer came. That was a wild night. A terrible autumn storm raged and shrieked around the castle, and the streets of Delain were empty as people sought shelter from the sheets of chilly rain and the battering wind. Roland had taken a cold in the damp. He took cold more and more easily these days, and Flaggs medicines, potent as they were, were losing their power to cure him. One of these coldsperhaps even the one he was hacking and wheezing with nowwould eventually deepen into the Wet Lung Disease, and that would kill him. Magic medicines were not like doctors medicines, and Flagg knew that one of the reasons the potions he gave the old King were now so slow to work, was that he, Flagg, no longer really wanted them to work. The only reason he was keeping Roland alive was that he feared Peter. I wish you were dead, old man, Flagg thought with childish anger as he sat before a guttering candle, listening to the wind shriek without and his twoheaded parrot mutter sleepily to itself within. For a row of pinsa very short row at thatId kill you myself for all the trouble you and your stupid wife and your elder son have caused me. The joy of killing you would almost be worth the ruin of my plans. The joy of killing you Suddenly he froze, sitting upright, staring off into the darkness of his underground rooms, where the shadows moved uneasily. His eyes glittered silver. An idea blazed in his mind like a torch. The candle flared a brilliant green and then went out. Death! one of the parrots two heads shrieked in the darkness. Murder! shrieked the other. And in that blackness, unseen by anyone, Flagg began to laugh. 20 Of all the weapons ever used to commit regicidethe murder of a Kingnone has been as frequently used as poison. And no one has greater knowledge of poisons than a magician. Flagg, one of the greatest magicians who ever lived, knew all the poisons that we knowarsenic; strychnine; the curare, which steals inward, paralyzing all the muscles and the heart last; nicotine; belladonna; nightshade; toadstool. He knew the poison venoms of a hundred snakes and spiders; the clear distillation of the clanah lily which smells like honey but kills its victims in screaming torments; Deadly Clawfoot which grows in the deepest shadows of the Dismal Swamp. Flagg did not know just dozens of poisons but dozens of dozens, each worse than the last. They were all neatly ranked on the shelves of an inner room where no servant ever went. They were in beakers, in phials, in little envelopes. Each deadly item was neatly marked. This was Flaggs chapel of screamsinwaitingagonys antechamber, foyer of fevers, dressing room for death. Flagg visited it often when he felt out of sorts and wanted to cheer himself up. In this devils marketplace waited all those things that humans, who are made of flesh and are so weak, dread hammering headaches, screaming stomach cramps, detonations of diarrhea, vomiting, collapsing blood vessels, paralysis of the heart, exploding eyeballs, swelling, blackening tongues, madness. But the worst poison of all Flagg kept separate from even these. In his study there was a desk. Every drawer of this desk was locked . . . but one was triplelocked. In it was a teak box, carved all over with magical symbols . . . runes and such. The lock on this box was unique. Its plate seemed to be a dull orange steel, but very close inspection showed it was really some sort of vegetable matter. It was, in fact, a kleffa carrot, and once a week Flagg watered this living lock with a tiny spray bottle. The kleffa carrot also seemed to have some dull species of intelligence. If anyone tried to jimmy the kleffa lock open, or even if the wrong someone tried to use the right key, the lock would scream. Inside this box was a smaller box, which opened with a key Flagg wore always around his neck. Inside this second box was a packet. Inside the packet was a small quantity of green sand. Pretty, you would have said, but nothing spectacular. Nothing to write home to Mother about. Yet this green sand was one of the deadliest poisons in all the worlds, so deadly that even Flagg was afraid of it. It came from the desert of Grenh. This huge poisoned waste lay even beyond Garlan, and was a land unknown in Delain. Grenh could be approached only on a day when the wind was blowing the other way, because a single breath of the fumes which came from the desert of Grenh would cause death. Not instant death. That was not the way the poison worked. For a day or twoperhaps even threethe person who breathed the poison fumes (or even worse, swallowed the grains of sand) would feel fineperhaps better than ever before in his life. Then, suddenly, his lungs would grow redhot, his skin would begin to smoke, and his body would shrivel like the body of a mummy. Then he would drop dead, often with his hair on fire. Someone who breathed or swallowed this deadly stuff would burn from the inside out. This was Dragon Sand, and there was no antidote, no cure. What fun. On that wild, rainy night, Flagg determined to give a bit of Dragon Sand to Roland in a glass of wine. It had become Peters custom to take his father a glass of wine each night, shortly before Roland turned in. Everyone in the palace knew it, and commented on what a loyal son Peter was. Roland enjoyed his sons company as much as the wine he brought, Flagg thought, but a certain maiden had caught Peters eye and he rarely stayed longer than half an hour with his father these days. If Flagg came one night after Peter had left, Flagg did not think the old man would turn down a second glass of wine. A very special glass of wine. A hot vintage, my Lord, Flagg thought, a grin dawning on his narrow face. A hot vintage indeed, and why not? The vineyard was right next door to hell, I think, and when this stuff starts working in your guts, youll think hell is where you are. Flagg threw back his head and began to laugh. 21 Once his plan was laida plan that would rid him of both Roland and Peter foreverFlagg wasted no time. He first used all his wizardry to make the King well again. He was delighted to find that his magic potions worked better than they had for a long, long time. It was another irony. He earnestly wanted to make Roland better, so the potions worked. But he wanted to make the King better so he could kill him and make sure everyone knew it was murder. It was really quite funny, when you stopped to think it over. On a windy night less than a week after the Kings hacking cough had ceased, Flagg unlocked his desk and took out the teak box. He murmured, Well done, to the kleffa carrot, which squeaked mindlessly in reply, and then lifted the heavy lid and took out the smaller box inside. He used the key around his neck to open it, and took out the packet that contained the Dragon Sand. He had bewitched this packet, and it was immune to the Dragon Sands terrible power. Or so he thought. Flagg took no chances, and removed the packet with a small pair of silver tweezers. He laid it beside one of the Kings goblets on his desk. Sweat stood out on his forehead in great round drops, for this was ticklish work indeed. One little mistake and he would pay for it with his life. Flagg went out into the corridor that led to the dungeons and began to pant. He was hyperventilating. When you breathe rapidly, you fill your whole body with oxygen, and you can hold your breath for a long time. During the critical stage of his preparations, Flagg did not mean to breathe at all. There would be no mistakes, big or little. He was having too much fun to die. He took a final great gasp of clean air from the barred window just outside the door to his apartment and reentered his rooms. He went to the envelope, took his dagger from his belt, and delicately slit it open. There was a flat piece of obsidian, which the magician used as a paperweight, on his deskin those days, obsidian was the hardest rock known. Using the tweezers again, he grasped the packet, turned it upside down, and poured out most of the green sand. He saved back a tiny bithardly more than a dozen grains, but this bit of extra was extremely important to his plans. Hard as the obsidian was, the rock immediately began to smoke. Thirty seconds had passed now. He picked up the obsidian, careful that not a single grain of Dragon Sand should touch his skinif it did, it would work inward until it reached his heart and set it on fire. He tilted the stone over the goblet and poured it in. Now, quickly, before the sand could began to eat into the glass, he poured in some of the Kings favorite winethe same sort of wine Peter would be taking his father about now. The sand dissolved immediately. For a moment the red wine glimmered a sinister green, and then it returned to its usual color. Fifty seconds. Flagg went back to his desk. He picked up the flat rock and took his dagger by its handle. Only a few grains of Dragon Sand had touched the blade when he slit through the paper, but already they were working their way in, and evil little streamers of smoke rose from the pocks in the Anduan steel. He carried both the stone and the dagger out into the hallway. Seventy seconds, and his chest was beginning to cry for air. Thirty feet down the hallway, which led to the dungeon if you followed it far enough (a trip no one in Delain wanted to make), there was a grating in the floor. Flagg could hear gurgling water, and if he had not been holding his breath, he would have smelled a foul stench. This was one of the castles sewers. He dropped both the rock and the blade into it and grinned at the double splash in spite of his pounding chest. Then he hurried back to the window, leaned far out, and took breath after gasping breath. When he had his wind back, he returned to his study. Now only the tweezers, the packet, and the glass of wine stood on the desk. There was not so much as a grain of sand on the tweezers, and the bit of sand left inside the bewitched packet could not harm him as long as he took reasonable care. He felt he had done very well indeed so far. His work was by no means done, but it was well begun. He bent over the goblet and inhaled deeply. There was no danger now; when the sand was mixed with a liquid, its fumes became harmless and undetectable. Dragon Sand made deadly vapors only when it touched a solid, such as stone. Such as flesh. Flagg held the goblet up to the light, admiring its bloody glow. A final glass of wine, my King, he said, and laughed until the twoheaded parrot screamed in fear. Something to warm your guts. He sat down, turned over his hourglass, and began to read from a huge book of spells. Flagg had been reading from this bookwhich was bound in human skinfor a thousand years and had gotten through only a quarter of it. To read too long of this book, written on the high, distant Plains of Leng by a madman named Alhazred, was to risk madness. An hour . . . just an hour. When the top half of his hourglass was empty, he could be sure Peter would have come and gone. An hour, and he could take Roland this final glass of wine. For a moment, Flagg looked at the bonewhite sand slipping smoothly through the waist of the hourglass, and then he bent calmly over his book. 22 Roland was pleased and touched that Flagg should have brought him a glass of wine that night before he went to bed. He drank it off in two large gulps, and declared that it had warmed him greatly. Smiling inside his hood, Flagg said I thought it would, your Highness. 23 Whether it was fate or only luck that caused Thomas to see Flagg with his father that night is another question you must answer for yourself. I only know that he did see, and that it happened in large part because Flagg had been at pains over the years to make a special friend of this friendless, miserable boy. Ill explain in a momentbut first I must correct a wrong idea you may have about magic. In stories of wizardry, there are three kinds that are usually spoken of almost carelessly, as if any secondclass wizard could do them. These are turning lead into gold, changing ones shape, and making oneself invisible. The first thing you should know is that real magic is never easy, and if you think it is, just try making your least favorite aunt disappear the next time she comes to spend a week or two. Real magic is hard, and although it is easier to do evil magic than good, even bad magic is tolerably hard. Turning lead into gold can be done, once you know the names to call on, and if you can find someone to show you exactly the right trick of splitting the loaves of lead. Shape changing and invisibility, however, are impossible . . . or so close to it that you might as well use the word. From time to time Flaggwho was a great eavesdropperhad listened to fools tell tales about young princes who escaped the clutches of evil genies by uttering a simple magic word and popping out of sight, or beautiful young princesses (in the stories they were always beautiful, although Flaggs experience had been that most princesses were spoiled rotten and, as the end products of long, inbred family lines, ugly as sin and stupid in the bargain) who tricked great ogres into becoming flies, which they then quickly swatted. In most stories, the princesses were also good at swatting flies, although most of the princesses Flagg had seen wouldnt have been able to swat a fly dying on a cold windowsill in December. In stories it all sounded easy; in stories people changed their shapes or turned themselves into walking windowpanes all the time. In truth, Flagg had never seen either trick done. He had once known a great Anduan magician who believed he had mastered the trick of changing his shape, but after six months of meditation and nearly a week of incantations in a series of agonizing body postures, he uttered the last awesome spell and succeeded only in making his nose nearly nine feet long and driving himself insane. And there had been fingernails growing out of his nose. Flagg remembered with a grim little smile. Great magician or not, the man had been a fool. Invisibility was likewise impossible, at least as far as Flagg himself had been able to determine. Yet it was possible to make oneself . . . dim. Yes, dimthat was really the best word for it, although others sometimes came to mind ghostly, transparent, unobtrusive. Invisibility was out of his reach, but by first eating a pizzle and then reciting a number of spells, it was possible to become dim. When one was dim and a servant approached along a passageway, one simply drew aside and stood still and let the servant pass. In most cases, the servants eyes would drop to his own feet or suddenly find something interesting to look at on the ceiling. If one passed through a room, conversation would falter, and people would look momentarily distressed, as if all were having gas pains at the same time. Torches and wall sconces grew smoky. Candles sometimes blew out. It was necessary to actually hide when one was dim only if one saw someone whom one knew wellfor, whether one was dim or not, these people almost always saw. Dimness was useful, but it was not invisibility. On the night Flagg took the poisoned wine to Roland, he first made himself dim. He did not expect to see anyone he knew. It was after nine oclock now, the King was old and unwell, the days were short, and the castle went to bed early. When Thomas is King, Flagg thought, carrying the wine swiftly through the corridors, there will be parties every night. He already has his fathers taste for drink, although he favors wine rather than beer or mead. It should be easy enough to introduce him to a few stronger drinks . . . . After all, am I not his friend? Yes, when Peter is safely out of the way in the Needle and Thomas is King, there will be great parties every night . . . until the people in the alleys and the Baronies are choked enough to rise in bloody revolt. Then there will be one final party, the greatest of all . . . but I dont think Thomas will enjoy it. Like the wine Im bringing his father tonight, that party will be extremely hot. He did not expect to see anyone he knew, and he didnt. Only a few servants passed him, and they drew away from the place where he stood almost absently, as if they felt a cold draft. All the same, someone saw him. Thomas saw him through the eyes of Niner, the dragon his father had killed long ago. Thomas was able to do this because Flagg himself had taught him the trick. 24 The way his father had rejected the gift of the boat had hurt Thomas deeply, and after that he tended to keep clear of his father. All the same, Thomas loved Roland and badly wanted to make him happy the way Peter made him happy. Even more than that, he wanted to make his father love him the way he loved Peter. In fact, Thomas would have been happy if their father had loved him even half as much. The trouble was, Peter had all the good ideas first. Sometimes Peter tried to share his ideas with Thomas, but to Thomas the ideas either sounded silly (until they worked) or else he feared he wouldnt be able to do his share of the work, as when Peter had made their father a set of Bendoh men three years ago. Ill give Father something better than a bunch of stupid old game pieces, Thomas had said haughtily, but what he was really thinking was that if he couldnt make his father a simple wooden sailboat, he would never be able to help make something as difficult as the twentyman Bendoh army. So Peter made the game pieces alone over a period of four monthsthe infantry men, the knights, the archers, the Fusilier, the General, the Monkand of course Roland had loved them even though they were a bit clumsy. He had immediately put away the jade Bendoh set the great Ellender had carved for him forty years before and put the one Peter had made for him in its place. When Thomas saw this, he crept away to his apartments and went to bed, although it was the middle of the afternoon. He felt as if someone had reached into his chest and cut off a tiny piece of his heart and made him eat it. His heart tasted very bitter to him, and he hated Peter more than ever, although part of him still loved his handsome older brother and always would. And although the taste had been bitter, he had liked it. Because it was his heart. Now there was the business of the nightly glass of wine. Peter had come to Thomas and said, I was thinking it would be nice if we brought Dad a glass of wine every night, Tom. I asked the steward, and he said he couldnt just give us a bottle because he has to make an accounting to the Chief Vintner at the end of each sixmonth, but he said we could pool some of our money and buy a bottle of the Barony Fifth Vat, which is Fathers favorite. And its really not expensive. Wed have lots of our allowances left over. And I think thats the stupidest idea I ever heard! Thomas burst out. All the wine belongs to Father, all the wine in the Kingdom, and he can have as much of it as he wants! Why should we spend our money to give Father something he owns anyway? Well enrich that fat little steward, thats all well do! Peter said patiently, It will please him that we spent our money on him, even if its something he owns anyway. How do you know that? Simply, maddeningly, Peter replied I just do. Thomas looked at him, scowling. How could he tell Peter that the Chief Vintner had caught him in the wine cellar, stealing a bottle of wine, just the month before? The fat little pig had given him a shaking and threatened to tell his father if Thomas didnt give him a gold piece. Thomas had paid, tears of rage and shame standing in his eyes. If it had been Peter, you would have turned the other way and pretended not to see, you slug, he thought. If it had been Peter, you would have turned your back. Because Peter is going to be King someday soon, and Ill just be a prince forever. It also occurred to him that Peter never would have tried to steal wine in the first place, but the truth of this thought only made him angrier at his brother. I just thought Peter began. You just thought, you just thought, Thomas mimicked savagely. Well, go think somewhere else! When Father finds out you paid the Chief Vintner for his own wine, hell laugh at you and call you a fool! But Roland hadnt laughed at Peter, hadnt called him a foolhe had called him a good son in a voice that was unsteady and almost weepy. Thomas knew, because he had crept after when Peter took their father the wine that first night. He watched through the eyes of the dragon and saw it all. 25 If you had asked Flagg straight out why he had shown Thomas that place and the secret passageway which led to it, he would have been able to give you no very satisfactory answer. That was because he didnt exactly know why he had done it. He had an instinct for mischief in his head, just as some people have a way with numbers or a clear sense of direction. The castle was very old, and there were many secret doors and passages in it. Flagg knew most of them (no one, not even he, knew all of them), but this was the only one he had ever shown Thomas. His instinct for mishief told him that this one might cause trouble, and Flagg simply obeyed his instinct. Mischief, after all, was Flaggs cake and pie. Every now and then he would pop into Thomass room and cry, Tommy, you look glum! Ive thought of something you might like to see! Want to go and have a look? He almost always said you look glum, Tommy or you look a bit in the dumps, Tommy or you look like you just sat on a pinchbug, Tommy because he had a knack of showing up when Thomas was feeling particularly depressed or blue. Flagg knew that Thomas was afraid of him, and Thomas would find an excuse not to go with him unless he particularly needed a friend . . . and felt so low and unhappy he wouldnt be particular about which friend it was. Flagg knew this, but Thomas himself did nothis fear of Flagg ran deep. On the surface of his mind, he thought Flagg was a fine fellow, full of tricks and fun. Sometimes the fun was a bit mean, but that often suited Thomass disposition. Do you think it strange that Flagg would know something about Thomas that Thomas didnt know about himself? It really isnt strange at all. Peoples minds, particularly the minds of children, are like wellsdeep wells full of sweet water. And sometimes, when a particular thought is too unpleasant to bear, the person who has that thought will lock it into a heavy box and throw it into that well. He listens for the splash . . . and then the box is gone. Except it is not, of course. Not really. Flagg, being very old and very wise, as well as very wicked, knew that even the deepest well has a bottom, and just because a thing is out of sight doesnt mean it is gone. It is still there, resting at the bottom. And he knew that the caskets those evil, frightening ideas are buried in may rot, and the nastiness inside may leak out after awhile and poison the water . . . and when the well of the mind is badly poisoned, we call the result insanity. If the magician showed him scary things in the castle sometimes, he did it because he knew that the more frightened of him Thomas was, the more power he would gain over Thomas . . . and he knew he could have that power, because he knew something Ive already told youthat Thomas was weak and often neglected by his father. Flagg wanted Thomas to be afraid of him, and he wanted to make sure that, as the years passed, Thomas had to throw many of those locked boxes into the darkness inside him. If Thomas were to go insane at some point after he became King, well, what of that? It would make it easier for Flagg to rule; it would make his power all the greater. How did Flagg know the right times to visit Thomas, and take him on these strange tours of the castle? Sometimes he saw what had happened to make Thomas sad or angry in his crystal. More often, he simply felt an urge to go to Thomas and heeded itthat instinct for mischief rarely led him wrong. Once he took Thomas high into the eastern towerthey climbed stairs until Thomas was panting like a dog, but Flagg never seemed to lose his breath. At the top was a door so small that even Thomas had to crawl through it on his hands and knees. Beyond was a dark, rustling room with a single window. Flagg had led him to that window without a word, and when Thomas saw the viewthe entire city of Delain, the Near Towns, and then the hills which stood between the Near Towns and the Eastern Barony marching off into a blue hazehe thought that the sight had been worth every stair his aching legs had climbed. His heart swelled with the beauty of it, and he turned to thank Flaggbut something about the white blur of the magicians face inside his hood had frozen the words on his lips. Now watch this! Flagg said, and held up his hand. A spurt of blue flame rose from his index finger, and the rustling sound in the room, which Thomas had first taken for the sound of the wind, turned to a rising whir of leathery wings. A moment later Thomas was screaming and beating the air above his head as he blundered blindly back toward the tiny door. The little round room at the top of the castles eastern tower had the best view in Delain save for the cell at the top of the Needle, but now he understood why no one visited it. The room was infested with huge bats. Disturbed by the light Flagg had raised, they whirled and swooped. Later, after they were out and Flagg had quieted the boyThomas, who hated bats, had been in hystericsthe magician insisted it was just a joke meant to cheer him up. Thomas believed him . . . but for weeks after he awoke screaming with nightmares in which bats flapped around his head, got caught in his hair, and ripped at his face with their sharp claws and ratty teeth. On another excursion, Flagg took him to the Kings treasure room and showed him the mounds of gold coins, tall stacks of gold bars, and the deep bins marked EMERALDS, DIAMONDS, RUBIES, FIREDIMS, and so on. Are they really full of jewels? Thomas asked. Look and see, Flagg said. He opened one of the bins and pulled out a handful of uncut emeralds. They sparkled wildly in his hand. My fatherss name! Thomas gasped. Oh, thats nothing! Look over here! Pirate treasure, Tommy! He showed Thomas a pile of booty from the encounter with the Anduan pirates some twelve years ago. The Delain Treasury was rich, the few treasureroom clerks old, and this particular heap hadnt been sorted yet. Thomas gasped at heavy swords with jeweled hilts, daggers with blades that had been crusted with serrated diamonds so they would cut deeper, heavy killballs made of rhodochrosite. All this belongs to the Kingdom? Thomas asked in an awed voice. It all belongs to your father, Flagg replied, although Thomas had actually been correct. Someday it will all belong to Peter. And me, Thomas said with a tenyearolds confidence. No, Flagg said, just the right tinge of regret in his voice, just to Peter. Because hes the oldest, and hell be King. Hell share, Thomas said, but with the slightest tremor of doubt in his voice. Pete always shares. Peters a fine boy, and Im sure youre right. Hell probably share. But no one can make a King share, you know. No one can make a King do anything he doesnt want to do. He looked at Thomas to gauge the effect of this remark, then looked back at the deep, shadowy treasure room. Somewhere, one of the aged clerks was droning out a count of ducats. Such a lot of treasure, and all for one man, Flagg remarked. Its really something to think about, isnt it, Tommy? Thomas said nothing, but Flagg had been well pleased. He saw that Tommy was thinking about it, all right, and he judged that another of those poisoned caskets was tumbling down into the well of Thomass mindkersplash! And that was indeed so. Later, when Peter proposed to Thomas that they share the expense of the nightly bottle of wine, Thomas had remembered the great treasure roomand he remembered that all the treasure in it would belong to his brother. Easy for you to talk so blithely of buying wine! Why not? Someday youll have all the money in the world! Then, about a year before he brought the poisoned wine to the King, on impulse, Flagg had shown Thomas this secret passage . . . and on this one occasion his usually unerring instinct for mischief might have led him astray. Again, I leave it for you to decide. 26 Tommy, you look down in the dumps! he cried. The hood of his cloak was pushed back on that day, and he looked almost normal. Almost. Tommy felt down in them. He had suffered through a long luncheon at which his father had praised Peters scores in geometry and navigation to his advisors with the most lavish superlatives. Roland had never rightly understood either. |
He knew that a triangle had three sides and a square had four; he knew you could find your way out of the woods when you were lost by following Old Star in the sky; and that was where his knowledge ended. That was where Thomass knowledge ended, too, so he felt that luncheon would never be done. Worse, the meat was just the way his father liked itbloody and barely cooked. Bloody meat made Thomas feel almost sick. My lunch didnt agree with me, thats all, he said to Flagg. Well, I know just the thing to cheer you up, Flagg said. Ill show you a secret of the castle, Tommy my boy. Thomas was playing with a buggerlug bug. He had it on his desk and had set his schoolbooks around it in a series of barriers. If the trundling beetle looked as if he might find a way out, Thomas would shift one of the books to keep him in. Im pretty tired, Thomas said. This was not a lie. Hearing Peter praised so highly always made him feel tired. Youll like it, Flagg said in a tone that was mostly wheedling . . . but a little threatening, too. Thomas looked at him apprehensively. There arent any . . . any bats, are there? Flagg laughed cheerilybut that laugh raised gooseflesh on Thomass arms anyway. He clapped Thomas on the back. Not a bat! Not a drip! Not a draft! Warm as toast! And you can peek at your father, Tommy! Thomas knew that peeking was just another way of saying spying, and that spying was wrongbut this had been a shrewd shot all the same. This next time the buggerlug bug found a way to escape between two of the books, Thomas let it go. All right, he said, but there better not be any bats. Flagg slipped an arm around the boys shoulders. No bats, I swearbut heres something for you to mull over in your mind, Tommy. Youll not only see your father, youll see him through the eyes of his greatest trophy. Thomass own eyes widened with interest. Flagg was satisfied. The fish was hooked and landed. What do you mean? Come and see for yourself, was all he would say. He led Thomas through a maze of corridors. You would have become lost very soon, and I probably would have gotten lost myself before long, but Thomas knew this way as well as you know your way through your own bedroom in the darkat least he did until Flagg led him aside. They had almost reached the Kings own apartments when Flagg pushed open a recessed wooden door that Thomas had never really noticed before. Of course it had always been there, but in castles there are often doorswhole wings, eventhat have mastered the art of being dim. This passage was quite narrow. A chambermaid with an armload of sheets passed them; she was so terrified to have met the Kings magician in this slim stone throat that it seemed she would happily have shrunk into the very pores of the stone blocks to avoid touching him. Thomas almost laughed because sometimes he felt a little like that himself when Flagg was around. They met no one else at all. Faintly, from below them, he could hear dogs barking, and that gave him a rough idea of where he was. The only dogs inside the castle proper were his fathers hunting dogs, and they were probably barking because it was time for them to be fed. Most of Rolands dogs were now almost as old as he was, and because he knew how the cold ached in his own bones, Roland had commanded that a kennel be made for them right here in the castle. To reach the dogs from his fathers main sitting chamber, one went down a flight of stairs, turned right, and walked ten yards or so up an interior corridor. So Thomas knew they were about thirty feet to the right of his fathers private rooms. Flagg stopped so suddenly that Thomas almost ran into him. The magician looked swiftly around to make sure they had the passageway to themselves. They did. Fourth stone up from the one at the bottom with the chip in it, Flagg said. Press it. Quick! Ah, there was a secret here, all right, and Thomas loved secrets. Brightening, he counted up four stones from the one with the chip and pressed. He expected some neat little bit of jiggerypokerya sliding panel, perhapsbut he was quite unprepared for what did happen. The stone slid in with perfect ease to a depth of about three inches. There was a click. An entire section of wall suddenly swung inward, revealing a dark vertical crack. This wasnt a wall at all! It was a huge door! Thomass jaw dropped. Flagg slapped Thomass bottom. Quick, I said, you little fool! he cried in a low voice. There was urgency in his voice, and this wasnt simply put on for Thomass benefit, as many of Flaggs emotions were. He looked right and left to verify that the passage was still empty. Go! Now! Thomas looked at the dark crack that had been revealed and thought uneasily about bats again. But one look at Flaggs face showed him that this would be a bad time to attempt a discussion on the subject. He pushed the door open wider and stepped into the darkness. Flagg followed at once. Thomas heard the low flap of the magicians cloak as he turned and shoved the wall closed again. The darkness was utter and complete, the air still and dry. Before he could open his mouth to say anything, the blue flame at the tip of Flaggs index finger flared alight, throwing a harsh bluewhite fan of illumination. Thomas cringed without even thinking about it, and his hands flew up. Flagg laughed harshly. No bats, Tommy. Didnt I promise? Nor were there. The ceiling was quite low, and Thomas could see for himself. No bats, and warm as toast . . . just as the magician had promised. By the light of Flaggs magic fingerflare, he could also see they were in a secret passage which was about twentyfive feet long. Walls, floor, and ceiling were covered with ironwood boards. He couldnt see the far end very well, but it looked perfectly blank. He could still hear the muffled barking of the dogs. When I said be quick, I meant it, Flagg said. He bent over Thomas, a vague, looming shadow that was, in this darkness, rather batlike itself. Thomas drew back a step, uneasily. As always, there was an unpleasant smell about the magiciana smell of secret powders and bitter herbs. You know where the passage is now, and Ill not be the one to tell you not to use it. But if youre ever caught using it, you must say you discovered it by accident. The shape loomed even closer, forcing Thomas back another step. If you say I showed it to you, Tommy, Ill make you sorry. Ill never tell, Thomas said. His words sounded thin and shaky. Good. Better yet if no one ever sees you using it. Spying on a King is serious business, prince or not. Now follow me. And be quiet. Flagg led him to the end of the passageway. The far wall was also dressed with ironwood, but when Flagg raised the flame that burned from the tip of his finger, Thomas saw two little panels. Flagg pursed his lips and blew out the light. In utter blackness, he whispered Never open these two panels with a light burning. He might see. Hes old, but he still sees well. He might see something, even though the eyeballs are of tinted glass. What Shhhh! There isnt much wrong with his ears, either. Thomas fell quiet, his heart pounding in his chest. He felt a great excitement that he didnt understand. Later he thought that he had been excited because he knew in some way what was going to happen. In the darkness he heard a faint sliding sound, and suddenly a dim ray of lighttorchlightlit the darkness. There was a second sliding sound and a second ray of light appeared. Now he could see Flagg again, very faintly, and his own hands when he held them up before him. Thomas saw Flagg step up to the wall and bend a little; then most of the light was cut out as he put his eyes to the two holes through which the rays of light fell. He looked for a moment, then grunted and stepped away. He motioned to Thomas. Have a look, he said. More excited than ever, Thomas cautiously put his eyes to the holes. He saw clearly enough, although everything had an odd greenishyellow aspectit was as if he were looking through smoked glass. A sense of perfect, delighted wonder rose in him. He was looking down into his fathers sitting room. He saw his father slouched by the fire in his favorite chairone with high wings which threw shadows across his lined face. It was very much the room of a huntsman; in our world such a room would often be called a den, although this one was as big as some ordinary houses. Flaring torches lined the long walls. Heads were mounted everywhere heads of bear, of deer, of elk, of wildebeest, of cormorant. There was even a grand featherex, which is the cousin of our legendary bird the phoenix. Thomas could not see the head of Niner, the dragon his father had killed before he was born, but this did not immediately register on him. His father was picking morosely at a sweet. A pot of tea steamed near at hand. That was all that was really happening in that great room that could have (and at times had) held upward of two hundred peoplejust his father, with a fur robe draped around him, having a solitary afternoon tea. Yet Thomas watched for a time that seemed endless. His fascination and his excitement with this view of his father cannot be told. His heartbeat, which had been rapid before, doubled. Blood sang and pounded in his head. His hands clenched into fists so tight that he would later discover bloody crescent moons imprinted into his palms where his fingernails had bitten. Why was he so excited simply to be looking at an old man picking halfheartedly at a piece of cake? Well, first you must remember that the old man wasnt just any old man. He was Thomass father. And spying, sad to say, has its own attraction. When you can see people doing something and they dont see you, even the most trivial actions seem important. After awhile, Thomas began to feel a little ashamed of what he was doing, and that was not really surprising. Spying on a person is a kind of stealing, after allits stealing a look at what people do when they think they are alone. But that is also one of its chief fascinations, and Thomas might have looked for hours if Flagg had not murmured, Do you know where you are, Tommy? I dont think so, he was going to add, but of course he did know. His sense of direction was good, and with a little thought he could imagine the reverse of this angle. He suddenly understood what Flagg meant when he said he, Thomas, would see his father through the eyes of Rolands greatest trophy. He was looking down at his father from a little more than halfway up the west wall . . . and that was where the greatest head of all was hungthat of Niner, his fathers dragon. He might see something, even though the eyeballs are of tinted glass. Now he understood that, too. Thomas had to clap his hands to his mouth to stifle a shrill giggle. Flagg slid the little panels shut again . . . but he, too, was smiling. No! Thomas whispered. No, I want to see more! Not this afternoon, Flagg said. Youve seen enough this afternoon. You can come again when you want . . . although if you come too often, youll surely be caught. Now come on. Were going back. Flagg relit the magic flame and led Thomas down the corridor again. At the end, he put the light out and there was another sliding sound as he opened a peephole. He guided Thomass hand to it so he would know where it was, and then bade him look. Notice that you can see the passageway in both directions, Flagg said. Always be careful to look before you open the secret door, or someday you will be surprised. Thomas put one eye to the peephole and saw, directly across the corridor, an ornate window with glass sides that angled slightly into the passageway. It was much too fancy for such a small passageway, but Thomas understood without having to be told that it had been put here by whoever had made the secret passageway. Looking into the angled sides, he could indeed see a ghostly reflection of the corridor in both directions. Empty? Flagg whispered. Yes, Thomas whispered back. Flagg pushed an interior spring (again guiding Thomass hand to it for future reference), and the door clicked open. Quickly now! Flagg said. They were out and the door was shut behind them in a trice. Ten minutes later, they were back in Thomass rooms. Enough excitement for one day, Flagg said. Remember what I told you, Tommy dont use the passageway so often that youll be caught, and if you are caughtFlaggs eyes glittered grimlyremember that you found that place by accident. I will, Thomas said quickly. His voice was high and it squeaked like a hinge that needed oil. When Flagg looked at him that way, his heart felt like a bird caught in his chest, fluttering in panic. 27 Thomas heeded Flaggs advice not to go often, but he did use the passageway from time to time, and peeked at his father through the glass eyes of Ninerpeeked into a world where everything became greenygold. Going away later with a pounding headache (as he almost always did), he would think Your head aches because you were seeing the way dragons must see the worldas if everything was dried out and ready to burn. And perhaps Flaggs instinct for mischief in this matter was not so bad at all, because, by spying on his father, Thomas learned to feel a new thing for Roland. Before he knew about the secret passage he had felt love for him, and often a sorrow that he could not please him better, and sometimes fear. Now he learned to feel contempt, as well. Whenever Thomas spied into Rolands sitting room and found his father in company, he left again quickly. He only lingered when his father was alone. In the past, Roland rarely had been, even in such rooms as his den, which was a part of his private apartments. There was always one more urgent matter to be attended to, one more advisor to see, one more petition to hear. But Rolands time of power was passing. As his importance waned with his good health, he found himself remembering all the times he had cried to either Sasha or Flagg Wont these people ever leave me alone? The memory brought a rueful smile to his lips. Now that they did, he missed them. Thomas felt contempt because people are rarely at their best when they are alone. They usually put their masks of politeness, good order, and good breeding aside. Whats beneath? Some warty monster? Some disgusting thing that would make people run away, screaming? Sometimes, perhaps, but usually its nothing bad at all. Usually people would just laugh if they saw us with our masks offlaugh, make a revolted face, or do both at the same time. Thomas saw that his father, whom he had always loved and feared, who had seemed to him the greatest man in the world, often picked his nose when he was alone. He would root around in first one nostril and then the other until he got a plump green booger. He would regard these with solemn satisfaction, turning each one this way and that in the firelight, the way a jeweler might turn a particularly fine emerald. Most of these he would then rub under the chair in which he was sitting. Others, I regret to say, he popped into his mouth and munched with an expression of reflective enjoyment on his face. He would have only a single glass of wine at nightthe glass which Peter brought himbut after Peter left, he drank what seemed to Thomas huge amounts of beer (it was only years later that Thomas came to realize that his father hadnt wanted Peter to see him drunk), and when he needed to urinate, he rarely used the commode in the corner. Most times he simply stood up and pissed into the fire, often farting as he did so. He talked to himself. He would sometimes walk around the long room like a man who was not sure where he was, speaking either to the air or to the mounted heads. I remember that day we got you, Bonsey, he would say to one of the elk heads (another of his eccentricities was that he had named every one of the trophies). I was with Bill Squathings and that fellow with the great lump on the side of his face. I remember how you came through the trees and Bill let loose, and then that fellow with the lump let loose, then I let loose Then his father would demonstrate how he had let loose by raising his leg and farting, even as he mimed drawing back a bowstring and letting fly. And he would laugh an old mans shrill, unpleasant cackle. Thomas would slide the little panels back after awhile and slink down the corridor again, his head pounding and an uneasy grin on his facethe head and grin of a boy who has been eating green apples and knows he may be sicker by morning than he is now. This was the father he had always loved and feared? He was an old man who farted out stinking clouds of steam. This was the King his loyal subjects called Roland the Good? He pissed into the fire, sending up more clouds of steam. This was the man who made his heart break by not liking his boat? He talked to the stuffed heads on his walls, calling them silly names like Bonsey and StagPool and Puckerstring; he picked his nose and sometimes ate the boogers. I dont care for you anymore, Thomas would think, checking the peephole to make sure the corridor was empty and then creeping back to his room like a felon. Youre a filthy, silly old man and youre nothing to me! Nothing at all! No! But he was something to Thomas. Some part of him went on loving Roland just the samesome part of him wanted to go to his father so his father would have something better to talk to than a bunch of stuffed heads on the walls. Still, there was that other part of him that liked spying better. 28 The night that Flagg came to King Rolands private rooms with the glass of poisoned wine was the first occasion in a very long time that Thomas had dared spy. There was a good reason for this. One night about three months before, Thomas found himself unable to sleep. He tossed and turned until he heard the keep watchman cry eleven. Then he got up, dressed, and left his rooms. Less than ten minutes later, he was looking down into his fathers den. He had thought his father might be asleep, but he was not. Roland was awake, and very, very drunk. Thomas had seen his father drunk many times before, but he had never seen him in anything remotely like his current state. The boy was flabbergasted and badly frightened. There are people much older than Thomas was then who harbor the idea that old age is always a gentle timethat an old person may exhibit gentle wisdom, gentle crabbiness or craftiness, perhaps the gentle confusion of senility. They will grant these, but find it hard to credit any real fire. They have an illusion that by the seventies, any real fire must have faded to coals. That may be true, but on this night Thomas discovered that coals may sometimes flare up violently. His father was striding rapidly up and down the length of his sitting room, his fur robe flying out behind him. His nightcap had fallen off; his remaining hair hung down in tangled locks, mostly about his ears. He was not staggering, as he had done on other nights, moving tentatively with one hand out to keep from running into the furniture. He was rolling like a sailor, but he was not staggering. When he did happen to run into one of the highbacked chairs which stood near the walls beneath the snarling head of a lynx, Roland threw the chair aside with a roar that made Thomas cringe. The hairs on his arms prickled. The chair flew across the room and hit the far wall. Its ironwood back splintered down the middlein this bitter drunkenness, the old King had regained the strength of his middle years. He looked up at the lynx head with red, glaring eyes. Bite me! he roared at it. The raw hoarseness in his voice made Thomas cringe again. Bite me, are you afeard? Come down out of that wall, Craker! Jump! Heres my chest, see? He tore open the robe, revealing his scrawny chest. He bared his few teeth at Crakers many, and lifted his head. Heres my neck! Come on, jump! Ill do you with my bare hands! ILL RIP YOUR STINKING GUTS OUT! He stood for a moment, chest out and head up, looking like an animal himselfan ancient stag, perhaps, that has been brought to bay and can now hope for nothing better than to die well. Then he whirled away, stopping at a bears head to shake a fist at it and roar a string of curses at itcurses so terrible that Thomas, cringing in the dark, believed that the bears outraged spirit might swoop down, reanimate the stuffed head, and tear his father open while he watched. But Roland was away again. He seized his mug, drained it, then whirled with brew dripping from his chops. He hurled the silver mug across the room, where it struck a stone angle of the fireplace hard enough to leave a dent in the metal. Now his father came down the room toward him, throwing another chair out of the way, then kicking a table aside with his bare foot. His eyes flicked up . . . and met Thomass own. Yesthey met his own eyes. Thomas felt their gazes lock, and a gray, swooning terror filled him like frozen breath. His father stalked toward him, his yellowed teeth bared, his remaining hair hanging over his ears, beer dripping from his chin and the corners of his mouth. You, Roland whispered in a low, terrible voice. Why do you stare at me? What do you hope to see? Thomas could not move. Found out, his mind gibbered, found out, by all the gods that ever were or shall be, I am found out and I will surely be exiled! His father stood there, his eyes fixed on the mounted dragons head. In his guilt, Thomas was sure his father had spoken to him, but this was not soRoland had only spoken to Niner as he had spoken to the other heads. Yet if Thomas could see out of the tinted glass eyeballs, then his father could see in, at least to some degree. If Thomas hadnt been utterly paralyzed with fear, he would have run away in a paniceven if he had summoned enough presence of mind to hold his ground, his eyes surely would have moved. And if Roland had seen the eyes of the dragon move, what might he have thought? That the dragon was coming to life again? Perhaps. In his drunken state, I even think that likely. If Thomas had so much as blinked his eyes on that occasion, Flagg would have needed no poison later. The King, old and frail in spite of the temporary potency the drink had given him, would almost surely have died of fright. Roland suddenly leaped forward. WHY DO YOU STARE AT ME? he shrieked, and in his drunkenness it was Niner, Delains last dragon, that he shrieked at, but of course, Thomas did not know that. WHY DO YOU STARE AT ME SO? IVE DONE THE BEST I COULD, ALWAYS THE BEST I COULD! DID I ASK FOR THIS? DID I ASK FOR IT? ANSWER ME, DAMN YOU! I DID THE BEST I COULD AND LOOK AT ME NOW! LOOK AT ME NOW! He pulled his robe wide open, showing his naked body, its gray skin blotchily flushed with drink. LOOK AT ME NOW! he shrieked again, and looked down at himself, weeping. Thomas could take no more. He slammed shut the panels behind the dragons glass eyes at the same moment his father took his eyes from Niner to look down at his own wasted body. Thomas crashed and blundered down the black corridor and slammed full force into the closed door, braining himself and falling in a heap. He was up in a moment, unaware of the blood pouring down his face from a cut in his forehead, pounding at the secret spring until the door popped open. He rushed out into the corridor, not even thinking to check if anyone was there to see him. All he could see was his fathers glaring, bloodshot eyes, all he could hear was his father screaming Why do you stare at me? He had no way of knowing that his father had already fallen into a sleep of deep drunkenness. When Roland woke up the next morning, he was still on the floor, and the first thing he did, in spite of his fiercely aching head and his throbbing, bruised body (Roland was far too old for such strenuous revels), was to look at the dragons head. He rarely dreamed when he was drunkthere was only an interval of sodden darkness. But last night a terrible dream had come to him the glass eyes of the dragons head had moved and Niner came to life. The worm breathed its deadly breath down on him, and although he could not see that fire, he could feel it deep down inside him, hot and getting hotter. With this dream still lingering fresh in his mind, he dreaded what he might see when he looked up. But all was as it had been for years now. Niner snarled his fearsome snarl, his forked tongue lolled between teeth almost as long as fence pickets, his greengold eyes stared blankly across the room. Ceremoniously crossed above this fabulous trophy were Rolands great bow and the arrow FoeHammer, its tip and shaft still black with dragon blood. He mentioned this terrible dream once to Flagg, who only nodded and looked more thoughtful than usual. Then Roland simply forgot it. Forgetting was not so easy for Thomas. He was haunted for weeks by nightmares. In them, his father stared at him and shrieked, See what youve done to me! and threw his robe open to display his nakednessold puckered scars, drooping belly, sagging musclesas if to say this too had all been Thomass fault, that if he hadnt spied . . . Why do you never want to see Father anymore? Peter asked him one day. He thinks youre mad at him. That Im mad at him? Thomas was astounded. Thats what he said at tea today, Peter said. He looked at his brother closely, observing the dark circles under Thomass eyes, the pallor of Thomass cheeks and forehead. Tom, whats wrong? Maybe nothing, Thomas said slowly. The next day he took tea with his father and brother. Going took all of his courage, but Thomas did have courage, and he sometimes found itusually when his back was to the wall. His father gave him a kiss and asked him if anything was wrong. Thomas muttered that he hadnt been feeling well, but now he felt fine. His father nodded, gave him a rough hug, then went back to his usual behaviorwhich consisted mostly of ignoring Thomas in favor of Peter. For once, Thomas welcomed thishe didnt want his father looking at him any more than necessary, at least for a while. That night, lying awake for a long time in bed and listening to the wind moan outside, he came to the conclusion that he had had a very close shave . . . but that he had somehow gotten away with it. But never again, he thought. In the weeks after, the nightmares came less and less frequently. Finally they stopped altogether. Still, the castles head groom, Yosef, was right about one thing boys are sometimes better at pledging vows than they are at keeping them, and Thomass desire to spy on his father at last grew stronger than both his fears and his good intentions. And that is how it happened that on the night Flagg came to Roland with the poisoned wine, Thomas was watching. 29 When Thomas got there and slid aside the two little panels, his father and his brother were just finishing their nightly glass of wine together. Peter was now almost seventeen, tall and handsome. The two of them sat by the fire, drinking and talking like old friends, and Thomas felt the old hate fill his heart with acid. After some little time, Peter arose and took courteous leave of his father. You leave earlier and earlier these nights, Roland remarked. Peter made some demurral. Roland smiled. It was a sweet, sad smile, mostly toothless. I hear, said he, that she is lovely. Peter looked flustered, which was uncommon with him. He stammered, which was even less common. Go, Roland interrupted. Go. Be gentle with her, and be kind . . . but be hot, if there is ardor in you. Later years are cold years, Peter. Be hot while your years are green, and fuel is plentiful, and the fire may burn high. Peter smiled. You speak as if you are very old, Father, but you still look strong and hale to me. Roland embraced Peter. I love you, he said. Peter smiled with no awkwardness or embarrassment. I love you, too, Dad, he said, and in his lonely darkness (spying is always lonely work, and the spyer almost always does it in the dark), Thomas pulled a horrible face. Peter left, and for an hour or more not much happened. Roland sat morosely by the fire, drinking glass after glass of beer. He did not roar or bellow or talk to the heads on the walls; there was no destruction of furniture. Thomas had almost made up his mind to leave, when there was a double rap at the door. Roland had been looking into the fire, almost hypnotized by the flickerplay of the flames. Now he roused himself and called, Who comes? Thomas heard no response, but his father rose and went to the door as if he had. He opened it, and at first Thomas thought his fathers habit of talking to the heads on the walls had taken a queer new turnthat his father was now inventing invisible human company to relieve his boredom. Strange to see you here at this hour, Roland said, apparently walking back toward the fire in the company of no one at all. I thought you were always at your spells and conjurations after dark. Thomas blinked, rubbed his eyes, and saw that someone was there after all. For a moment he couldnt rightly make out who . . . and then he wondered how he could possibly have thought his father was alone when Flagg was right there beside him. Flagg was carrying two glasses of wine on a silver tray. Wives tale, mLordmagicians conjure early as well as late. But of course we have our darksome image to keep up. Rolands sense of humor was always improved by beerso much so that he would often laugh at things that werent funny in the least. At this remark he threw back his head and bellowed as if it was the greatest joke he had ever heard. Flagg smiled thinly. When Rolands fit of laughing had passed, he said Whats this? Wine? Your son is barely more than a boy, but his deference toward his father and his honor of his King have shamed me, a grown man, Flagg said. I brought you a glass of wine, my King, to show you that I, too, love you. He passed it to Roland, who looked absurdly touched. Dont drink it, Father! Thomas thought suddenlyhis mind was full of an alarm he couldnt understand. Rolands head came up suddenly and tilted, almost as if he had heard. Hes a good boy, my Peter, Roland said. Indeed, Flagg replied. Everyone in the Kingdom says so. Do they? Roland asked, looking pleased. Do they, indeed? Yesso they do. Shall we toast him? Flagg raised his glass. No, Father! Thomas shouted in his mind again, but if his father had heard his first thought, he didnt hear this one. His face shone with love for Thomass elder brother. To Peter, then! Roland raised the glass of poisoned wine high. To Peter! Flagg agreed, smiling. To the King! Thomas cringed in the dark. Flaggs making two different toasts I dont know what he means, but . . . Father! This time it was Flagg who turned his darkly considering gaze toward the dragons head for a moment, as if he had heard the thought. Thomas froze, and in a moment Flaggs gaze turned back to Roland. They clinked glasses and drank. As his father quaffed the glass of wine, Thomas felt a splinter of ice push its way into his heart. Flagg made a halfturn in his chair and threw his glass into the fire. Peter! Peter! Roland echoed, and threw his own. It smashed against the sooty brickwork at the back of the fireplace and fell into the flames, which for a moment seemed to flare an ugly green. Roland raised the back of his hand to his mouth for a moment, as if to stifle a belch. Did you spice it? he asked. It tasted . . . almost mulled. No, my Lord, Flagg said gravely, but Thomas thought he sensed a smile behind the mask of the magicians gravity, and that splinter of ice slipped further into his heart. Suddenly he wanted no more of spying, not ever. He closed the peepholes and crept back to his room. He felt first hot, then cold, then hot again. By morning he had a fever. Before he was well again, his father was dead, his brother imprisoned in the room at the top of the Needle, and he was a boy King at the age of barely twelveThomas the LightBringer, he was dubbed at the coronation ceremonies. |
And who was his closest advisor? You guess. 30 When Flagg left Roland (the old man was feeling sprightlier than ever by then, a sure sign the Dragon Sand was at work in him), he went back to his dark basement rooms. He got out the tweezers and the packet containing the remaining few grains of sand and put them on his huge old desk. Then he turned his hourglass over and resumed reading. Outside, the wind screamed and gobbledold wives cringed in their beds and slept poorly and told their husbands that Rhiannon, the Dark Witch of the Coos, was riding her hateful broom this night, and wicked work was afoot. The husbands grunted, turned over, told their wives to go back to sleep and leave them alone. They were dull fellows for the most part; when an eye is wanted to see straws flying in the wind, give me an old wife any day. Once a spider skittered halfway across Flaggs book, touched a spell so terrible not even the magician dared use it, and turned instantly to stone. Flagg grinned. When the hourglass was empty, he turned it over again. And again. And again. He turned it over eight times in all, and when the eighth hours worth of sand was nearly gone, he set about finishing his work. He kept a large number of animals in a dim room down the hall from his study, and he went there first. The little creatures skittered and cringed when Flagg came near. He did not blame them. In the far corner was a wicker cage containing half a dozen brown micesuch mice were everywhere in the castle, and that was important. Down here there were also huge rats, but it was not a rat Flagg wanted tonight. The Royal Rat upstairs had been poisoned; a simple mouse would be enough to make sure the crime came home to the Royal Ratling. If all went well, Peter would soon be as tightly locked up as these mice. Flagg reached into the cage and removed one. It trembled wildly in his cupped hand. He could feel the rapid thrumming of its heart, and he knew that if he simply held it, it would soon die of fright. Flagg pointed the little finger of his left hand at the mouse. The fingernail glowed faintly blue for a moment. Sleep, the magician commanded, and the mouse fell on its side and went to sleep on his open palm. Flagg took it back into his study and laid it on his desk, where the obsidian paperweight had rested earlier. Now he went into his larder and drew a little mead from an oaken barrel into a saucer. He sweetened it with honey. He put it on his desk, then went out into the corridor and breathed deeply at the window again. Holding his breath, he came back in and used the tweezers to pour all but the last three or four grains of Dragon Sand into the honeysweetened mead. Then he opened another drawer of his desk and removed a fresh packet, which was empty. Then, reaching all the way to the back of this drawer, he brought out a very special box. The fresh packet was bewitched, but its magic was not very strong. It would hold the Dragon Sand safely only for a short while. Then it would begin to work on the paper. It would not set it alight, not inside the box; there would not be air enough for that. But it would smoke and smolder, and that would be enough. That would be fine. Flaggs chest was thudding for air, but he still spared a moment to look at this box and congratulate himself. He had stolen it ten years ago. If you had asked him at the time why he took it, he would have known no more than he knew why he had shown Thomas the secret passage that ended behind the dragons headthat instinct for mischief had told him to take it and that he would find a use for it, so he had. After all those years in his desk, that useful time had come. PETER was engraved across the top of the box. Sasha had given it to her boy; he had left it for a moment on a table in a hallway when he had to run down the hallway after something or other; Flagg came along, saw it, and popped it into his pocket. Peter had been griefstricken, of course, and when a prince is upseteven a prince who is only six years oldpeople take notice. There had been a search, but the box had never been found. Using the tweezers, Flagg carefully poured the last few grains of Dragon Sand from the original packet, which had been wholly enchanted, into the packet which had been only incompletely enchanted. Then he went back to the window in the corridor to draw fresh breath. He did not breathe again until the fresh packet had been laid in the antique wooden box, the tweezers laid in there beside it, the top of the box slowly closed, and the original packet disposed of in the sewer. Flagg was hurrying now, but he felt secure enough. Mouse, sleeping; box, closed; incriminating evidence safely latched inside. It was very well. Pointing the little finger of his left hand at the mouse lying stretched out on his desk like a fur rug for pixies, Flagg commanded Wake. The mouses feet twitched. Its eyes opened. Its head came up. Smiling, Flagg wiggled his little finger in a circle and said Run. The mouse ran in circles. Flagg wiggled his finger up and down. Jump. The mouse began to jump on its hind legs like a dog in a carnival, its eyes rolling wildly. Now drink, Flagg said, and pointed his little finger at the dish holding the honeysweetened mead. Outside, the wind gusted to a roar. On the far side of the city, a bitch gave birth to a litter of twoheaded pups. The mouse drank. Now, said Flagg, when the mouse had drunk enough of the poison to serve his purpose, sleep again. And the mouse did. Flagg hurried to Peters rooms. The box was in one of his many pocketsmagicians have many, many pocketsand the sleeping mouse was in another. He passed several servants and a laughing gaggle of drunken courtiers, but none saw him. He was still dim. Peters rooms were locked, but that was no problem for one of Flaggs talents. Three passes with his hands and the door was open. The young princes rooms were empty, of course; the boy was still with his lady friend. Flagg didnt know as much about Peter as he did about Thomas, but he knew enoughhe knew, for instance, where Peter kept the few treasures he thought worth hiding away. Flagg went directly to the bookcase and pulled out three or four boring textbooks. He pushed at a wooden edging and heard a spring click back. He then slid a panel aside, revealing a recess in the back of the case. It was not even locked. In the recess was a silk hairribbon his lady had given him, a packet of letters she had written him, a few letters from him to her which burned so brightly he did not dare to send them, and a little locket with his mothers picture inside it. Flagg opened the engraved box and very carefully shredded one corner of the packets flap. Now it looked as if a mouse had been chewing at it. Flagg closed the lid again and put the box in the recessed space. You cried so when you lost this box, dear Peter, he murmured. I think you may cry even more when its found. He giggled. He put the sleeping mouse beside the box, closed the compartment, and put the books neatly back in place. Then he left, and slept well. Great mischief was afoot, and he felt confident that he had moved as he liked to movebehind the scenes, seen by no one. 31 For the next three days, King Roland seemed healthier, more vigorous, and more decisive than anyone had seen him in yearsit was the talk of the court. Visiting his ill and feverish brother in his apartments, Peter remarked to Thomas in awe that what remained of their fathers hair actually seemed to be changing color, from the babyfine wispy white it had been for the last four years or so to the iron gray it had been in Rolands middle years. Thomas smiled, but a fresh chill raced through him. He asked Peter for another blanket, but it wasnt really a blanket he needed; he needed to unsee that final strange toast, and that, of course, was impossible. Then, after dinner on the third day, Roland complained of indigestion. Flagg offered to have the court physician summoned. Roland waved the suggestion away, saying that he felt fine, actually, better than he had in months, in years He belched. It was a long, arid, rattling sound. The convivial crowd in the ballroom fell silent with wonder and apprehension as the King doubled over. The musicians in the corner ceased playing. When Roland straightened up, a gasp ran through those present. The Kings cheeks were aflame with color. Smoking tears ran from his eyes. More smoke drifted from his mouth. There were perhaps seventy people in that great dining hallroughdressed Riders (what we would call knights, I suppose), sleek courtiers and their ladies, attendants upon the throne, courtesans, jesters, musicians, a little troupe of actors in one corner who had been going to put on a play later, servants in great numbers. But it was Peter who ran to his father; it was Peter they all saw going to the doomed man, and this did not displease Flagg at all. Peter. They would remember it had been Peter. Roland clutched his stomach with one hand and his chest with the other. Smoke suddenly poured out of his mouth in a graywhite plume. It was as if the King had learned some amazing new way of telling the story of his greatest exploit. But it was no trick, and there were screams as smoke poured not only from his mouth but from his nostrils, ears, and the corners of his eyes. His throat was so red it was nearly purple. Dragon! King Roland shrieked as he collapsed into his sons arms. Dragon! It was the last word he ever spoke. 32 The old man was toughincredibly tough. Before he died he was throwing off so much heat that no one, not even his most loyal servants, could approach closer to his bed than four feet. Several times they threw buckets of water on the poor dying King when they saw the bedclothes beginning to smolder. Each time, the water turned instantly to steam that billowed through his bedchamber and out into the sitting room where courtiers and Riders stood in numb silence and ladies clustered, weeping and wringing their hands. Just before midnight, a jet of green flame shot from his mouth and he died. Flagg went solemnly to the door between the bedchamber and the sitting room and announced the news. There followed an utter silence that stretched out for more than a minute. It was broken by a single word which came from somewhere in the gathered crowd. Flagg did not know who spoke that one word, and he did not care. It was enough that it had been spoken. Indeed, he would have bribed a man to speak it if such could have been done with no danger to him. Murder! this someone said. There was a universal gasp. Flagg raised a solemn hand to his mouth to hide a smile. 33 The court physician amplified one word to three Murder by poison. He did not say Murder by Dragon Sand, for the poison was unknown in Delain, except to Flagg. The King died shortly before midnight, but by dawn the charge was rife in the city and spreading outward toward the far reaches of the Eastern, Western, Southern, and Northern Baronies Murder, regicide, Roland the Good dead by poison. Even before then, Flagg had organized a search of the castle, from the highest point (the Eastern Tower) to the lowest (the Dungeon of Inquisition, with its racks and manacles and squeezing boots). Any evidence bearing on this terrible crime, he said, must be searched out and reported at once. The castle rang with the search. Six hundred grimly eager men combed through it. Only two small areas of the castle were exempt; these were the apartments of the two princes, Peter and Thomas. Thomas was barely aware of this; his fever had worsened to the point where the court physician had become deeply alarmed. He lay in a delirium as dawns first light fingered its way into his windows. In his dreams, he saw two glasses of wine raised high, heard his father say again and again Did you spice it? It tasted mulled. Flagg had ordered the search, but by two in the morning, Peter had recovered enough of his wits to take charge of it. Flagg let him. These next few hours would be terribly important, a time when all could be won or lost, and Flagg knew it. The King was dead; the Kingdom was momentarily headless. But not for long; this very day, Peter would be crowned King at the foot of the Needle, unless the crime was brought home to the boy quickly and conclusively. Under other circumstances, Flagg knew, Peter would have been under suspicion at once. People always suspect those who have the most to gain, and Peter had gained a great deal by his fathers death. Poison was horrible, but poison might have won him a kingdom. But in this case, the people of the Kingdom spoke of the boys loss rather than the boys gain. Of course, Thomas had lost his father, too, they might add after a pausealmost as if they were ashamed of the momentary lapse. But Thomas was a sullen, sulky, awkward boy who had often argued with his father. Peters affection and respect for Roland, on the other hand, were known far and wide. And why, people would askif the monstrous idea was even raised, and so far it had not beenwhy would Peter kill his father for the crown when he would surely inherit it in a year, or three, or five? If evidence of the crime were to be found in a secret place that only Peter knew, howevera place in the princes own roomsthe tide would turn quickly. People would begin to see a murderers face beneath a mask of affection and respect. They would point out that, to the young, a year may seem like three, three like nine, five like twentyfive. Then they would point out that the King had seemed, in the last few days of his life, to be coming out of a long, dark timehad seemed to be growing hale and vigorous again. Perhaps, they would say, Peter had believed his father was entering a long, healthy Indian summer, had panicked and done something as foolish as it was monstrous. Flagg knew something else; he knew that people have a deep and instinctive distrust of all Kings and princes, for these are people who may order their deaths with a single nod, and for crimes as petty as dropping a handkerchief in their presence. Great Kings are loved, lesser Kings are tolerated; Kingstobe represent a scary unknown quantity. They might come to love Peter if given a chance, but Flagg knew they would also condemn him quickly if shown enough evidence. Flagg thought such evidence would be forthcoming soon. Nothing more than a mouse. Small . . . but big enough in its way to shake a kingdom to its foundations. 34 In Delain there were only three stages of being childhood, halfmanhood or womanhood, and adulthood. These halfyears lasted from fourteen to eighteen. When Peter entered halfmanhood, the scolding nannies were replaced with Brandon, his butler, and Dennis, Brandons son. Brandon would be Peters butler for years yet, but probably not forever. Peter was very young, and Brandon was nearing fifty. When Brandon was no longer able to buttle, Dennis would take over. Brandons family had buttled high royalty for nearly eight hundred years, and were justifiably proud of the fact. Dennis rose each morning at five oclock, dressed, laid out his fathers suit, and shined his fathers shoes. Then he wandered blearily into the kitchen and ate breakfast. At quarter to six, he set out from the familys home on the west side of the castle keep and entered the castle proper by the Lesser West Door. Promptly at six oclock he would reach Peters rooms, let himself quietly in, and go about the early choresbuilding a fire, making half a dozen breakfast muffins, heating water for tea. Then he would quickly circle the three rooms, setting them to rights. This was usually easy, because Peter was not a messy boy. Last of all, he would return to the study and lay out breakfast, for the study was where Peter liked to eat the meals he took in his roomsusually at his desk by the east windows, with a history book open before him. Dennis didnt like getting up early, but he liked his job very much, and he liked Peter, who was always patient with him, even when he made a mistake. The only time he had ever raised his voice to Dennis was when Dennis had brought him a light lunch and had neglected to put a napkin on the tray. Im very sorry, yHighness, Dennis had said on that occasion. I just never thought Well next time, do think! Peter said. He was not shouting, but it was a close thing. Dennis had never neglected to put a napkin on Peters tray againand sometimes, just to be safe, he put on two. Morning chores done, Dennis faded into the background and his father took over. Brandon was every bit the perfect butler, with his cravat neatly knotted, his hair pulled tightly back and rolled in a bun at the nape of his neck, his coat and breeches without a speck, his shoes shined to a mirror gloss (a mirror gloss Dennis was responsible for). But at night, with his shoes off, his coat hung in the closet, his cravat loosened, and a glass of bundlegin in his hand, he looked to Dennis a much more natural man. Tell you something to always be remembrun, Denny, he had said to his son on many occasions while in this comfortable state. There may be as manys a dozen things in this world which last, but surely no more, and may be less. Passeyonut love of a woman dont last, and a runners wind dont last, nor does a braggarts wind, nor does haytime in the summer or sugartime in spring thaw. But two things that do last is one, royalty, and another, service. If you stick with your young man until hes an old man, and if you take care of him proper, hell take care of you proper. You serve him an hell serve you, if you take the turn o my mind. Now pour me another glass, and take a drop for yourself, if you like, but no more than a drop or your motherll skin us both alive. Undoubtedly, some sons would quickly have grown bored with this catechism, but Dennis did not. He was the rarest of sons, a boy who had reached twenty and still thought his father wiser than himself. On the morning after the Kings death, Dennis hadnt had to force himself blearily out of bed at five oclock; he had been awakened at three by his father, with the news of the Kings death. Flaggs rared up a search party, his father said, eyes full of bloodshot distress, and thats right enough. But my master will be leading it soon enough, Ill warrant, and Im off to help him hunt for the fiend who done it, if hell have me. Me, too! Dennis cried, grabbing for his breeches. Not at all, not at all, his father said with a hard sternness that made Dennis subside at once. Thingsll go forrad here just as they always have, murder or nothe old ways must be kept to now more than ever. My master and your master will be crowned King at noon, and thats well enough, although he comes to the crown in a bad time. But the death of a King by violence is always an evil thing if it comes not on the field of battle. The old ways will hold, doubt it not, but there may be trouble in the meantime. Whats best for you, Dennis, is to go about your work just the same as always. He was gone before Dennis could protest. And when five oclock came, Dennis told his mother what his father had said and told her he should get about his morning round, even though he knew Peter would be gone. Denniss mother was more than agreeable. She was dying for news. She told him to go, of course . . . go and then come back to her no later than eight of the clock, and tell her all he heard. So Dennis went to Peters rooms, which were utterly deserted. Nevertheless, he observed his regular routine, finishing by setting breakfast in the princes study. He looked ruefully at the plates and glasses, the jams and jellies, reflecting that surely none of those things would be used that morning. Still, going about his ordered course had made him feel better for the first time since his father had turned him out of bed, for he now understood that, for better or worse, things were never going to be the same again. Times had changed. He was preparing to leave when he heard a sound. It was so muffled he couldnt rightly tell where it wasonly the general area from which it came. He looked toward Peters bookcase, and his heart leaped in his chest. Tendrils of smoke were drifting from between the loosely shelved books. Dennis leaped across the room and began pulling books out by double handfuls. He saw that the smoke was issuing from cracks at one side of the bookcases back. Also, that sound was clearer with the books gone. It was some sort of animal, squeaking in pained distress. Dennis clawed and pawed at the bookcase, his fright spiraling toward panic. If there was one thing people were afraid of in that time and place, it was fire. Soon enough his fingers happened on the secret spring. Flagg had foreseen this, tooafter all, the secret panel wasnt really very secretenough to amuse a boy, but not much more. The back of the bookcase slid to the right a bit, and a puff of gray smoke wafted out. The smell that escaped with the smoke was extremely unpleasanta mixture of cooking meat, frying fur, and smoldering paper. Not thinking, Dennis swept the panel all the way open. Of course, when he did that, more air got in. Things which had been only smolderng before now showed the first winks of flame. This was the crucial point, the one place where Flagg had to be content not with what he was sure would happen but with his best guess of what would probably happen. All his efforts of the last seventyfive years now swung upon the fragile hinge of what a butlers son might or might not do in the next five seconds. But the Brandons had been butlers since time out of mind, and Flagg had decided he must depend on their long tradition of impeccable behavior. If Dennis had frozen in horror at the sight of those blossoming flames, or if he had turned and run for a pitcher of water, all of Flaggs carefully planted evidence might have burned in greenishtinted flames. The murder of Peters father would never have been laid at Peters door and he would have been crowned King at noon. But Flaggs judgment was right. Instead of freezing or going for water, Dennis reached in and beat the flames out with his bare hands. It took less than five seconds, and Dennis was barely singed. The doleful squeaking went on, and the first thing he saw when he had waved the smoke aside was a mouse, lying on its side. It was in its death agonies. It was only a mouse, and Dennis had killed dozens of them in the line of duty without the slightest feeling of pity. Yet he felt sorry for this poor little bugger. Something terrible, something he could not even begin to understand, had happened to it and was still happening to it. Smoke rose from its fur in fine ribbons. When he touched it, he drew his hand back with a hissit was like touching the side of a tiny stove, such as the one in Sashas dollhouse. More smoke drifted lazily from an engraved wooden box with its lid slightly ajar. Dennis lifted the lid a little. He saw the tweezers, the packet. A number of brownish spots had flowered on the packet and it smoldered sluggishly, but had not burst into flame . . . nor did it now. The flames had come from Peters letters, which were, of course, not enchanted at all. It was the mouse that had set these alight with its fearfully hot body. Now there was only the sullenly smoldering packet, and something warned Dennis not to touch it. He was afraid. There were things here that he didnt understand, things he was not sure he wanted to understand. The one thing he knew for sure was that he badly needed to speak to his father. His father would know what to do. Dennis took the ash bucket and a small shovel from beside the stove and went back to the secret panel. He used the shovel to pick up the smoking body of the mouse and drop it into the ash bucket. He wet the charred corners of the letters once more, just to be sure. Then he closed the panel, replaced the books, and left Peters apartments. He took the ash bucket with him, and now he did not feel like Peters loyal servant but like a thiefhis booty was a poor mouse that died even before Dennis got back out the West Gate of the castle. And before he had even reached his house on the far side of the castle keep, a horrible suspicion had dawned in his mindhe was the first in Delain to feel this suspicion, but he would not be the last. He tried to push the thought out of his head, but it kept coming back. What sort of poison, Dennis wondered, had killed King Roland, anyway? Exactly what sort of poison had it been? By the time he got back to the Brandon house, he was in a bad state indeed, and he would answer none of his mothers questions. Nor would he show her what was in the ash bucket. He told her only that he must see his father the moment he came init was dreadfully important. Then he went into his room and wondered exactly what sort of poison it had been. He only knew one thing about it, but that one thing was enough. It had been something hot. 35 Brandon arrived just before ten oclock, shorttempered, exhausted, and in no mood for foolishness. He was dirty and sweaty, there was a thin cut across his forehead, and cobwebs flew from his hair in long strings. They had found no sign of the assassin at all. His only news was that preparations for Peters coronation were going full speed ahead in the Plaza of the Needle, under the direction of Anders Peyna, Delains JudgeGeneral. His wife told him of Denniss return. Brandons brow darkened. He went to the door of his sons room and rapped not with his knuckles but with a closed fist. Come ee out here, boy, and tell us why you come back with the ash bucket from your masters study. No, Dennis said. You come in here, DadI dont want Mother to see what Ive got, and I dont want her to hear what we say to each other. Brandon barged in. Denniss mother waited apprehensively by the stove, expecting it was some sort of semihysterical foolishness which the boy had thought up, some illadvised monkeyshine, and that very soon she would hear Denniss wails as her tired and distraught husband, who must begin today at noon to buttle not a prince but a King, took out all his fears and frustrations on the boys backside. She hardly blamed Dennis; everyone in the keep seemed hysterical this morning, running around like crazy people just let out of bedlam, repeating a hundred false rumors, then taking them back in order to repeat a hundred new ones. But there were no raised voices from behind Denniss door, and neither of them came out for more than an hour. When they did, a single look at her husbands white face made the poor woman feel like fainting dead away. Dennis scurried along at his fathers heels like a scared puppy. Now Brandon was carrying the ash bucket. Where are you going? she asked timidly. Brandon said nothing. It seemed that Dennis could say nothing. He only rolled his eyes at her and then followed his father out the door. She saw neither of them for twentyfour hours, and became convinced that both were deador even worse, that they were suffering in the Dungeon of Inquisition below the castle. Her dire thoughts were not so unlikely, either, for those were a terrible twentyfour hours in Delain. The day mightnt have seemed so terrible in some places, places where revolt and upheaval and alarms and midnight executions are almost a way of life . . . there really are such places, although I wish I didnt have to say so. But Delain had for yearsand even centuriesbeen an ordered and orderly place, so perhaps they were spoiled. That black day really began when Peter was not crowned at noon and ended with the stunning news that he was to be tried in the Hall of the Needle for the murder of his father. If Delain had had a stock market, I suppose it would have crashed. Construction on the dais where the coronation was to take place began at first light. The platform would be a juryrigged affair of plain boards, Anders Peyna knew, but he also knew that enough flowers and bunting would cover the rude spots. They had had no warning of the Kings passing, because murder isnt a thing that can be predicted. If it could be, there would be no murders, and the world would almost certainly be a happier place. Besides, pomp and circumstance wasnt the pointthe point was to make the people feel the continuity of the throne. If the citizens got the feeling that everything was still all right in spite of the terrible thing that had happened, Peyna didnt care how many flower girls got splinters. But at eleven oclock, construction abruptly ceased. The flower girls were turned awaymany of them in tearsby the Home Guards. At seven that morning, most of the Home Guards had begun dressing in their gorgeous red ceremonial uniforms and their tall gray WolfJaw shakos. They were, of course, to form the ceremonial double line, an aisle down which Peter would walk to be crowned. Then, at eleven, they received new orders; strange, unsettling orders. The ceremonial uniforms came off in a blazing hurry and their dull, duncolored combat uniforms went on instead. The showy but clumsy ceremonial swords were replaced with the lethal shortswords which were everyday equipment. Impressive but impractical WolfJaw shakos were cast aside in favor of the squat leather helmets that were normal battle dress. Battle dressthe very term was distressing. Is there such a thing as normal battle dress? I do not think so. Yet soldiers in battle dress were everywhere, their faces stern and forbidding. Prince Peter has committed suicide! That was the most common rumor which went flying about the castle keep. Prince Peter has been murdered! That one ran a close second. Roland was not dead; it was a mistaken diagnosis, the physician has been beheaded, but the old King is insane and no one knows what to do. That was a third. There were many others, some even more foolish. No one slept as darkness stole over the confused, sorrowing castle keep. All the torches in the Plaza of the Needle were lit, the castle blazed with lights, and every house in the keep and on the hills below showed candles and lanterns, as frightened people gathered to talk about the days events. All agreed wild work was afoot. The night was even longer than the day. Mrs. Brandon kept watch for her men in terrible loneliness. She sat at the window, but for the first time in her life, the air was rife with more gossip than she wanted to hear. Yet for all of that, could she stop listening? She could not. As the small hours of the morning stretched out endlessly toward a dawn that she felt would never come, a new rumor began to supplant all the old onesit was incredible, unbelievable, and yet it was asserted with more and more assurance until even the guards at their posts were repeating it to one another in undertones. This new rumor terrified Mrs. Brandon most of all, because she rememberedtoo well!how white poor Denniss face had been when he had come in with the princes ash bucket. There had been something inside, something that smelled sick and burnt, something he wouldnt show her. Prince Peters been taken in custody for the murder of his father, this awful rumor went. Hes been taken . . . Prince Peters been taken . . . the prince has murdered his own father! Shortly before dawn, the distracted woman laid her head in her arms and wept. After a bit, her sobbing faded as she fell into a troubled sleep. 36 Now tell me whats in that bucket, and be quick about it! We want no fooling, Dennis, dyou understand me? was the first thing Brandon said when he entered Denniss room and closed the door behind him. Ill show you, Dad, Dennis said, but first, answer me one question what sort of poison was it that killed the King? No one knows. What were its ways? Show me whats in the bucket, boy. Do it now. Brandon balled a great hard fist. He did not shake it; he only held it up. That was enough. Show me now or be knocked aside. Brandon looked at the dead mouse for a long time, saying nothing. |
Dennis watched, scared, as his dads face grew paler, graver, grayer. The mouses eyes had burned until they were nothing but charred black cinders. Its brown fur had been crisped black. Smoke still rose from its tiny ears, and its teeth, visible in its death grimace, were a sooty black, like the teeth in the grate of a stove. Brandon made as if to touch it, and then pulled his hand back. He raised his face to his son and spoke in a hoarse whisper. Where did you find this? Dennis began to stammer out bundles of phrases which didnt mean a thing. Brandon listened a moment and then squeezed his sons shoulder. Draw you a deep breath and put your thoughts all in a row, Denny, he said. Im on yer side in this, as I am in all else, yer know. Yer did right to keep the sight of this poor thing from yer mom. Now tell me how you found it, and where you found it. Eased and reassured, Dennis was able to tell his father the story. His telling was a bit shorter than mine, but it still took several minutes. His father sat in a chair, one knuckle digging into his forehead, shading his eyes. He asked no questions, did not even grunt. When Dennis had finished, his father muttered four words in an undertone. Just four wordsbut they froze the boys heart into a cold blue cakeor so it felt to him at the time. Just like the King. Brandons lips were trembling with fright, but he seemed to be trying to smile. Do you suppose yonder animal was a King of Mice, Denny? Dad . . . Daddy, I . . . I . . . There was a box, you said. Yes. And a packet. Yes. And the packet was charred, but not burned. Yes. And tweezers. Yes, like Mamma uses to pluck the hairs from outn her nose Shh, Brandon said, and dug his knuckle into his forehead again. Let me think. Five minutes went by. Brandon sat motionless, almost as if he had gone to sleep, but Dennis knew better. Brandon did not know that Peters mother had given him the engraved box or that Peter had lost it when he was small; both of those things had happened long before Peter entered his halfmanhood and Brandon came into his service. He did know about the secret panel; he had happened on this in the very first year he had served Peter (and not very far into that year, either). As I may have said, it wasnt really a very secret compartment, as those things wentjust enough to satisfy such an open boy as Peter. Brandon knew about it, but had never looked into it after that first time, when it had contained nothing more than the glorified junk that any boy calls his treasuresa Tarot deck with a few cards missing, a bag of marbles, a lucky coin, a braided bit of hair from Peonys mane. If a good butler understands anything, he understands that quality we call discretion, which is a respect for the borders of other peoples lives. He had never looked in that compartment again. It would have been like stealing. At last Dennis asked Should we go over, Father, so you can look in the box? No. We must go to the JudgeGeneral with this mouse, and you must tell your story to him just as youve told it to me. Dennis sat down heavily on his bed. He felt as if he had been punched in the belly. Peyna, the man who ordered jail terms and beheadings! Peyna, with his white, forbidding face and his tall, waxy brow! Peyna, who was, below the King himself, the greatest authority in the Kingdom! No, he whispered at last. Dad, I couldnt. . . . I . . . I . . . You must, his father said sternly. This is a turrible businessthe most turrible business Ive ever known of, but it must be reckoned with and set right. Youll tell him just as youve told me, and then itll be in his hands. Dennis looked in his fathers eyes and saw that Brandon meant it. If he refused to go, his father would lay hold of the scruff of his neck and drag him to Peyna like a kitten, twenty years old or no. Yes, Dad, he said miserably, thinking that when Peynas cold, calculating eyes fell on him, he would simply drop dead of a heart attack. Then (with rising panic) he remembered that he had stolen an ash bucket from the princes rooms. If he didnt die of fright the moment Peyna commanded him to speak, he would probably spend the rest of his life in the castles deepest dungeon for theft. Be easy in your mind, Dennyeasy as you can be, anyway. Peynas a hard man, but hes fair. Youve done nothing to be ashamed of. Just tell him as youve told me. All right, Dennis whispered. Are we going now? Brandon got out of the chair and onto his knees. First well pray. Get here beside me, son. Dennis did. 37 Peter was tried, found guilty of regicide, and ordered imprisoned for life in the cold two rooms at the top of the Needle. All of this was done in only three days. It will not take long to tell you how neatly the jaws of Flaggs cruel trap closed around the boy. Peyna did not order the preparations for the coronation stopped at oncein fact, he thought that Dennis must be mistaken, that there must be a reasonable explanation for all of this. Just the same, the condition of the mouse, so like the condition of the King, was impossible to ignore, and the Brandon family had a long and valued reputation for honesty and levelheadedness in the Kingdom. That was important, but there was something else of far greater importance when Peter was crowned, there must not be a single stain on his reputation. Peyna heard Dennis out and then summoned Peter. Dennis really might have died of fright at the sight of his master, but he was mercifully allowed to go into another room with his father. Peyna gravely explained to Peter that a charge had been leveled against him . . . a charge that Peter himself might have played a part in the murder of Roland. Anders Peyna was not a man to mince words, no matter how much those words might hurt. Peter was stunned . . . flabbergasted. You must remember that he was still trying to cope with the idea that his beloved father was dead, killed by a cruel poison that had burned him alive from the inside out. You must remember that he had been leading the search all night, had had no sleep, and was physically exhausted. Most of all, you must remember that, although he had a mans height and breadth of shoulder, he was only sixteen. This stunning news on top of all else caused him to do a very natural thing, but it was a thing he should have avoided at all costs under Peynas cold and assessing eyes he burst into tears. If Peter had hotly denied the charge, or if he had expressed his shock and exhaustion and grief by laughing wildly at such an absurd idea, the whole thing might have ended right there. Im sure that possibility never entered Flaggs mind, but one of Flaggs few weaknesses was a tendency to judge others according to what was in his own black and murky heart. Flagg regarded everyone with suspicion, and believed everyone had hidden reasons for the things they did. His mind was very complex, like a hall of mirrors with everything reflected twice at different sizes. The track of Peynas thoughts was not convoluted but very straightforward. He found it very difficultalmost impossibleto believe that Peter could have poisoned his father. If he had raged or laughed out loud, things probably would have ended without even a trip to investigate the supposed box with his name carved on it, or the packet and tweezers it supposedly held. Tears, however, looked very bad. Tears looked like an expression of guilt coming from a boy old enough to commit murder but not old enough to hide what he had done. Peyna decided he must investigate further. He hated to do this, because it meant taking guards, and that meant some word, some whisper, of these momentary suspicions would leak out, to taint the first weeks of Peters reign. Then he reflected that perhaps even this could be avoided. He would take half a dozen Home Guards, no more. He could leave four stationed outside the door. After this ridiculous business had blown over, all of them could be shipped off to the remotest part of the Kingdom. Brandon and his son would also have to be sent away, Peyna thought, and that was a pity, but tongues had a way of wagging, especially when liquor loosened them, and the old mans liking for bundlegin was well known. So Peyna ordered work on the coronation platform temporarily suspended. He felt confident that work could begin again in less than half an hour, with the laborers sweating and cursing and hurrying to make up for lost time. Alas 38 The box, the packet, and the tweezers were there, as you know. Peter had sworn on his mothers name he had no such engraved box; his heated denial now looked very foolish. Peyna picked up the charred packet carefully with the tweezers, peered in, and saw three flecks of green sand. They were so small they could barely be seen, but Peyna, mindful of what had befallen both great King and humble mouse, put the packet back in the box and closed the lid. He ordered two of the four Home Guards still in the hall to step in, realizing reluctantly that the matter was steadily growing more serious. The box was put carefully on Peters desk, little wisps of smoke escaping from it. One of the guards was sent after the man who knew more about poisons than anyone else in the Kingdom. That man, of course, was Flagg. 39 I had nothing to do with this, Anders, Peter said. He had recovered himself, but his face was still pale and wretched, his eyes a deeper blue than the old JudgeGeneral had ever seen them. The box is yours, then? Yes. Why did you deny that you had such a box? I forgot. I havent seen this box in probably eleven years or more. My mother gave it to me. What happened to it? Hes not calling me mLord or your Highness anymore, Peter thought with a chill. Hes not calling me by any term of respect at all. Can all of this really be happening, I wonder? Father poisoned? Thomas terribly ill? Peyna standing here and doing everything but accusing me of murder? And my boxwhere in the name of the gods did it come from, and who put it in the secret compartment behind the books? I lost it, Peter said slowly. Anders, you dont really believe I murdered my father, do you? I did not . . . but now I wonder, Anders Peyna thought. I loved him dearly, Peter said. I always thought so . . . but now I wonder about that, too, Anders Peyna thought. 40 Flagg bustled in and, without even looking in Peynas direction, began immediately to bombard the numbed, frightened, outraged prince with questions about the search. Had any trace been found of the poison or the poisoner? Any sign of a plot uncovered? He himself was of the opinion that it might have been a single individual, almost surely insane. He had spent the whole morning before his crystal, Flagg said, but the crystal remained stubbornly dark. He didnt care, though, he could do more than shake bones and peer into crystals. He craved action, not spells. Anything the prince wanted him to do, any dark corner he wanted explored We did not call you here to listen to you babble like your own parrot, with both heads talking at once, Peyna said coldly. He did not like Flagg. As far as Peyna was concerned, the magician had been demoted to the position of Court Nobody at the moment of Rolands death. He might be able to tell them what those evil green flecks in the packet were, but that was the extent of his usefulness. Peterll have no truck with this weasel when hes crowned, Peyna thought. He got just that far, and then his thoughts derailed in dismay, because the chances of Peters being crowned seemed to be growing slimmer. No, Flagg said, I dont suppose you did. He looked at Peter and said, Why am I summoned, my King? Dont call him that! Peyna exploded, deeply shocked in spite of himself. Flagg saw this shock on Peynas face, and although he affected to look puzzled, he understood perfectly what it meant and was satisfied. A worm of suspicion was working its way toward the center of the JudgeGenerals chilly heart. Good. Peter turned his pale face away from both of them and looked out across the city, once more struggling for control of his emotions. His fingers were laced tightly together. His knuckles were white. He looked much older than sixteen just then. Do you see the box on the desk? Peyna asked. Yes, JudgeGeneral, Flagg said in his stiffest, most formal voice. Inside is a packet which appears to be slowly charring. Inside the packet are what look like grains of sand. I would like you to examine them and see if you can tell me what they are. I urge you very strongly not to touch them. I believe that the substance in the packet may have caused King Rolands death. Flagg allowed himself to look worried. To tell the truth, he was feeling very fine. Playing a part always made him feel that way. He liked to act. He picked up the packet, using the tweezers. He peered into it. His gaze sharpened. I want a piece of obsidian, he said. I want it right now. I have a piece in my desk, Peter said dully, and brought it out. It was not as big as the one Flagg had used and then disposed of, but it was thick. He handed it to one of the Home Guards, who handed it to Flagg. The magician held it toward the light, frowning a little . . . but inside his heart, a little man was jumping excitedly up and down, turning cartwheels, and doing somersaults. The obsidian was much like his own, but one side was broken and jagged. Ah, the gods were smiling on him! Indeed, indeed, indeed they were! I dropped it a year or two ago, Peter said, seeing Flaggs interest. He was unawareas was Peyna, at least for the momentthat he had added another layer of bricks to the wall that was abuilding around him. The half youre holding landed on my rug, which cushioned its fall. The other half landed on the stones, and shattered into half a hundred pieces. Obsidian is hard, but very brittle. Indeed, my Lord? Flagg said gravely. Ive never seen such stone, although Ive of course heard of it. He put the obsidian on Peters desk, upended the packet over it, and poured the three grains of sand onto it. In a moment, little tendrils of smoke began to rise from the obsidian. All present could see that each grain was slowly sinking into the pockmark it was creating in the worlds hardest known stone. The guards murmured uneasily at the sight. Be silent! Peyna roared, whirling on them. The guards drew back, faces long and white with terror. This seemed more and more like witchcraft to them. I believe I know what these grains are, and how to test my idea, Flagg said, rapping the words out. But if Im right, the test must be performed as quickly as possible. Why? Peyna demanded. I believe these are grains of Dragon Sand, Flagg said. I had a very small quantity once, but it disappeared, alas, before I could study it closely. It may well have been stolen. Flagg did not miss the way Peynas eyes flicked toward Peter at this. I have been uneasy about it off and on ever since, he went on, because it is reputed to be one of the deadliest substances on earth. I did not have a chance to test its properties and so doubted, but I see much of what I was told proved here, already. Flagg pointed at the obsidian. The dimples in which the three specks of green sand rested were each now nearly an inch deepsmoke rose from each like smoke from a tiny campfire. Flagg guessed that each grain had eaten through half the thickness of the stone. Those three specks of sand are working their way rapidly through a piece of the hardest rock we know, he said. Dragon Sand is reputed to be so corrosive that it will eat through any solidany solid at all. And it produces fearsome heat. You! Guard! Flagg pointed at one of the Home Guards. He stepped forward, not looking happy to have been chosen. Touch the side of the rock, Flagg said, and as the guard reached a tentative hand forward to touch the paperweight, he added sharply Just the side! Dont get your hand near those holes! The guard touched the paperweight and drew his hand back with a gasp. He stuck his fingers in his mouth, but not before Peyna had seen the blisters rising there. Obsidian conducts heat very slowly, Ive heard, Flagg said, but that piece is as hot as the top of a stove . . . all from three gains of sand that would fit on the moon of your pinkie fingernail, with room left over! Touch the princes desk, Lord JudgeGeneral! Peyna did. He was distressed and amazed by the heat under his hand. Soon the heavy wood must begin to blister and char. So we must act quickly, Flagg said. Soon the desk itself will catch fire. If we breathe the fumesalways assuming the stories Ive been told are trueall of us will die within days. But, to be sure, another test At this, the Home Guards looked more uneasy than ever. All right, Peyna said. What is this test? Be quick, man! He detested Flagg more than ever now, and if he had ever felt it would not do to underestimate him, he felt that doubly now. Five minutes before, Peyna had been ready to dismiss the man as the Court Nobody. Now it seemed that their livesand Peynas case against Peterdepended on him. I propose to fill a bucket with water, Flagg said, speaking more rapidly than ever. His dark eyes gleamed. The Home Guards and Peyna stared at those small black holes in the obsidian, at those tiny ribbons of steam, with the evil fascination of birds hypnotized by a nest of weaving pythons. How deep into the obsidian now? How close to the wood? Impossible to tell. Even Peter was looking, although the tired mixture of sorrow and confusion had not left his face. Water from the princes pump! Flagg shouted at one of the guards. We want it in a bucket, or a deep pot or pan. Now! Now! The guard looked at Peyna. Do it, Peyna said, trying not to sound frightenedbut he was frightened, and Flagg knew it. The guard went. In moments, they heard water being pumped into a bucket he had found in the butlers cupboard. Flagg was speaking again. I propose to dip my finger into this bucket and let a drop of water fall into one of those holes, he said. Well watch this closely, Lord JudgeGeneral. We must see if the water which goes into the hole turns momentarily green. Its a sure sign. And then? Peyna asked tautly. The Home Guard returned. Flagg took the bucket, set it on the desk. Then Ill put drops very carefully into the other two holes, Flagg said. He spoke calmly, but his normally pallid cheeks were flushed. Water wont stop Dragon Sand, its told, but itll hold it. This was making things quite a bit worse than they were, but Flagg wanted them frightened. Why not just douse it? one of the guards blurted. Peyna favored this upstart with a horrible glare, but Flagg answered the question calmly as he dipped his pinkie finger into the bucket. Would you like me to wash those three grains of sand out of the holes theyve made in the rock and somewhere onto the lads desk? he asked, almost jovially. We could leave you in here to put out the fire when the water dried up, sirrah! The guard said no more. Flagg drew his dripping finger out of the bucket. Waters warm already, he said to Peyna, just from sitting on the desk. He carefully brought his finger, from which a single drop of water hung, over one of the holes. Watch closely! Flagg said sharply, and to Peter he sounded at that moment like a cheap peddler about to perform some monstrously deceiving trick. But Peyna bent close. The Home Guards craned their necks. That single drop of water hung from Flaggs finger, for a moment catching all of Peters room behind it in perfect curved miniature. It hung . . . elongated . . . and dropped into the hole. There was a spatting hisss, like the sound of grease dropped onto a hot iron skillet. A tiny geyser of steam arose from the hole . . . but before it did, Peyna clearly saw a catseye flash of green. In that moment, Peters fate was sealed. Dragon Sand, by the gods! Flagg whispered hoarsely. Dont, for pitys sake, breathe that steam! Anders Peynas courage was as hard as his reputation, but he was afraid now. To him that single wink of green light had seemed inexpressibly evil. Put out the other two, he said hoarsely. Now! I told you, Flagg said, calmly dipping his pinkie again and staring at the obsidian. They cant be put outwell, there is one way, the tales say, but only one. You wouldnt like it. Yet we can hold them, and then get rid of them. I think. He carefully plinked a drop into each of the other two holes. Each time there was a sullen green flash of light, and a plume of steam. Were all right for a bit, think, Flagg said. One of the Home Guards sighed in gusty relief. Bring me gloves . . . or folded cloths . . . anything I can use to pick up this rock. Its as hot as fury, and those drops of water will be boiled away in no time. Two hot pads from the butlers closet were brought quickly. Flagg used them to grasp the obsidian. He lifted it, careful to keep it level, then dropped it into the bucket. As the obsidian sank to the bottom, all of them clearly saw the water turn a momentary light green. Now, Flagg said expansively, that is well. One of these guards must take this bucket out of the castle, and to the large pump by the Great Old Tree in the middle of the keep. There you must draw a large basin of water, and put the bucket in the basin. The basin must be taken to the middle of Lake Johanna, and sunk in the middle. The Dragon Sand may heat up the lake in a hundred thousand years, but let those that come in that timeif any doworry about that, I say. Peyna paused for just a moment, biting his lip in uncharacteristic indecision, and then he said You and you and you. Do as he says. The bucket was removed. The Home Guards carried it like men carrying a live bomb. Flagg was amused, for all of this was, in large part, magicians foolery, as Peter himself had momentarily suspected. The single drops of water he had allowed to fall into the holes had not been enough to stop the corrosive effect of the sandat least not for longbut he knew that the water in the bucket would damp it well. Even less liquid would have served for more of the sand . . . a goblet of wine, say. But let them believe what they would; in time they would turn against Peter with that much more fury. When the guards had gone, Peyna turned to Flagg. You said there was one way the effect of Dragon Sand could be neutralized. Yesthe stories say that if it is taken into a living being, that living being will burn in agony until it is dead . . . and when it is overthe dyingthe power of the Dragon Sand also dies. I had meant to test it, but before I could do it, my sample disappeared. Peyna was staring at him, white around the lips. And on what sort of living being did you intend to test this damned stuff, Magician? Flagg looked at Peyna with bland innocence. Why, on a mouse, my Lord JudgeGeneral, of course. 41 At three that afternoon, a strange meeting took place in the Royal Court of Delain at the base of the Needlea great room which, over the years, had become known simply as Peynas Court. MeetingI dont like that word. Its too tame and small to describe the momentous decision that was arrived at that afternoon. I cannot call it a hearing or a trial, because that gathering had no legal meaning at all, but it was very important, as I think you will agree. The room was large enough to hold five hundred, but there were only seven there that afternoon. Six of them huddled close together, as if it made them nervous to be so few in a place meant for so many. The royal arms of the Kingdoma unicorn spearing a dragonhung on one of the circular stone walls, and Peter found his gaze returning to this again and again. Besides himself, Peyna was there, and Flagg (it was Flagg, of course, who sat slightly apart from the others), and four of the Kingdoms Great Lawyers. There were ten Great Lawyers in all, but the other six were at various farflung places in Delain, hearing cases. Peyna had decided he couldnt wait for them. He knew he had to move fast and decisively, or the Kingdom might bleed. He knew it, but it galled him to know he would need the help of this cool young murderer to avert such bloodshed. That Peter was a murderer was something Anders Peyna had now decided in his own heart. It wasnt the box, the green sand, or even the burning mouse that had decided him. It was Peters tears. Peter, to do him credit, looked neither guilty nor weak now. He was pale but calm, completely in charge of himself again. Peyna cleared his throat. The sound echoed dully back from the forbidding stone walls of the court chamber. He pressed a hand to his forehead and was not entirely surprised to find a sheen of cold sweat there. He had heard testimony in hundreds of great and solemn cases; he had sent more men than he cared to remember beneath the headsmans axe. But never had he thought he would have to attend a meeting such as this, or the trial of a prince for the murder of his royal father . . . and such a trial would surely follow if all went as he hoped this afternoon. It was right, he thought, that he be sweating, and right that the sweat should be cold. Just a meeting. Nothing legal here; nothing official; nothing of the Kingdom. But none of themnot Peyna, not Flagg, not the Great Lawyers, not Peter himselfwere fooled. This was the real trial. This meeting. The power was here. That burning mouse had set a great course of events in motion. That course would either be turned here, as a great river may be turned near its source when it is still a brook, or it would be allowed to run onward, gathering power as it went, until no force on earth could turn it or stand before it. Just a meeting, Anders Peyna thought, and wiped more sweat from his forehead. 42 Flagg watched the proceedings with a lively eye. Like Peyna, he knew that all would be decided here, and he felt confident. Peters head was up, his gaze firm. He met the eyes of each member of this informal jury in turn. The stone walls frowned down on all seven. The spectators benches were empty, but Peyna seemed to feel the weight of phantom eyes, eyes that demanded justice be rendered in this terrible matter. My Lord, Peyna said at last, the sun made you King three hours ago. Peter looked at Peyna, surprised but silent. Yes, Peyna said, as if Peter had spoken. The Great Lawyers were nodding, and they looked dreadfully solemn. There has been no coronation, but a coronation is only a public event. It is, for all its solemnity, show and not substance. God, the law, and the sun make a King, not the coronation. You are King at this very minute, legally able to command me, all of us here, the entire Kingdom. This puts us in a terrible dilemma. Do you understand what it is? Yes, Peter said gravely. You think your King is a murderer. Peyna was a little surprised by this bluntness, but not entirely unhappy with it. Peter had always been a blunt boy; it was a pity that his surface bluntness had concealed such depths of calculation, but the important thing was that such bluntness, probably the result of a boys stupid bravado, would speed things up. What we believe, my Lord, doesnt matter. Guilt or innocence is for a court to determineso Ive always been taught, so I believe with my most sincere heart. There is only one exception to this. Kings are above the law. Do you understand? Yes. But Peyna raised his finger. But this crime was committed before you were King. So far as I know, this terrible situation has never come before a court of Delain before. The possibilities are terrible. Anarchy, chaos, civil war. To avert all of these things, my Lord, we must have your help. Peter looked at him gravely. I will help if I can, he said. And I thinkI prayyou will agree to what I am about to propose, Peyna thought. He was conscious of fresh sweat on his forehead, but he didnt wipe it off this time. Peter was only a boy, but he was a bright boyhe might take it as a sign of weakness. Youll say youre agreeing for the good of the Kingdom, but a boy who could have the monstrous, twisted courage to kill his own father is also, I hope, a boy who cannot help believing he will get away with it. You believe we will help you cover this up, but oh my Lord, you are so wrong. Flagg, who could almost read these thoughts, raised his hand to his mouth to cover a smile. Peyna hated him, but Peyna had become his numberone helper without even knowing it. I want you to put aside the crown, Peyna said. Peter looked at him with grave surprise. Renounce the throne? he asked. I . . . I dont know, my Lord JudgeGeneral. I should have to think about that before I said yes or no. That might be hurting the Kingdom by trying to help itas a doctor may kill a sick man by giving him too much medicine. The lads clever, Flagg and Peyna thought together. You misunderstand me. Its not a renunciation of the throne I ask for. Only that you put the crown aside until this matter has been decided. If you are found innocent of your fathers murder As I will be, Peter said. If my father had ruled until I was old and toothless, it would have made me perfectly happy. I wanted only to serve him and support him and love him in all I did. Yet your father is dead, and you stand accused by circumstance. Peter nodded. If you are found innocent, you would resume the crown. If you are found guilty The Great Lawyers looked nervous at this, but Peyna did not flinch. If you are found guilty, you would be taken to the top of the Needle, where you would spend the rest of your life. None of the royal family may be executed; that law is a thousand years old. And Thomas would become King? Peter asked thoughtfully. Flagg stiffened slightly. Yes. Peter frowned, deep in thought. He looked terribly tired, but not confused or afraid, and Flagg felt a faint stirring of fear. Suppose I refuse? If you refuse, then you become King in spite of terrible charges which have not been answered. Many of your subjectsmost, in light of the evidencewill believe they have come to be ruled by a young man who murdered his own father to gain the throne. I think there will be revolt and civil war, and that those things will come before much time has passed. As for myself, I would resign my post and set out toward the west. I am old to begin over, but I should have to try to do so just the same. My life has been the law, and I could not serve a King who has not knelt to the law in such a matter as this. There was silence in the chamber, a silence that seemed very long. Peter sat with his head bowed, the heels of his hands planted against his eyes. They all watched and waited. Now even Flagg felt a thin film of sweat on his brow. Finally Peter raised his head and took his hand from his eyes. Very well, he said. Here is my command as King. I will put the crown aside until I am cleared of my fathers murder. You, Peyna, will serve Delain as Chancellor during the time it is without a royal head. I would that the trial should take place as soon as may betomorrow, even, if that is possible. I will be bound by the decision of the court. But you will not try me. They all blinked and sat up straighter at this dry note of authority, but Yosef of the stables would not have been surprised by it; he had heard that tone in the boys voice before, when Peter was only a stripling. One of these other four will do that, Peter continued. Ill not be tried by the man who will hold power in my place . . . a man who, by his look and manner, already feels in his heart that I have committed this terrible crime. Peyna felt himself flush. One of these four, Peter reiterated, turning to the Great Lawyers. Let four stones, three black and one white, be put in a cup. The one who draws the white stone shall preside at my trial. Do you agree? My Lord, I do, Peyna agreed slowly, hating the flush which even now wouldnt leave his cheeks. Again, Flagg had to raise a hand to his mouth to cover a small smile. And that, my little doomed Lord, is the only command you will ever give as King of Delain, he thought. 43 The meeting which began at three oclock was over by quarter past the hour. |
Senates and parliaments may drone on for days and months before deciding a single issueand often the issue is never decided at all in spite of all the talkbut when great things happen, they usually happen fast. And three hours later, as dark was coming down, something happened which made Peter realize that, mad as it seemed, he was going to be found guilty of this terrible crime. He was escorted back to his apartments by unsmiling, silent guards. His meals, Peyna said, would be brought to him. Supper was fetched by a burly Home Guardsman with a heavy stubble of beard on his face. He was holding a tray. On it were a glass of milk and a large, steaming bowl of stew. Peter stood up as the guardsman came in. He reached for the tray. Not yet, my Lord, the guardsman said, the sneer in his voice apparent. It needs seasoning, I think. And with that he spat into the stew. Then, grinning, showing a mouthful of teeth and gaps like an illtended picket fence, he held the tray out. Here. Peter made no motion to take it. He was utterly astonished. Why did you do that? Why did you spit in my stew? Does a child who murders his father deserve any better, my Lord? No. But one who has not even been tried for the crime does, Peter said. Take that out and bring me a fresh tray. Bring it in fifteen minutes, or youll sleep tonight below Flagg in the dungeons. The guardsmans ugly sneer faltered for a moment and then returned. I think not, he said. He tilted the tray, first just a little, then more, then more. The glass and bowl shattered on the flagstones. Thick stew splattered in ropes. Lick it up, the guardsman said. Lick it up like the dog you are. He turned to go. Peter, suddenly blazing, leaped forward and slapped the man. The sound of the blow rang in the room like a pistol shot. With a bellow, the scruffy guardsman pulled out his shortsword. Smiling humorlessly, Peter lifted his chin and bared his neck. Go ahead, he said. A man who would spit in another mans soup is perhaps also the sort of man who would cut an unarmed mans throat. Go ahead. Pigs also do Gods bidding, I believe, and my shame and my grief are very great. If God wills me to live, I must, but if God wills me to die and has sent such a pig as you to do the killing, that is very well. The Home Guardsmans anger melted into confusion. After a moment he sheathed his sword. Ill not dirty my blade, he said, but his words were almost a mumble, and he was not able to meet Peters eye. Bring me fresh food and drink, Peter said quietly. I dont know who you have been talking to, guardsman, and I dont care. I dont know why you are so eager to condemn me for my fathers murder when no testimony has yet been heard, and I dont care about that, either. But you will bring me fresh meat and drink, and a napkin to go with them, and you will do this before the clock strikes half past six, or I will ring for Peyna, and you will sleep below Flagg tonight. My guilt is not proved, Peyna is yet mine to command, and I swear what I say is true. During this the Home Guardsman grew paler and paler, because he saw Peter did speak the truth. But this was not the only reason for his pallor. When his mates had told him the prince had been caught redhanded, he had believed themhe had wanted to believe thembut now he wondered. Peter did not look or speak like a guilty man. Yes, my Lord, he said. The soldier went out. A few moments later, the captain of the guard opened the door and looked in. I thought I heard some disturbance, he said. His eye fell on the broken glass and crockery. Has there been trouble here? No trouble, Peter said calmly. I dropped the tray. The guardsman has gone to fetch me a fresh meat. The captain nodded and left. Peter sat on his bed for the next ten minutes and thought deeply. There was a brief knock on the door. Come, Peter said. The bearded, gaptoothed guard came in with a fresh tray. My Lord, I wish to apologize, he said with awkward stiffness. Ive never behaved so in my whole life, and dont know what came over me. For my life I do not. I Peter waved it away. He felt very tired. Do the others feel as you do? The other guards? My Lord, the guardsman said, carefully setting the tray on Peters desk, Im not sure I still feel the way I did. But do the others feel that I am guilty? There was a long pause, and then the soldier nodded. And is there some one reason they tell against me most of all? They speak of a mouse that burned . . . they say you wept when Peyna confronted you. . . . Peter nodded grimly. Yes. Weeping had been a bad mistake, but he hadnt been able to help it . . . and it was done. But most of all they only say you were caught, that you wanted to be King, that it must be so. That I wanted to be King and so it must be so, Peter echoed. Yes, my Lord. The guardsman stood looking at Peter miserably. Thank you. Go now, please. My Lord, I apologize Your apology is accepted. Please go. I need to think. Looking as if he wished he had never been born, the Home Guardsman stepped out the door and closed it behind him. Peter spread his napkin over his knees but didnt eat. Any hunger he might have felt earlier was now gone. He plucked at the napkin and thought of his mother. He was gladvery glad indeedthat she wasnt alive to see this, to see what he had come to. All of his life he had been a lucky boy, a blessed boy, a boy to whom, it sometimes seemed, no bad luck ever came. Now it seemed that all the bad luck which should have been his over the years had only been stored up to be paid at once, and with sixteen years of interest. But most of all they say you wanted to be King and it must be so. In some deep way he understood. They wanted a good King they could love. But they also wanted to know they had been saved by only a hairs breadth from a bad one. They wanted blackness and secrets; they wanted their fearful tale of rotten royalty. God only knew why. They say you wanted to be King, they say it must be so. Peyna believes it, Peter thought, and that guardsman believed it; they will all believe it. This is not a nightmare. I have been accused of my fathers murder, and not all my good behavior and my obvious love for him will dismiss the charge. And part of them wants to believe I did it. Peter carefully refolded his napkin and laid it over the top of the fresh bowl of stew. He could not eat. 44 There was a trial, and it was a great wonder, and there are histories of the event if you care to read them. But heres the root of the matter Peter, son of Roland, was brought before the JudgeGeneral of Delain by a burning mouse; tried in a meeting of seven which was not a court; convicted by a Home Guardsman who delivered his verdict by spitting into a bowl of stew. That is the story, and sometimes stories tell more than histories, and more quickly, too. 45 When Ulrich Wicks, who drew the white stone and took Peynas place on the bench, announced the verdict of the court, the spectatorsmany of whom had sworn for years that Peter would make the best King in Delains long historyapplauded savagely. They rose to their feet and surged forward, and if a line of Home Guards with their swords drawn had not held them back, they might well have overturned the sentence of lifelong imprisonment and exile at the top of the Needle and lynched the young prince instead. As he was led away, spittle flew in a rain, and Peter was well covered by it. Yet he walked with his head up. A door to the left of the great courtroom led into a narrow hallway. The hallway stretched perhaps forty paces, and then the stairs began. They wound up and up, around and around, all the way to the top of the Needle, where the two rooms Peter would live in henceforth, until the day he died, awaited him. There were three hundred stairs in all. We will come to Peter at the top, in his rooms, and in good time; his story, as you will see, is not done. But we will not climb with him, because it was a climb of shame, leaving his rightful place as King at the bottom and marching, shoulders back and head erect, toward his place as prisoner of the Kingdom at the topit would not be kind to follow him or any man on such a walk. Let us instead think of Thomas for a while, and see what happened when he recovered his wits and discovered that he was King of Delain. 46 No, Thomas whispered in a voice that was utterly horrified. His eyes had grown huge in his pale face. His mouth trembled. Flagg had just told him that he was King of Delain, but Thomas did not look like a boy who has been told he is the King; he looked like a boy who has been told he is to be shot in the morning. No, he said again. I dont want to be King. It was true. All his life he had been bitterly jealous of Peter, but one thing he had never been jealous of was Peters coming ascension to the throne. That was a responsibility Thomas had never in his wildest dreams wished for. And now one nightmare was piled on top of another. It seemed it wasnt enough that he had awakened to the news that his brother had been imprisoned in the Needle for the murder of their father, the King. Now here was Flagg, with the appalling news that he was King in Peters place. No, I dont want to be King, I wont be King. I . . . I refuse! I UTTERLY REFUSE! You cant refuse, Thomas, Flagg said briskly. He had decided this was the best line to take with Thomas friendly but brisk. Thomas needed Flagg more now than he had ever needed anyone in his whole life. Flagg knew this, but he also knew that he was uniquely at Thomass mercy. He would be wild and skittish for a time, apt to do anything, and care would have to be taken to establish a firm hold over the boy here at the outset. You need me, Tommy, but it would be a very bad mistake for me to tell you that. No, you must say it to me. There must be no question about who is in charge. Not now, not ever. Cant refuse? Thomas whispered. He had jerked upright on his elbows at Flaggs awful news. Now he fell weakly back on his pillows again. Cant? I feel weak again. I think the fevers coming back. Send for the doctor. I might need to be bled. I Youre fine, Flagg said, standing up. Ive filled you full of good medicine, your fevers gone, and all you want is a little fresh air to finish the job. But if you need a doctor to tell you the same thing, Tommy (Flagg let the smallest note of reproach creep into his voice), then you need only to pull the bell. Flagg pointed at the bell and smiled a little. It was not a terribly kind smile. I understand your urge to hide in your bed, but I wouldnt be your friend unless I told you that any refuge you sense in your bed or in trying to stay sick, is a false refuge. False? I advise you to get up and begin working at getting your strength back. Youre to be crowned with royal pomp and ceremony in three days time. Being carried up the aisle in your bed to the platform where Peyna will stand with the crown and scepter would be a humiliating way to start a kingly reign, but if it comes to that, I assure you they will do it. Headless kingdoms are uneasy kingdoms. Peyna means to see you crowned as soon as possible. Thomas lay on his pillows, trying to absorb this information. He was rabbiteyed with fear. Flagg grabbed his redlined cloak from the bedpost, swirled it over his shoulders, and hooked its gold chain at his neck. Next he took a silverheaded cane from the corner. He flourished it, crossed his waist with it, and made a large bow in Thomass direction. The cloak . . . the hat . . . the cane . . . these things scared Thomas. Here had come a terrible time when he needed Flagg more than he had ever needed him before, and Flagg looked dressed for . . . for . . . He looks dressed for traveling. His panic of a few moments ago was only a minor scare in comparison with the frightful cold hands which seized Thomass heart now. And now, dear Tommy, I wish you a healthy disposition all of your life, all the cheer your heart can stand, a long, prosperous reign . . . and goodbye! He started for the door and had actually begun to think the boy was so utterly paralyzed with panic that he, Flagg, would have to think of some stratagem for returning to the little fools bedside on his own, when Thomas managed a single, strangled word Wait! Flagg turned back, an expression of polite concern on his face. My Lord King? Where . . . where are you going? Why . . . Flagg looked surprised, as if it hadnt occurred to him until now to think Thomas would even care. Andua to start with. They are great sailors, you know, and there are many lands beyond the Sea of Tomorrow Ive never seen. Sometimes a captain will take a magician on board for good luck, to conjure a wind if the ship is becalmed, or to tell the weather. If no one wants a magicianwell, I am not as young as I was when I first came here, but I can still run a line and unfurl a sail. Smiling, Flagg mimed the action, never dropping his cane. Thomas was up on his elbows again. No! he nearly screamed. No! My Lord King Dont call me that! Flagg crossed to him, now allowing an expression of deeper concern to fill his face. Tommy, then. Dear old Tommy. Whatevers wrong? Whats wrong? Whats wrong? How can you be so stupid? My fathers dead by poison, Peters in the Needle for the crime, I must be King, you are planning to leave, and you want to know whats wrong? Thomas uttered a wild, shrieky little laugh. But all these things must be, Tommy, Flagg said gently. I cant be King, Thomas said. He seized Flaggs arm, and his nails sank deeply into the magicians strange flesh. Peter was meant to be King, Peter was always the smart one, I was stupid, I am stupid, I cant be King! God makes Kings, Flagg said. God . . . and sometimes magicians, he thought with an inward titter. He has made you King, and mark me, Tommy, you will be King. Either youll be King or there will be dirt shoveled over you. Let it be dirt, then! Ill kill myself. Youll do no such thing. Better to kill myself than to be laughed at for a thousand years as the prince who died of fright. Youll make a King, Tommy. Never fear. But I must go. These days are cold, but the nights are colder. And I want to be clear of the city before dusk falls. No, stay! Thomas clutched wildly at Flaggs cloak. If I must be King, then stay and advise me, as you advised my father! Dont go! I dont know why you want to go, anyway! Youve been here forever! Ah, finally, Flagg thought. This is goodin fact, this is RICH. It is hard for me to go, Flagg said gravely. Very hard. I love Delain. And I love you, Tommy. Then stay! You dont understand my situation. Anders Peyna is a powerful manan extremely powerful man. And he doesnt like me. I should think it fair to say he probably hates me. Why? Partly because he knows how longhow very longI have been here. More, I think, because he senses exactly what I mean to Delain. Its hard to say, Tommy. I suppose it has to do with the fact that he is a very powerful man, and powerful men usually resent other men who are as powerful as themselves. People like a Kings closest advisor, perhaps. As you were my fathers closest advisor? Yes. He picked up Thomass hand and squeezed it for a moment. Then he let go of it and sighed mournfully. A Kings advisors are much like the deer in a Kings private park. Such deer are cosseted and petted and fed by hand. Both advisors and tame deer have pleasant lives, but Ive all too often seen a tame park deer end up on the Kings table when the Kings Preserves wouldnt yield up a wild buck for that nights deer steaks or venison stew. When a ruling King dies, the old advisors have a way of disappearing. Thomas looked both angry and alarmed. Has Peyna threatened you? No . . . he has been very good, Flagg said. Very patient. I have read his eyes, however, and I know that his patience will not last forever. His eyes tell me that I might find the climate in Andua healthier. He rose with another swirl of cape. So . . . as little as I like to go . . . Wait! Thomas cried again, and in his pinched, pallid face, Flagg saw all his ambitions about to be fulfilled. If you were protected when my father was King, because you were his advisor, wouldnt you be protected now that I am King, if you were my advisor? Flagg appeared to think deeply and gravely. Yes . . . I suppose . . . if you made it very clear to Peyna . . . very clear indeed . . . that any move made against me would be looked upon with royal disfavor. Very great royal disfavor. Oh, I would! Thomas said eagerly. I would! So will you stay? Please? If you go, I really will kill myself! I dont know anything about being a King, and I really will! Flagg still stood with his head down, his face deep in shadow, apparently thinking solemnly. He was, in fact, smiling. But when he raised his head, his face was grave. I have served the Kingdom of Delain almost all of my life, he said, and I suppose that if you commanded me to stay . . . to stay and serve you to the best of my abilities . . . I do so command you! Thomas cried in a quivering, febrile voice. Flagg sank to one knee. My Lord! he said. Thomas, sobbing with relief, threw himself into Flaggs arms. Flagg caught him and held him. Dont cry, my little Lord King, he whispered. All will be well. Yes, all will be very well for you and me and the Kingdom. His grin widened, showing very white, very strong teeth. 47 Thomas couldnt sleep a wink the night before he was to be crowned in the Plaza of the Needle, and in the earlymorning hours of that dread day he was seized by a terrible fit of vomiting and diarrhea brought on by nervousnessit was stage fright. Stage fright sounds both silly and comic, but there was nothing either silly or comic about this. Thomas was still only a little boy, and what he felt in the night, when we are all most alone, was an extremity of fear so great that it would not be wrong to call it mortal terror. He rang for a servant and bade him fetch Flagg. The servant, alarmed by Thomass pallor and the smell of vomit in the room, ran all the way and hardly waited to be given entry before bursting in and telling Flagg that the young prince was very ill indeed, might even be dying. Flagg, who had an idea of what the trouble was, told the servant to go and tell his master he would be with him shortly, and to fear nothing. He was there in twenty minutes. I cant go through with it, Thomas moaned. He had vomited in his bed, and the sheets stank of it. I cant be King, I cant, please, you have to stop it from happening, how can I go through with it when I may vomit in front of Peyna and all of them, vomit or . . . or . . . Youll be fine, Flagg said calmly. He had mixed a brew which would both soothe Thomass stomach and temporarily cement his bowels shut. Drink this. Thomas drank it. Im going to die, he said, putting the glass aside. I wont have to kill myself. My heart will just burst from fear. My father said that sometimes rabbits die that way in snares, even if they arent badly hurt. And thats what I am. A rabbit in a trap, dying of fear. Youre partly right, dear Tommy, Flagg thought. Youre not dying of fear as you think, but you are indeed a rabbit in a trap. You will change your mind about that, I think, Flagg said. He had been mixing a second potion. It was cloudy pinka restful color. Whats that? Something to calm your nerves and let you sleep. Thomas drank it. Flagg sat by his bedside. Soon Thomas was sleeping deeplyso deeply that if the servant had seen him at that moment, he might have believed his prediction had come true and Thomas was dead. Flagg took the boys sleeping hand in his own and patted it with something like love. In his own way he did love Thomas, but Sasha would have known Flaggs love for what it was the love of a master for his pet dog. He is so much like his father, Flagg thought, and the old man never knew it. Oh, Tommy, we will have wonderful times, you and I, and before I am done the Kingdom will run with royal blood. Ill be gone, but I wont go far, at least not at first. Ill come back in disguise just long enough to see your flyblown head on a spike . . . and to open your brothers chest with my dagger, and rip his heart from his chest, and eat it raw, as his father ate the heart of his precious dragon. Smiling, Flagg left the room. 48 The coronation went off with no trouble or complications at all. Thomass servants (he had no butler, being too young, but this would be provided for soon) dressed him for the occasion in fine clothes of black velvet which were strewn with jewels (All mine, Thomas thought with wonderand with dawning greedThese are all mine now) and high black boots of finest kid leather. When Flagg appeared promptly at eleventhirty and said, It is time, my Lord King, Thomas was far less nervous than he had expected. The sedative the magician had given him the night before was still working in him. Take my arm then, he said, in case I stumble. Flagg took Thomass arm. In the years to come, it was a posture the inhabitants of the court city would become very familiar withFlagg appearing to bear the boy King up as if he were an old man instead of a healthy youngster. They walked out together into bright wintry sunshine. A cheer so great it was like the sound of surf breaking against the long, desolate strands of the Eastern Barony greeted their coming. Thomas looked around, amazed at the sound, and his first thought was Where is Peter? Surely this must be for Peter! Then he remembered that Peter was in the Needle and realized the cheering was for him. He felt a dawning pleasure . . . and I must tell you that the pleasure was not just in knowing the cheers were for him. He knew that Peter, locked in his lonely tower rooms, must hear the cheering, too. What does it matter now that you were always best in lessons? Thomas thought with a mean happiness that pricked him even as it warmed him. What does it matter now? You are locked in the Needle and I . . . I am to be King! What does it matter that you brought him a glass of wine every night and But this last thought caused a strange, greasy sweat to rise on his forehead, and he put it away from him. The cheers rose again and again as he and Flagg walked first to the Plaza of the Needle and then under the arch formed by the upraised ceremonial swords of the Home Guard, dressed again in their fine red ceremonial uniforms and their tall WolfJaw shakos. Thomas began to positively enjoy himself. He raised a hand in salute, and his subjects cheers became a storm. Men threw their hats in the air. Women wept for joy. Cries of The King! The King! Behold the King! Thomas the LightBringer! Long live the King! rose in the air. Thomas, who was only a boy, thought they were for him. Flagg, who had perhaps never been a boy, knew better. The cheers were because the time of unease was past. They were cheering the fact that things could go on as they always had, that the shops could be reopened, that grimeyed soldiers in tight leather hats would no longer stand watches around the castle in the night, that everyone could get drunk following this solemn ceremony and not worry about waking to the sounds of confused midnight revolt. No more than that, no less than that. Thomas could have been anyone, anyone at all. He was a figurehead. But Flagg would see that Thomas never knew that. Not, at any rate, until it was too late. The ceremony itself was short. Anders Peyna, looking twenty years older than the week before, officiated. Thomas answered I will, I shall, and I swear in all the right places, as Flagg had coached him. At the end of the ceremonies, which were conducted in such solemn silence that even those at the farthest edges of the huge crowd could hear them clearly, the crown was placed on Thomass head. Cheers rose again, louder than ever, and Thomas looked upup and up the smooth, rounded stone side of the Needle, to the very top, where there was but one window. He couldnt see if Peter was looking down, but he hoped Peter was. He hoped Peter was looking down and biting his lips in frustration until the blood flowed down his chin, as Thomas had often bitten his own lipsbitten them until there was a fine white network of scars there. Do you hear that, Peter? he shrilled in his mind. Theyre cheering for ME! Theyre cheering for ME! Theyre finally cheering for ME! 49 On his first night as King, Thomas the LightBringer awoke straight up and staring in bed, his face stark and horrified, his hands crammed against his mouth as if to stifle a scream. He had just had a terrible nightmare, one even worse than those in which he relived the awful afternoon in the Eastern Tower. This dream had been a kind of reliving, too. He was in the secret passage again, spying on his father. It was the night his father had been so drunk and furious, striding around the room and shrilling defiance at the heads on the walls. But when his father came to the head of Niner, the things he said were not the same. Why do you stare at me? his father shrieked in the dream. Hes killed me and I suppose you couldnt stop that, but how could you see your brother imprisoned for it? Answer me, damn you! I did the best I could, and look at me! Look at me! His father began to burn. His face turned the dull red of a wellbanked fire. Smoke burst from his eyes, his nose, his mouth. He doubled over in agony and Thomas saw that his fathers hair was on fire. That was when he woke up. The wine! he thought now, in horror. Flagg brought him a glass of wine that night! Everyone knew that Peter brought him wine every night, so everyone thought Peter poisoned the wine! But Flagg brought him wine that night, too, and he never did before! And the poison came from Flagg! He said it was stolen from him years ago, but . . . He would not allow himself to think of such things. He would not. Because if he did think of such things He would kill me, Thomas whispered, horrified. You could go to Peyna. Peyna doesnt like him. Yes, he could do that. But then all his old dislike and jealousy of Peter returned. If he told, Peter would be let out of the Needle and would take his place as King. Thomas would be no one again, just a bumbling prince who had been King for one day. It had taken only one day for Thomas to discover he could like being Kinghe could like it very much, especially with Flagg to help him. Besides, he didnt really know anything, did he? He only had an idea. And his ideas had always been wrong. Hes killed me and I suppose you couldnt stop that, but how could you see your brother imprisoned for it? Never mind, Thomas thought, it must be wrong, it has to be wrong, and even if it isnt, it serves him right. He turned over on his side, determined to go back to sleep. And after a long time, sleep came. In the years ahead, that nightmare sometimes came againhis father accusing his hidden, spying son and then doubling over, smoking, his hair on fire. In those years, Thomas discovered two things guilt and secrets, like murdered bones, never rest easy; but the knowledge of all three can be lived with. 50 If you had asked him, Flagg would have said with smiling contempt that Thomas could keep a secret from no one except a person who was mentally enfeebled, and perhaps not even from such a one as that. Certainly he could not keep a secret, Flagg would have said, from the man who had engineered his rise to the throne. But men like Flagg are full of pride and confidence in themselves, and although they may see much, they are sometimes strangely blind. Flagg never guessed that Thomas had been behind Niner that night, and that he had seen Flagg give Roland the glass of poisoned wine. That was a secret Thomas kept. 51 Above the jubilee of the coronation, at the top of the Needle, Peter stood at a small window, looking down. As Thomas had hoped, he had seen and heard everything, from the first cheers when Thomas appeared on Flaggs arm to the last as he disappeared back into the palace itself, also on Flaggs arm. He stood at the window for nearly three hours after the ceremony was over, watching the crowds. They were loath to break up and go home. There was much to discuss and much to relive. ThisOne had to tell ThatOne just where he had been when he heard the old King was dead, and then they both had to tell TotherOne. The women had a final good cry over Roland and exclaimed over how fine Thomas had looked, and how calm he had seemed. The children chased each other and pretended they were Kings and rolled hoops and fell down and skinned their knees and screamed and then laughed and chased each other again. The men clapped one another on the back and told each other that they guessed all would be well nowit had been a terrible week, but now all would be well. Yet through all of this there ran a dull yellow thread of unease, as if they realized that all was not well, that the things which had gone so wrong when the old King had been murdered were not right yet. Peter, of course, could tell none of this from his high, lonely perch in the Needle, but he sensed something. Yes, something. At three oclock, three hours early, the meadhouses opened, supposedly in honor of the new Kings coronation, but mostly because there was business to be had. People wanted to drink and celebrate. By seven that night, most of the population of the city was reeling through the streets, drinking the health of Thomas the LightBringer (or brawling with each other). It was nearly dark when the revelers finally began to disperse. Peter left the window, went to the one chair in his sitting room (that name was a cruel joke), and simply sat there with his hands folded in his lap. He sat and watched the room darken. His dinner camefatty meat, watery ale, and coarse bread so salty it would have stung his mouth if he had eaten any. But Peter did not eat the meat or bread, nor did he drink the ale. Around nine oclock, as the carousing in the streets began again (this time the crowds were much more boisterous . . . almost riotous), Peter went into his prisons second room, stripped to his singlet, washed with water from the basin, knelt by his bed, and prayed. Then he got into bed. There was only a single blanket, although the little bedroom was very cold. Peter pulled it to his chest, laced his hands together in back of his head, and looked up into the darkness. From outside and below came screams and cheers and laughter. Now and then there was the sound of firecrackers, and once, near midnight, there was an explosive gunpowder flatulence as a drunken soldier set off a blank charge (the following day, the unfortunate soldier was sent as far east as the Kingdom of Detain stretched, for his drunken salute to the new Kinggunpowder was rare in Delain, and jealously hoarded). Sometime after one in the morning, Peter at last closed his eyes and slept. The next morning, he was up at seven. He knelt, shivering in the cold, his breath puffing white from his mouth, goosebumps on his bare arms and legs, and prayed. When his prayers were done, he dressed. He went into the sitting room and stood by the window silently for nearly two hours, watching the city come to life below him. That coming alive was slower and crankier than usual; most of the adults in Delain woke with drinkswollen heads. They stumbled to their jobs slowly, and in a foul temper. Many of the men went to their tasks blistered by angry wives who had no sympathy with their aching heads (Thomas also had an aching headhe had drunk too much wine the night beforebut at least he was spared the lecturing wife). Peters breakfast came, Beson, his Chief Warder (who had a hangover of his own), fetched him plain bran cereal with no sugar, watery milk that was rapidly souring, and more of the coarse, salty bread. This was a bitter contrast to the pleasant breakfasts Peter had enjoyed in his study, and he ate none of it. At eleven, one of the Lesser Warders fetched it silently away. Young princeling means to starve, thinks I, he said to Beson. Good, Beson replied indifferently. |
Spare us the trouble of keeping him. Maybe he fears poison, the Lesser Warder ventured, and in spite of his aching head, Beson laughed. The jest was a good one. Peter spent most of his day in the sittingroom chair. In the later part of the afternoon, he stood at the window again. The window was not barred. Unless you were a bird there was nowhere to go but straight down. No one, not Peyna, not Flagg, not Aron Beson, worried that the prisoner might somehow climb down. The Needles curving stone wall was utterly smooth. A fly might have done it, but not a man. And if he grew depressed enough to jump, would anyone care? Not much. It would save the state the expense of feeding and housing a blueblooded murderer. As the sun began to move across the floor and up the wall, Peter sat and watched it. His dinnermore fatty meat, watery ale, and salty breadcame. Peter did not touch it. When the sun was gone, he sat in the dark until nine, and then went into the bedroom. He stripped to his singlet, knelt, and prayed with small white puffs coming from his mouth. He got into bed, laced his hands behind his head, and lay on his back, staring up into the darkness. He lay there thinking about what had become of him. Around one oclock in the morning, he slept. So he was on the second day. And the third. And the fourth. For a full week Peter ate nothing, spoke nothing, and did nothing but stand at his sittingroom window or sit in his chair, watching the sun crawl across the floor and then up the wall to the ceiling. Beson was convinced that the boy was in an utter blackness of guilt and despairhe had seen such things before, especially among royalty. The boy would die, he thought, like a wild bird that was never meant to be caged. The boy would die, and good riddance to him. But on the eighth day, Peter sent for Aron Beson and gave him certain instructions . . . and he did not give them like a prisoner. He gave them like a King. 52 Peter did feel despair . . . but it was not as deep as Beson believed. He spent that first week in the Needle carefully thinking out his position, and trying to decide what he should do. He had fasted to clear his head. Eventually it did clear, but for a while he felt terribly lost, and the weight of his situation pressed down on his head like a blacksmiths anvil. Then he remembered one simple truth he knew he hadnt killed his father, even if everyone else in the Kingdom thought he had. During the first day or two, he grappled with useless feelings. The childish part of him kept crying out, Not fair! This is not fair! And of course it wasnt, but that sort of thinking got him no place. As he fasted, he began to regain control of himself. His empty belly peeled the childish part of him away. He began to feel cleaner, husked out, empty . . . like a glass waiting to be filled. After two or three days of eating nothing, the growlings in his stomach subsided, and he began to hear his real thoughts more dearly. He prayed, but part of him knew that he was doing more than praying; he was talking to himself, listening to himself, wondering if there was a way out of this prison in the sky where he had been so neatly put. He had not killed his father. That was the first thing. Someone had blamed it on him. That was the second thing. Who? There was only one person who could have, of course; only one person in all of Detain who could have had such an awful poison as Dragon Sand. Flagg. It made perfect sense. Flagg knew he would have no place in a kingdom ruled by Peter. Flagg had been careful to make Thomas his friend . . . and to make Thomas fear him. Somehow, Flagg had murdered Roland and then arranged the evidence which had sent Peter here. He was this far by the third night of Thomass reign. Then what was he to do? Simply accept? No, he wouldnt do that. Escape? He couldnt do that. No one had ever escaped from the Needle. Except . . . A glimmer came to him. This was on the fourth night, as he looked at his dinner tray. Fatty meat, watery ale, salty bread. A plain white plate. No napkin. Except . . . The glimmer grew brighter. There might be a way to escape. There might. It would be horribly dangerous, and it would be long. At the end of much work, he might only die in spite of all his efforts. But . . . there might be a way. And if he did escape, what then? Was there a way to bring the murder home to the magician? Peter did not know. Flagg was a wily old serpenthe would have left no evidence of what he had done to damn him later on. Could Peter worm a confession out of the magician? He might be able to, always assuming Peter could lay hands on him in the first placePeter guessed that Flagg might disappear like smoke if he heard that Peter had escaped the Needle. Would anyone believe Flaggs confession, even if Peter could get one out of him? Oh yes, he confessed to the murder of Roland, people would say. Peter, the escaped fatherkiller, had a sword to his throat. In a fix like that, I might confess to anything, even the murder of God! You might be tempted to laugh at Peter, turning such things over in his mind while he was still imprisoned three hundred feet in the sky. You might say he had gotten the cart quite a bit forward of the horse. But Peter had seen a way he might escape. It might, of course, only be a way to die young, but he thought it had a chance of working. Still . . . was there any reason to go through all the work if in the end it could come to nothing? Or, worse still, if it were to cause the Kingdom fresh harm in some way he did not see now? He thought about these things and prayed over them. The fourth night passed . . . the fifth . . . the sixth. On the seventh night, Peter came to this conclusion it was better to try than not to try; better to make an effort to right the wrong even if he died trying to do so. An injustice had been done. He discovered a strange thingthe fact that the injustice had been done to him didnt seem half so important as the fact that it had been done at all. It ought to be righted. On the eighth day of Thomass reign, he sent for Beson. 53 Beson listened to the speech of the imprisoned prince with incredulity and mounting rage. Peter finished and Aron Beson let loose a gutter flood of obscenity that would have made a horse drover blush. Peter stood before it, impassive. You murdering snotnosed hound! Beson finished, in a tone that was close to wonder. I guess you think yer still livin in the bloody lap o luxury, with yer sairvants to run scurrying every time you lift one o yer perfoomed little fingers. But it aint like that in here, my young prince. No, sir. Beson leaned forward from the waist, scruffy chin jutting, and although the stench of the mansweat and thick cheap wine and great gray scales of dirtwas nearly overpowering, Peter did not give ground. There were no bars between them; Beson had yet to fear a prisoner, and certainly he felt no fear of this young whelp. The Chief Warder was fifty, short, broad of shoulder, deep in the gut. His greasy hair hung in tangles around his cheeks and down the back of his neck. When he had come into Peters room, one of the Lesser Warders had locked the door behind them. Beson balled his left hand into a fist and shook it under Peters nose. His right hand slid into the pouch pocket of his shirt and closed around a smooth cylinder of metal. One hard smash with that loaded fist would break a mans jaw. Beson had done it before. You take your requests, and you jam them up your nose with the rest of the boogers, my dear little prince. And the next time you call me in here for any such royal rubbage as this, youll bleed for it. Beson started away toward the door, short and hunched over and almost trolllike. He traveled in his own tight little cloud of stink. You are in danger of making an extremely bad mistake, Peter said. His voice was soft but grim, and it carried. Beson turned back to him, his face incredulous. What did you say? You heard me, Peter said. And when you speak to me next, you stinking little turnip, I think you had better remember you are speaking to royalty, dont you? My lineage did not change when I climbed those steps. For a moment Beson could not reply. His mouth opened and closed like the mouth of a fish yanked out of the oceanalthough any fisherman catching something as ugly as Beson would surely have thrown it back. Peters cool requestsrequests delivered in a tone which made it clear that they were in reality demands not to be refusedmade Besons head buzz with fury. One of the requests had been that of either an utter sissy or an outright lunatic. That one Beson had dismissed at once as nonsense and tomfoolery. The other, however, had to do with his meals. That, combined with the firm resolute look in Peters eye, suggested that the young prince had thrown off his despair and meant to live. The future prospects for idle days and drunken nights had looked bright. Now they had dimmed again. This young boy looked very healthy, very strong. He might live a long time. Beson might very well have to look at the young murderers face for the rest of his own lifethere was a thought to set a mans teeth on edge! And Stinking turnip? Did he actually call me a stinking turnip? Oh, my dear little prince, Beson said, I think you are the one who has made the mistake . . . but I can promise youll never make it again. His lips split open in a grin, revealing a few blackened stumps of teeth. Now, about to attack, he moved with surprising grace. His right hand came out of the pouch pocket, wrapped around the bar of metal. Peter took a step backward, his eyes moving from Besons fisted hands to Besons face and then back to his fists. Behind Beson, the tiny barred window in the middle of Peters door was opened. Two of the Lesser Warders were crammed there cheek to stubbly cheek, grinning and waiting for the fun to start. You know that royal prisoners are to be given some consideration in smaller matters, Peter said, still backtracking and circling. That is tradition. And I have asked you for nothing untoward. Besons grin widened. He imagined he heard fear in Peters voice. He was mistaken. This error would shortly be brought home to him in a way to which he was unaccustomed. Such traditions are paid for, even among the royalty, my little prince. Beson rubbed his left thumb and finger together. His right fist remained tightly balled around the chunk of metal. If you mean you wish an odd bit of cash from time to time, that might be arranged, Peter said, continuing to circle away. But only if you drop this foolish behavior of yours right now. Afraid, are you? If anyone should be afraid here, I think it is you, Peter said. You apparently mean to attack the brother of the King of Detain. This shot struck home, and for a moment Beson faltered. His eyes grew uncertain. Then he glanced toward the open window in the door, saw the faces of his Lesser Warders, and his own face darkened again. If he drew back now, he would have trouble with themnothing he couldnt handle, of course, but still more annoyance than this little stinker was worth. He moved forward in a rush and swung the weighted fist. He was grinning. The princes screams as he fell to the stone floor with his smashed and squirting nose clutched in his hands would be, Beson thought, shrill and babyish. Peter moved back easily, his feet moving as gracefully as if in a dance. He seized Besons fist and was not surprised in the least by its weighthe had seen the gleam of metal between Besons swelled fingers. Peter pulled with a wiry strength that Beson would not have believed five minutes ago. He spun through the air and hit the curving inner wall of Peters sitting room with a crash that rattled the few teeth remaining in his jaws. Stars exploded in his head. The metal cylinder flew from his fist and rolled across the floor. And before Beson could even begin to recover, Peter had sprung after it and seized it. He moved with the simple, pure liquidity of a cat. This cant be happening, Beson thought with dawning dismay and stupid surprise. This absolutely cant be happening. He had never feared entering the tworoom prison at the top of the Needle, because there had never been a prisoner here, not of noble blood, not of royal blood, who could best him. Oh, there had been some famous fights up here, but he had taught them all who was boss. Perhaps they ruled the roost down below, but up here he was the boss, and they came to respect his dirty, compact power. But now this stripling of a boy . . . Bellowing with rage, Beson came off the wall, shaking his head to clear it, and charged Peter, who had folded the cylinder of metal into his own right hand. The Lesser Warders stood staring at this unexpected development with stupid wonder. Neither thought of interfering; they could believe what was happening no more than Beson himself. Beson ran at Peter with his arms outstretched. Now that the prince had gotten his fist weight away from him, Beson had no more interest in the sort of freeforall swinging and hitting he thought of as boxing. He meant to close with Peter, grapple with him, drive him to the floor, land on top of him, and then choke him unconscious. But the space where Peter had been emptied with magical suddenness as the boy stepped aside and dropped into a crouch. As the squat, trolllike Chief Warder went past, trying to turn, Peter hit him three times with his right fist, which was closed around the metal cylinder. Hardly fair, Peter thought, but, then, it wasnt I that brought this piece of metal into it, was it? The blows did not look hard at all. If Beson had been watching a fight and had seen those three quick, fluttering punches thrown, he would have laughed and called them sissy punches. Besons idea of a real mans punch was a roundhouse blow that made the air whistle. But they werent sissy punches at all, no matter what the likes of Beson might have thought. Each was driven out from the shoulder, just as Peters boxing instructor had taught him in their twiceweekly classes over the last six years. The punches were economical, they didnt make the air whistle, but Beson felt as if he had been kicked three times in rapid succession by a very small pony with very big hoofs. There was a flare of agony across the left side of his face as his cheekbone broke. To Beson, it sounded as if a small branch had snapped inside his head. He was driven into the wall again. He hit it like a rag doll and bounced back bucklekneed. He stared at the prince with obvious dismay. The Lesser Warders peering through the hole in the door were agog with surprise. Beson, being beaten by a boy? It was as unbelievable as rain would have been coming down from a clear blue sky. One of them now looked at the key in his hand, thought briefly of going in there, then thought better of it. A man could get hurt in there. He slipped the key into his pocket, where he could later claim to have forgotten it. Are you ready to talk reasonably now? Peter wasnt even out of breath. This is silly. I require only two small favors of you, favors for which you can count on being well and amply repaid. You With a roar, Beson flung himself at Peter again. This time Peter was not expecting an attack, but he managed to pull back anyway, the way a matador pulls back from a bull which charges unexpectedlythe matador may be surprised, perhaps even gored, but he rarely loses his grace. Peter did not lose his, but he was wounded. Besons nails were long, ragged, and filthymore like animal claws than human nailsand he liked to tell his Lesser Warders (on dark winters nights when a gruesome tale seemed required) about the time he had slit a prisoners neck from ear to ear with one of those thumbnails. Now one drew a bloody line down Peters left cheek as Beson flailed his way by. The cut zigzagged from temple to jawline, missing Peters left eye by hardly half an inch. Peters cheek fell open in a flap, and all his life he would bear the scar of his encounter with Beson there. Peter grew angry. All the things that had happened to him over the last ten days seemed to slam together in his head, and for a moment he was almostnot quite, but almostangry enough to kill the brutish Chief Warder instead of just teaching him a lesson he would never, never forget. As Beson turned, he was rocked by left hooks and right jabs. The jabs would ordinarily have done little damage, but the pound and a half of metal in Peters fist turned them into torpedoes. His knuckles sprung Besons jaw. Beson roared with pain and again tried to close with Peter. This was a mistake. There was a crunch as his nose broke and blood flooded over his mouth and chin. It dripped onto his filthy jerkin. Then a bright flare of pain as that heavy right hand smashed his lips back. Beson spat a tooth onto the floor and tried to circle away. He had forgotten that his Lesser Warders were watching, afraid to interfere. Beson had forgotten his anger at the young princes attitude, had lost his former desire to teach the young prince a lesson. For the first time in his tenure as Chief Warder, he had forgotten everything but a blind desire to survive. For the first time in his tenure as Chief Warder, Beson was afraid. Nor was it the fact that Peter was now punching him at will that frightened him. He had taken bad beatings before, although never at the hands of a prisoner. No, it was the look in Peters eyes that had so terrified him. It is the look of a King. Gods protect me, it is the face of a Kinghis fury blazes almost with the heat of the sun. Peter drove Beson against the wall, measured the distance to Besons chin, and then drew back his weighted right fist. Do you need more convincing, turnip? Peter asked grimly. No more, Beson replied groggily, through his rapidly puffing lips. No more, my King, I cry your mercy, I cry your mercy. What? Peter asked, flabbergasted. What did you call me? But Beson was sliding slowly down the curved stone wall. When he had called Peter my King, he had done so as unconsciousness stole over him. He would not remember saying it, but Peter never forgot. 54 Beson was unconscious for over two hours. If not for his thick, snoring breaths, Peter would have been afraid that perhaps he really had killed the Chief Warder. The man was a gross, vicious, underhanded pig . . . but for all of that, Peter had no wish to kill him. The Lesser Warders took turns staring in the little window in the oaken door, their eyes wide and roundthe eyes of small boys looking at the maneating Anduan tiger in the Kings Menagerie. Neither made any effort to rescue their superior, and their faces told Peter that they expected him to leap on the unconscious Beson at any moment and tear his throat out. Perhaps with his teeth. Well, why shouldnt they think such things? Peter asked himself bitterly. They think I killed my own father, and a man who would do such a thing might stoop to any low act, even that of killing an unconscious opponent. Finally Beson began to moan and stir. His right eye fluttered and came openthe left couldnt open, and wouldnt completely for some days. The right eye looked at Peter not with hate, but with unmistakable alarm. Are you ready to speak reasonably? Peter asked. Beson said something Peter couldnt understand. It sounded like mush. I dont understand you. Beson tried again. You could have killed me. Ive never killed anyone, Peter said. The time may come when Ill have to, but if it ever does, I hope I dont have to start with unconscious warders. Beson sat against the wall, looking at Peter with his one open eye. An expression of deep thought, absurd and a little frightening on his swelled and battered features, settled over his face. At last he managed another mushy phrase. Peter thought he understood this one, but wanted to be absolutely sure. Repeat that, please, Mr. Chief Warder Beson. Beson looked startled. As Yosef had never been called Lord High Groom before Peter, so Beson had never been called Mr. Chief Warder. We can do business, he said. That is very well. Beson struggled slowly to his feet. He wanted no more to do with Peter, at least not today. He had other problems. His Lesser Warders had just watched him take a bad beating at the hands of a boy who hadnt had anything to eat for a week. Watchedand no more, the cowardly sots. His head ached, and he might well have to whip those poor fools into line before he could slink off to bed. He had started out when Peter called to him. Beson turned back. That turning was really all it took. Both of them knew who was in charge here. Beson had been beaten. When his prisoner told him to wait, he waited. I have something I want to say to you. It will be good for both of us if I do. Beson said nothing. He only stood and watched Peter warily. Tell themPeter jerked his head toward the doorto close the spyhole. Beson stared at Peter for a moment, then turned toward the staring warders and gave the command. The Lesser Warders currently jammed cheek to cheek into the opening, stood there staring, not understanding Besons blurred words . . . or pretending not to. Beson ran his tongue over his bloodflecked teeth and spoke more clearly, obviously with some pain. This time the peephole was swung shut and bolted from the outside . . . but not before Beson had heard the contemptuous laughter of his underlings. He sighed wearityyes, they would have to be taught some hard lessons before he could go home. Cowards learned quickly, though. This prince, whatever else he might be, was surely no coward. He wondered if he really wanted to do any business at all with Peter. I want to give you a note to take to Anders Peyna, Peter said. Youll come back for it tonight, I hope. Beson said nothing, but he was trying very hard to think. This was the most unsettling twist yet. Peyna! A note to Peyna! He had had a cold moment when Peter reminded him that he was the brother of the King, but it had been nothing compared with this. Peyna, by the gods! The more he thought of it the less he liked it. King Thomas might not much care if his older brother was roughed up in the Needle. The older brother had murdered their father, for one thing; Thomas probably didnt feel much brotherly love right now. And more important, Beson felt little or no fright when the name of King Thomas the LightBringer was invoked. Like almost everyone else in Delain, Beson had already begun to view Thomas with a certain contempt. But Peyna, now . . . Peyna was different. To the likes of Beson, Anders Peyna was more frightening than a whole marching regiment of Kings, anyway. A King was a distant sort of being, bright and mysterious, like the sun. It didnt matter if the sun went behind the clouds and froze you, or came out all hot and white to bake you ativeeither way you only accepted, because what the sun did was far beyond the ability of mortal creatures to understand or to change. Peyna was a more earthly being. The sort of being Beson could understand . . . and fear. Peyna with his narrow face and his iceblue eyes, Peyna with his highcollared judges robes, Peyna who decided who would live and who would go under the headsmans axe. Could this boy really command Peyna from his cell here at the top of the Needle? Or was it only a desperate bluff? How can it be a bluff if he means to write him a note I shall myself deliver? If I were King, Peyna would have served me in any way I commanded, Peter said. I am not a King now, only a prisoner. Still, not long ago I did him a favor for which I think he is very grateful. I see, Beson replied, as noncommittally as he could. Peter sighed. Suddenly he felt very weary, and wondered what sort of foolish dream he was pursuing here. Did he really believe he was taking the first few steps on the road to freedom by beating up this stupid warder and then bending him to his will? Did he have any real guarantee that Peyna would do even the smallest thing for him? Perhaps the concept of a favor owed was only in Peters own mind. But it had to be tried. Hadnt he decided, on his long, lonely nights of meditation as he grieved for both his father and himself, that the only real sin would be in not trying? Peyna is not my friend, Peter went on. I wont even try to tell you that he is. Ive been convicted of murdering my father, the King, and shouldnt think I have a friend left in all of Delain, from north to south. Would you agree, Mr. Chief Warder Beson? Yes, Beson said stonily. I would. Nevertheless, I believe that Peyna will undertake to provide you with the bit of cash you are used to receiving from your inmates. Beson nodded. When a noble was imprisoned in the Needle for any length of time, Beson would commonly see that the prisoner got a better grade of food than the fatty meat and watery ale, fresh linen once a week, and sometimes a visit from a wife or a sweetheart. He did not do this free, of course. Imprisoned nobles almost always came from rich families, and there was always someone in those families willing to pay Beson for Besons services, no matter what the crime had been. This crime was of an exceptionally terrible nature, but here was this boy, saying that no less a one than Anders Peyna might be willing to provide the bribe. One other thing, Peter said softly. I believe Peyna will do this because he is a man of honor. And if anything were to happen to meif you and several of your Lesser Warders were to rush in here tonight, and beat me in revenge for the beating I have given you, for exampleI believe that Peyna might take an interest in the matter. Peter paused. A personal interest in the matter. He looked closely at Beson. Do you understand me? Yes, Beson said, and then added my Lord. Will you provide me with pen, inkpot, blotter, and paper? Yes. Come here. With some trepidation, Beson came. The Chief Warders stink was tremendous, but Peter did not draw awaythe stink of the crime with which he had been accused had almost inured him to the smell of sweat and dirt, he had discovered. He looked at Beson with a hint of a smile. Whisper in my ear, Peter said. Beson blinked uneasily. What shall I whisper, my Lord? A number, Peter said. After a moment, Beson did. 55 One of the Lesser Warders brought Peter the writing implements he had asked for. He gave Peter the wary look of an alley cat that has been often kicked, and skittered away before he could receive a helping of the anger that had been heaped on Besons head. Peter sat down at the rickety table by the window, breath puffing out in the deep cold. He listened to the restless whine of the wind around the tip of the Needle and looked down at the lights of the city. Dear JudgeGeneral Peyna, he wrote, and then stopped. Will you see who this is from, crumple it in your hand, and throw it into the fire unread? Will you read it and then laugh contemptuously at the fool who murdered his father and then dared to expect help from the JudgeGeneral of the land? Will you, perhaps, even see through the scheme, and understand what it is Im up to? Peter was in a cheerier frame of mind that evening, and thought the answer to all three questions would probably be no. His plan might well fail, but it was unlikely to be foreseen by such an orderly and methodical man as Peyna. The JudgeGeneral would be as apt to imagine himself donning a dress and dancing a hornpipe in the Plaza of the Needle at the full of the moon as he was to guess what Peter was up to. And what Im asking is so little, Peter thought. That ghost of a smile touched his lips again. At least I hope and believe it will seem so . . . to him. Bending forward, he dipped the quill pen in the inkpot and began to write. 56 On the following evening, shortly after nine had struck, Anders Peynas butler answered an unaccustomedly late knock and looked down his long nose at the figure of the Chief Warder standing on the doorstep. Arlenthat was the butlers namehad seen Beson before, of course; like Adens master, Beson was a part of the Kingdoms legal machinery. But Arlen did not recognize him now. The beating Peter had given Beson had had a day to set, and his face was a sunset of reds and purples and yellows. His left eye had opened a little, but was still little more than a slit. He looked like a dwarfish ghoul, and the butler began to swing the door shut almost at once. Wait, Beson said in a hard growl that made the butler hesitate. I come with a message for your master. The butler hesitated for a moment and then began to swing the door closed again. The mans sullen, swollen face was frightening. Could he actually be a dwarf, down from the north country? Supposedly the last of those wild, furclad tribes had either died or been killed off in his grandfathers time, but still . . . one never knew. . . . It is from Prince Peter, Beson said. If you close this door, you will hear hard things later from your marster, thinks I. Arlen hesitated again, torn between closing the door against the ghoul and the power the name of Prince Peter still held. If this man came from Peter, he must be the Needles Chief Warder. Yet You dont look like Beson, he said. You dont look like your father, neither, Arlen, and its made me wonder more than once where your mother may have been, the lumpish ghoul retorted rudely, and stuck a smudged envelope through the crack still open in the door. Here . . . take it toim. Ill wait. Close the door if you want, although its devilish cold out here. Arlen didnt care if it was twenty below. He didnt intend to have the horriblelooking fellow toasting his feet in front of the fire in the servants kitchen. He snatched the envelope, shut the door, bolted it, started away . . . then returned and doublebolted it 57 Peyna was in his study, staring into the fire and thinking long thoughts. When Thomas had been crowned the moon had been new; it was not yet at the half, and already he did not like the way things were going. Flaggthat was the worst. Flagg. The magician already wielded more power than in the days of Rolands reign. Roland had at least been a man, full of years, no matter how slow his thinking might have been. Thomas was only a boy, and Peyna feared that Flagg might soon control all Delain in Thomass name. That would be bad for the Kingdom . . . and bad for Anders Peyna, who had never concealed his dislike of Flagg. It was pleasant here in the study, before the crackling fire, but Peyna thought he nonetheless felt a cold wind around his ankles. It was a wind which might rise and blow away . . . everything. Why, Peter? Why, oh why? Why couldnt you wait? And why did you have to seem so perfect on the outside, like a rosered apple in autumn, and be so rotten below the skin? Why? Peyna didnt know . . . and would not admit to himself, even now, that doubts as to whether or not Peter really had been rotten were beginning to nibble at his heart. There was a knock at the door. Peyna roused himself, looked around, and called out impatiently Come! And it better be damned good! Arlen came in, looking ruffled and confused. He held an envelope in one hand. Well? My Lord . . . theres a man at the door . . . at least, he looks like a man . . . that is, his face is most awfully puffed and swelled, as if he had gotten a terrible beating . . . or . . . Arlens voice trailed away. Whats that to do with me? You know I dont receive this late. Tell him to go away. Tell him to go to the devil! He says hes Beson, my Lord, Arlen said, more flustered than ever. He raised the smudged envelope, as if to use it as a shield. He brought this. He says its a message from Prince Peter. Peynas heart leaped at that, but he only frowned more strenuously at Arlen. Well, is it? From Prince Peter? Arlen was almost gibbering now. His usual composure was utterly lost, and Peyna found this interesting. He wouldnt have believed Arlen would lose his composure come fire, flood, or invasion of ravaging dragons. My Lord, I would have no way of knowing. . . . |
That is, I . . . I . . . Is it Beson, you idiot? Arlen licked his lipsactually licked his lips. This was utterly unheard of. Well, it might be, my Lord . . . it looks a bit like him . . . but the fellow on the doorstep is most awfully bruised and lumpy. . . . I . . . Arlen swallowed. I thought he looked like a dwarf, he said, bringing out the worst and then trying to soften it with a lame smile. It IS Beson, Peyna thought. Its Beson and if he looks as if hes been beaten its because Peter administered the beating. Thats why he brought the message. Because Peter beat him and he was afraid not to. A beatings the only thing that convinces his sort. There came a sudden feeling of exultation in Peynas heart he felt as one might feel in a dark cave when a light suddenly shines out Give me the letter, he said. Arlen did. He then made as if to scuttle out, and this was also something new, because Arlen did not scuttle. At least, Peyna thought, his mind lawyerly as always, I have never KNOWN him to scuttle. He let Arlen get as far as the study door, as a veteran fisherman will let a hooked fish run, and then pulled him up short. Arlen. Arlen turned back. He looked braced, as if to receive a reprimand. There are no more dwarves. Did your mother not tell you so? Yes, Arlen said reluctantly. Good for her. A wise woman. These dreams in your head must have come from your father. Let the Chief Warder in. To the servants kitchen, he added hastily. I have no wish to have him in here. He stinks. But let him into the servants kitchen so he may warm himself. The night is cold. Since the death of Roland, Peyna reflected, all the nights had been cold, as if in reproach for the way the old King had burned, from the inside out. Yes, my Lord, Arlen said with marked reluctance. Ill ring for you shortly and tell you what to do with him. Arlen went out, a humbled man, and closed the door behind him. Peyna turned the envelope over in his hands several times without opening it. The dirt was no doubt from Besons own greasy fingers. He could almost smell the villains sweat on the envelope. It had been sealed shut with a blot of common candle wax. He thought, I would do better, perhaps, to throw this directly into the fire, and think of it no more. Yes, throw it into the fire, then ring Arlen and tell him to give the little hunchedover Chief Warderhe really DOES look like a dwarf, now that I think of ita hot toddy and send him away. Yes, that is what I should do. But he knew that he wouldnt. That absurd feelingthat feeling that here was a ray of light in hopeless darknesswould not leave him. He put his thumb under the flap of the envelope, broke the seal, took out a brief letter, and read it by firelight. 58 Peyna, I have decided to live. I had read only a little about the Needle before I actually found myself in the place, and although I had heard a bit more, most of it was only gossip. One of the things I heard was that certain small favors might be purchased. It seems this really is so. I of course have no money, but I thought you might perhaps defray my expenses in this matter. I did you a favor not long ago, and if you were to pay the Chief Warder a sum of eight guilderssuch sum to be paid anew at the beginning of each year I spend in this unhappy placeI would consider the favor repaid. This sum, you will notice, is very small. That is because I require only two things. If you will arrange for Beson to wet his beak so that I may have them, Ill trouble you no more. I am aware that you would be put in a bad light if it came out that you have helped me, even in a small way. I suggest that you make my friend Ben your gobetween, if you decide to do as I ask. I have not spoken to Ben since my arrest, but I think and hope he remains true to me. I would ask him rather than you, but the Staads are not well off, and Ben has no money of his own. It shames me to ask money from anyone, but there is no other to whom I may turn. If you feel you cannot do as I request, I will understand. I did not murder my father. Peter 59 Peyna looked at this amazing letter for quite some time. His eyes kept returning to the first line, and the last. I have decided to live. I did not murder my father. It did not surprise him that the boy continued to protesthe had known criminals to go on for years and years protesting their innocence of crimes of which they were patently guilty. But it was not like a guilty man to be so bald in his own defense. So . . . so commanding. Yes, that was what bothered him most about the letterits tone of command. A true King, Peyna felt, would not be changed by exile; not by prison; not even by torture. A true King would not waste time justifying or explaining. He would simply state his will. I have decided to live. Peyna sighed. After a long time, he drew his inkpot to him, took a sheet of fine parchment from his drawer, and wrote upon it. His note was even shorter than Peters had been. It took him less than five minutes to write it, blot it, sand it, fold it, and seal it shut. With that done, he rang for Arlen. Arlen, looking much chastened, appeared almost at once. Is Beson still here? Peyna asked. I think so, sir, Arlen sad. In fact he knew Beson was still there, because he had been peeking through the keyhole at the man, watching him lurch back and forth restlessly from one end of the servants kitchen to the other with a cold chicken leg clutched like a club in one hand. When the meat on the leg was all gone, Beson had crunched the boneshorrible splintering sounds they madeand sucked contentedly at the marrow. Arlen was still not utterly convinced the man was not a dwarf . . . perhaps even a troll. Give him this, Peyna said, handing Arlen the note, and this for his trouble. Two guilders clinked into Arlens other hand. Tell him there may be a reply. If so, hes to bring it at night, as he did this one. Yes, my Lord. Dont linger and chat with him, either, Peyna said. It was as close as he was able to come to making a joke. No, my Lord, Arlen said glumly, and went out. He was still thinking of the crunching sounds the chicken bones had made when Beson bit through them. 60 Here, Beson said grumpily when he came into Peters cell the next day, thrusting the envelope at Peter. In truth, he felt grumpy. The two guilders handed to him by Arlen had been an unexpected windfall, and Beson had spent most of the night drinking it up. Two guilders bought a great lot of mead, and today his head felt large and very painful. Damned messenger boy is what Im turning into. Thank you, Peter said, holding the envelope. Well? Aintcher going to open it? Yes. When you leave. Beson bared his teeth and clenched his fists. Peter simply stood there, looking at him. After a moment, Beson lowered his fists. Damned messenger boy, is all! he repeated, and went out, slamming the heavy door behind him. There was the thud of iron locks being turned, followed by the sliding sound of boltsthree of them, each as thick as Peters wristbeing slid into place. When the sounds had stopped, Peter opened the note. It was only three sentences long. I am aware of the longstanding customs of which you speak. The sum you mentioned could be arranged. I will do so, but not until I know what favors you expect to buy from our mutual friend. Peter smiled. JudgeGeneral Peyna was not a sly manslyness was not at all in his nature, as it was in Flaggsbut he was exceedingly careful. This note was the proof of that. Peter had expected Peynas condition. He would have felt wary if Peyna had not asked what he wanted. Ben would be the gobetween, Peyna would cease to actually be a part of the bribe very shortly, but still he walked carefully, as a man might walk on loose stones which might slide out from under his feet at any moment. Peter went to the door of his cell, rapped, and after some conversation with Beson, was given the inkpot and dirty quill pen again. Beson did more muttering about being nothing but a damned messenger boy, but he was not really unhappy about the situation. There might be another two guilders in this for him. If them two write back and forth long enough, I guess I could get rich arter it, he said to no one at all, and roared laughter in spite of his aching head. 61 Peyna unfolded Peters second note and saw that this time the prince had left off both of their names. That was very well. The boy learned fast. As he read the note itself, his eyebrows shot up. Perhaps your request to know my business is presumptuous, perhaps not. It matters little, since I am at your mercy. Here are the two things your eight guilders per year are to purchase 1. I want to have my mothers dollhouse. It always took me to pleasant places and pleasant adventures, and I loved it much as a boy. 2. I would like to have a napkin brought with my mealsa proper royal napkin. The crest may be removed, if you like. These are my requests. Peyna read this note over and over again before throwing it into the fire. He was troubled by it because he did not understand it. The boy was up to something . . . or was he? What could he want with his mothers dollhouse? So far as Peyna knew, it was still in storage somewhere in the castle, gathering dust under a sheet, and there could be no reason not to give it to himnot, that was, if a good man was charged with going through it carefully first, to make sure all the sharp thingstiny knives and suchwere removed from it. He remembered quite well how enchanted Peter had been with Sashas dollhouse as a very young boy. He also rememberedvaguely, very vaguelythat Flagg had protested that it was hardly fitting for a boy who would someday be King to be playing with dolls. Roland had gone against Flaggs advice that time . . . wisely, Peyna thought, for Peter had given the dollhouse up, all in good time. Until now. Has he gone mad, then? Peyna did not think so. The napkin, now . . . that he could understand. Peter had always insisted upon a napkin at every meal, always spread it neatly on his lap like a small tablecloth. Even when on camping trips with his father, Peter had insisted on a napkin. So oddly like Peter not to ask for better food than the normal poor prison rations, as almost any other noble or royal prisoner would have done before asking for anything else. No, he had asked for a napkin instead. That insistence on always being neat . . . on always having a napkin . . . that was his mothers doing. Im sure of it. Do the two go together, somehow? But how? Napkins . . . and Sashas dollhouse. What do they mean? Peyna did not know, but that absurd feeling of hope remained. He kept remembering that Flagg had not wanted Peter to have the dollhouse as a little boy. Now, years later, here was Peter asking to have it again. There was another thought wrapped up inside this, as neatly as filling is wrapped up in a tart. It was a thought Peyna hardly dared to entertain. Ifjust ifPeter had not murdered his father, who did that leave? Why, the person who had originally owned that hideous poison, of course. A person who would have been nothing in the Kingdom if Peter had followed his father . . . a person who was nearly everything now that Thomas sat on the throne in Peters place. Flagg. But this thought was hideous to Peyna. It suggested that justice had somehow gone wrong, and that was bad. But it also suggested that the simple logic in which he had always prided himself had been washed away in the revulsion he had felt at the sight of Peters tears, and this ideathe idea that he had made the single most important decision of his career on the basis of emotion rather than factwas much worse. What harm can there be in his having the dollhouse, as long as the sharp things are removed? Peyna drew his writing materials to him and wrote briefly. Beson had another two guilders to drink upalready he had been paid half the sum he would receive for the princes little favors each year. He looked forward to more correspondence, but there was no more. Peter had what he wanted. 62 As a child Ben Staad had been a slim, blueeyed boy with curly blond hair. The girls had been sighing and giggling over him since he was nine years old. Thatll stop soon enough, Bens father said. All the Staads make handsome enough lads, but hell be like the rest of us when he gets his growth, reckonhis hairll darken to brown and hell go around squintin at everything and hell have all the luck of a fat pig in the Kings slaughtering pen. But neither of the first two predictions came true. Ben was the first Staad male in several generations to remain as blond at seventeen as he had been at seven, and who could tell a brown hawk from an auger hawk at four hundred yards. Far from developing a nearsighted squint, his eyes were amazingly keen . . . and the girls still sighed and giggled over him as much now, at seventeen, as they had when he was nine. As for his luck . . . well, that was another matter. That most of the Staad men had been unlucky, at least for the last hundred years or so, was beyond argument. Bens family thought that Ben might be the one to redeem them from their genteel poverty. After all, his hair hadnt darkened and his eyes hadnt grown dim, so why should he not escape the curse of bad luck as well? And after all, Prince Peter was his friend, and Peter would someday be King. Then Peter was tried and convicted of his fathers murder. He was in the Needle before any of the bewildered Staad family could get their minds around what had happened. Bens father, Andrew, went to Thomass coronation, and he came home with a bruise on his cheeka bruise his wife thought it might be prudent not to speak of. Im sure Peters innocent, Ben said that night at supper. I simply refuse to believe The next moment he was sprawling on the floor, his ear ringing. His father was towering over him, pea soup dripping from his mustache, his face so red it was almost purple, and Bens baby sister, Emmaline, was crying in her high chair. Dont mention the murdering whelps name again in this house, his father said. Andrew! his mother cried. Andrew, he doesnt understand His father, normally the kindest of men, turned his head and stared at Bens mother. Be quiet, woman, he said, and something in his voice made her sit down again. Even Emmaline stopped crying. Father, Ben said quietly, I cant even remember the last time you struck me. Its been ten years, I think, maybe longer. And I dont think you ever struck me in anger, until now. But it doesnt change my mind. I dont believe Andrew Staad raised one warning finger. I told you not to mention his name, he said, and I meant it, Ben. I love you, but if you say his name, youll be leaving my house. Ill not say it, Ben replied, getting up, but because I love you, Da. Not because Im scared of you. Leave off! Mrs. Staad cried, more frightened than ever. I wont have the two of you bickering this way! Do you want to drive me insane? No, Mother, dont worry, its over, Ben said. Isnt it, Da? Its over, his father said. Youre a good son in all things, Ben, and always have been, but mention him not. There were things Andy Staad felt he couldnt tell his sonalthough Ben was seventeen, Andy still saw him as a boy. He would have been surprised if hed known that Ben understood his reasons for striking out quite well. Before the unfortunate turn of events of which you now know, Bens friendship with the prince had already begun changing things for the Staads. Their Inner Baronies farm had once been very large. Over the last hundred years, they had been forced to sell the land off, a piece at a time. Now fewer than sixty reels remained, most of that mortgaged. But over the last ten years or so, things had gradually improved. Bankers who had been threatening first became willing to extend the outstanding mortgages, and to even offer new loans at interest rates so cheap they were unheard of. It had hurt Andrew Staad bitterly to see the land of his ancestors whittled away reel by reel, and it had been a happy day for him when he was able to go to Halvay, the owner of the next farm over, and tell him that he had changed his mind about selling him the three reels Halvay had wanted to buy for the last nine years. And he knew who he had to thank for these wonderful changes, too. His son . . . his son who was a close friend of the prince who also happened to be the Kinginwaiting. Now they were only the unlucky Staads again. If that had been all, only a case of things going back to the way they had been, he could have stood up under it without striking his son at the dinner table . . . an act of which he was already ashamed. But things werent going to go back to the way they had been. Their position had worsened. He had been lulled when the bankers had stopped behaving like sheep instead of wolves. He had borrowed a great deal of money, some to buy back land which he had already sold, some to install things like the new windmill. Now, he felt sure, the bankers would take off their sheepskins, and instead of losing the farm a piece at a time, he might lose it all at once. Nor was that all. Some instinct had told him to forbid any of his family members to go to Thomass coronation and he had listened to that inner voice. Tonight he was glad. It had happened after the coronation, and he supposed he should have expected it. He went into a meadhouse to have a drink before starting home. He was very depressed by the whole sorry business of the Kings murder and Peters imprisonment; he felt that he needed a drink. He had been recognized as Bens father. Did yer son help his friend do the deed, Staad? one of the drunks had called, and there had been nasty laughter. Did he hold the old man while the prince poured the burnin pizen down his thrut? one of the others called out in turn. Andrew had put his mug down half empty. This was not a good place to be. He would leave. Quickly. But before he could get out, a third drunka giant of a man who smelled like a pile of moldy cabbagespulled him back. And how much did you know? this giant had asked in a low, rumbling voice. Nothing, Andrew said. I know nothing about this business, and neither does my son. Let me pass. Youll pass whenand ifwe decide to let yer pass, the giant said, and shoved him backward into the waiting arms of the other drunks. The pummeling then began. Andy Staad was pushed from one to the next, sometimes slapped, sometimes elbowed, sometimes tripped. No one quite dared to go as far as punching him, but they came close; he had seen in their eyes how badly they had wanted to. If the hour had been later and they had been drunker, he might have found himself in very serious trouble indeed. Andrew was not tall, but he was broadshouldered and well muscled. He calculated that he might be able to dust off any two of these idlers in a fair fightwith the exception of the giant, and he thought that perhaps he could give even that fellow a run for his money. One or two, possibly even three . . . but there were eight or ten there in all. If he had been Bens age, full of pride and hot blood, he still might have had a go at them. But he was fortyfive, and did not relish the thought of creeping home to his family beaten within an inch of his life. It would hurt him and frighten them, and both things would be to no purposeit was just the Staad luck come home with a vengeance, and there was nothing to do but endure it. The barkeeper stood watching it all, doing nothing, not attempting to put a stop to it. At last they had let him escape. Now he feared for his wife . . . his daughter . . . and most of all for his son Ben, who would be the prime target for bullies such as those. If itd been Ben in there instead of me, he thought, they would have used their fists, all right. They would have used their fists and beaten him unconscious . . . or worse. So, because he loved his son and was afraid for him, he had struck him and threatened to drive him from the house if Ben ever mentioned the prince by name again. People are funny, sometimes. 63 What Ben Staad didnt already understand abstractly about this strange new state of affairs he discovered very concretely the next day. He had driven six cows to market and sold them for a good price (to a stockman who didnt know him, or the price mightnt have been so good). He was walking toward the city gates, when a bunch of loitering men set upon him, calling him murderer and accomplice and names even less pleasant. Ben did well against them. They beat him quite badly in the endthere were seven of thembut they paid for the privilege with bloody noses, black eyes, and lost teeth. Ben picked himself up and went home, arriving after dark. He ached all over, but he was, all things considered, rather pleased with himself. His father took one look at him and knew exactly what had happened. Tell your mother you fell down, he said. Aye, Da, Ben said, knowing his mother would not believe any such story. And after this, Ill take the cows to market, or the corn, or whatever we have to take to market . . . at least until the bankers come an take the place out from under us. No, Da, Ben said, just as calmly as he had said Aye. For a young man who had taken a bad beating, he was in a very strange mood indeedalmost cheerful, in fact. What do you mean, telling me no? his father asked, thunderstruck. If I run or hide, theyll come after me. If I stand my ground, theyll grow tired soon enough and look for easier sport. If someone draws a knife from his boot, Andrew said, voicing his greatest fear, youll never live to see them grow tired of it, Benny. Ben put his arms around his father and hugged him tight. A man cant outsmart the gods, Ben said, quoting one of Delains oldest proverbs. You know that, Da. And Ill fight for P . . . for him youd not have me mention. His father looked at him sadly and said, Youll never believe it of him, will you? No, Ben said steadfastly. Never. I think youve become a man while I wasnt looking, his father said. Its a sad way to have to become a man, scuffling in the streets of the market with gutter louts. And these are sad times that have come to Delain. Yes, Ben said. They are sad times. Gods help you, Andrew said, and gods help this unlucky family. 64 Thomas had been crowned near the end of a long, bitter winter. On the fifteenth day of his reign, the last of that seasons great storms fell on Delain. Snow fell fast and thick, and long after dark the wind continued to scream, building drifts like sand dunes. At nine oclock on that bitter night, long after anyone sensible should have been out, there was a fist began to fall on the front door of the Staad house. It was not light or timid, that fist; it hammered rapidly and heavily on the stout oak. Answer me and be quick, it said. I havent all night. Andrew and Ben sat before the fire, reading. Susan Staad, wife of Andrew and mother of Ben, sat between them, working at a sampler which would read GODS BLESS OUR KING when finished. Emmaline had long since been put to bed. The three of them looked up at the knock, then around at each other. There was only curiosity in Bens eyes, but both Andrew and Susan were instantly, instinctively afraid. Andrew rose, putting his reading glasses in his pocket. Da? Ben asked. Ill go, Andrew said. Let it only be some traveler, lost in the dark and seeking shelter, he hoped, but when he opened the door a soldier of the King stood there on the stoop, stolid and broadshouldered. A leather helmetthe helmet of a fighting manclung to his head. There was a shortsword in his belt, near to hand. Your son, he said, and Andrew felt his knees buckle. Why do you want him? I come from Peyna, the soldier said, and Andrew understood that this was all the answer he was to have. Da? Ben asked from behind him. No, Andrew thought miserably, please, this is too much bad luck, not my son, not my son Is that the boy? Before Andrew could say nouseless as that would have beenBen had stepped forward. I am Ben Staad, he said. What do you want with me? You must come with me, the soldier said. Where? To the house of Anders Peyna. No! his mother cried from the doorway of their small living room. No, its late, its cold, the roads are full of snow I have a sleigh, the soldier said inexorably, and Andrew Staad saw the mans hand drop to the shaft of his shortsword. Ill come, Ben said, getting his coat. Ben Andrew began, thinking Well never see him again, hes to be taken away from us because he knew the prince. It will be all right, Da, Ben said, and hugged him. And when Andrew felt that young strength embracing him, he could almost believe it. But, he thought, his son had not learned fear yet. He had not learned how cruel the world could be. Andrew Staad held his wife. The two of them stood in the doorway and watched Ben and the soldier break their way through the drifts toward the sleigh, which was only a shadow in the dark with lanterns glowing eerily on either side. Neither of them spoke as Ben climbed up on one side, the soldier on the other. Only one soldier, Andrew thought, thats something. Maybe its only for questioning that they want him. Pray its only for questioning that they want my son! The Staads stood in silence, membranes of snow blowing around their ankles, as the sleigh pulled away from the house, the flames in the lanterns jiggling, the sleigh bells jingling. When they were gone, Susan burst into tears. Well never see him again, she sobbed. Never, never! Theyve taken him! Damn Peter! Damn him for what hes brought my son to! Damn him! Damn him! Shh, mother, Andrew said, holding her tightly. Shh. Shh. Well see him before morning. By noon at the latest. But she heard the quiver in his voice and cried all the harder. She cried so hard she woke little Emmaline up (or maybe it was the draft from the open door), and it was a very long time before Emmaline would go back to sleep. At last Susan slept with her, the two of them in the big bed. Andy Staad did not sleep all that night. He sat up by the fire, hoping against hope, but in his heart, he believed he would never see his son again. 65 Ben Staad stood in Anders Peynas study an hour later. He was curious, even a little awed, but not afraid. He had listened closely to everything Peyna said, and there had been a muted chink as money changed hands. You understand all of this, lad? Peyna asked in his dry courtroom voice. Yes, my Lord. I would be sure. This is no childs business I send you on. Tell me again what you are to do. I am to go to the castle and speak to Dennis, son of Brandon. And if Brandon interferes? Peyna asked sharply. I am to tell him he must speak to you. Aye, Peyna said, settling back in his chair. I am not to say Tell no one of this arrangement. Yes, Peyna said. Do you know why? Ben stood thoughtfully for a moment, head down. Peyna let him think. He liked this boy; he seemed coolheaded and unafraid. Many others brought before him in the middle of the night would have been gibbering with terror. Because if I said such a thing, he would be quicker to tell than if I said nothing, Ben said finally. A smile touched Peynas lips. Good, he said. Go on. Youve given me ten guilders. Im to give two to Dennis, one for himself and one for whoever finds the dollhouse that belonged to Peters mother. The other eight are for Beson, the Chief Warder. Whoever finds the dollhouse will deliver it to Dennis. Dennis will deliver it to me. I will deliver it to Beson. As for the napkins, Dennis himself will take them to Beson. How many? Twentyone each week, Ben replied promptly. Napkins of the royal house, but with the crest removed. Your man will engage a woman to remove the royal crests. From time to time you will send someone to me with more money, either for Dennis or for Beson. But none for yourself? Peyna asked. He had already offered; Ben had refused. No. I believe thats everything. You are quick. I only wish I could do more. Peyna sat up, his face suddenly harsh and forbidding. You must not and you shall not, he said. This is dangerous enough. You are procuring favors for a young man who has been convicted of committing a foul murderthe secondfoulest murder a man may do. Peter is my friend, Ben said, and he spoke with a dignity that was impressive in its simplicity. Anders Peyna smiled faintly, and raised one finger to point at the fading bruises on Bens face. I would guess, he said, that you are already paying for that friendship. I would pay such a price a hundred times over, Ben said. He hesitated just a moment and then went on boldly I dont believe he killed his father. He loved King Roland as much as I love my own da. Did he? Peyna asked, apparently without interest. He did! Ben cried. Do you believe he murdered his father? Do you really believe he did it? Peyna smiled such a dry and ferocious smile then that even Bens hot blood was cooled. If I didnt, I should be careful who I said it to, he said. Very, very careful. Or I should soon feel the headsmans blade go through my neck. Ben stared at Peyna silently. You say you are his friend, and I believe you. Peyna sat up straighter in his chair and leveled a finger at Ben. If you would be a true friend, do just the things I have asked, and no more. If you see any hope for Peters eventual release in your mysterious summons hereand I see by your face that you doyou must give that hope up. Rather than ring for Arlen, Peyna saw the boy out himselfout the back way. The soldier who had brought him tonight would be on his way to the Western Barony tomorrow. At the door, Peyna said Once more do not stray from the things weve agreed upon so much as one solitary bit. The friends of Peter are not much cared for in Delain now, as your bruises prove. Id fight them all! Ben said hotly. One at a time or all at once! Aye, Anders Peyna said with that dry, ferocious smile. And would you ask your mother to do the same? Or your baby sister? Ben gaped at the old man. Fear opened in his heart like a small and delicate rose. It will come to that, if you do not exercise all your care, Peyna said. The storms are not over in Delain yet, but only beginning. He opened the door; snow swirled in, driven by a black gust of wind. Go home now, Ben. I think your parents will be happy to see you so soon. This was an understatement of some size. Bens parents were waiting at the door in their nightclothes when Ben let himself in. They had heard the jingle of the approaching sleigh. His mother hugged him close, weeping. His father, redfaced, unaccustomed tears standing in his eyes, wrung Bens hand until it ached. Ben remembered Peyna saying The storms are not over but only beginning. And still later, lying in bed with his hands behind his head, staring up into the darkness and listening to the wind whistle outside, Ben realized that Peyna had never answered his questionhad never said whether or not he believed Peter to be guilty. 66 On the seventeenth day of Thomass reign, Brandons son, Dennis, brought the first lot of twentyone napkins to the Needle. He brought them from a storeroom that neither Peter nor Thomas nor Ben Staad nor Peyna himself knew aboutalthough all would become aware of it before the grim business of Peters imprisonment was done. Dennis knew because he was a butlers son from a long line of butlers, but familiarity breeds contempt, so they say, and he thought nothing much about the storeroom from which he fetched the napkins. Well speak more of this room later; let me tell you now only that all would have been struck with wonder at the sight of it, and Peter in particular. For had he known of this room which Dennis took completely for granted, he might have attempted his escape as much as three years sooner . . . and much, for better or for worse, might have been changed. 67 The royal crest was removed from each napkin by a woman Peyna had hired for the quickness of her needle and the tightness of her lips. |
Each day she sat in a rocker just outside the doorway of the storeroom, picking out stitches that were very old indeed. When she did this her lips were tight for more reasons than one; to unmake such lovely needlework seemed to her almost a desecration, but her family was poor, and the money from Peyna was like a gift from heaven. So there she sat, and would sit, for years to come, rocking and plying her needle like one of those weird sisters of whom you may have heard in another tale. She spoke to no one, not even her husband, about her days of unmaking. The napkins had a strange, faint smellnot of mildew but of must, as if from long disusebut they were otherwise without fault, each of them twenty rondels by twenty, big enough to cover the lap of even the most dedicated eater. There was a bit of comedy attached to the first napkin delivery. Dennis hung about Beson, expecting a tip. Beson let him hang about a while because he expected that sooner or later the dimwitted lad would remember to tip him. They both came to the conclusion that neither was going to be tipped at the same time. Dennis started for the door, and Beson helped him along with a kick in the seat of the pants. This caused a pair of Lesser Warders to laugh heartily. Then Beson pretended to wipe his bottom with the handful of napkins for the Lesser Warders further amusement, but he was careful only to pretendafter all, Peyna was in this business somewhere, and it was best to tread lightly. Perhaps Peyna would not be around a great deal longer, however. In the meadhouses and wineshops, Beson had begun to hear whispers that Flaggs shadow had fallen on the JudgeGeneral, and that if Peyna was not very, very careful, he might soon be watching the proceedings at court from an even more commanding angle than the bench upon which he now sathe might be looking in the window, these wags said behind their hands, from one of the spikes atop the castle walls. 68 On the eighteenth day of Thomass reign, the first napkin was on Peters breakfast tray when it was delivered in the morning. It was so large and the breakfast so small that it actually covered the meal completely. Peter smiled for the first time since he had come to this cold, high place. His cheeks and chin were shadowed with the beginnings of a beard which would grow full and long in these two drafty rooms, and he looked quite a desperate character . . . until he smiled. The smile lit his face with magical power, made it strong and radiant, a beacon to which one could imagine soldiers rallying in battle. Ben, he muttered, picking the napkin up by one corner. His hand shook a bit. I knew youd do it. Thank you, my friend. Thank you. The first thing Peter did with his first napkin was to wipe away the tears that now ran freely down his cheeks. The peephole in the stout wooden door popped open. Two Lesser Warders appeared again like the two heads of Flaggs parrot, packed into the tiny space cheek to scruffy cheek. Hope that baby wont forget to wipe his chinnychin! one cried in a cracked, warbling voice. Hope that baby wont forget to wipe the eggy off his shirty! the other cried, and then both screamed with derisive laughter. But Peter did not look at them, and his smile did not fade. The warders saw that smile and made no more jokes. There was something about it which forbade joking. Eventually they closed the peephole and left Peter alone. A napkin came with his lunch that day. With his dinner that night. The napkins came to Peter in his lonely cell in the sky for the next five years. 69 The dollhouse arrived on the thirtieth day of Thomas the LightBringers reign. By then modils, those first harbingers of Spring (which we call bluets) were coming up in pretty little roadside bunches. Also by then Thomas the LightBringer had signed into law the Farmers Tax Increase, which quickly became known as Toms Black Tax. The new joke told in the meadhouses and wineshops was that the King would soon be changing his royal name to Thomas the TaxBringer. The increase was not eight percent, which might have been fair, or eighteen percent, which might have been bearable, but eighty percent. Thomas had had some doubts about it at first, but it hadnt taken Flagg long to convince him. We must tax them more on what they admit they own, so we can collect at least some of whats due us on all they hide from the tax collector, Flagg said. Thomas, his head fuddled by the wine that now flowed constantly in the court chambers of the castle, had nodded with what he hoped was a wise expression on his face. For his part, Peter had begun to fear that the dollhouse had been lost after all these yearsand that was almost the truth. Ben Staad had commissioned Dennis to find it. After several days of fruitless searching, Dennis had confided in his good old da the only person he dared trust with such a serious matter. It had taken Brandon another five days to find the dollhouse in one of the minor storage rooms on the ninth floor, west turret, where its cheerful pretend lawns and long, rambling wings were hidden under an ancient (and slightly motheaten) dustcloth that was gray with the years. All of the original furnishings were still in the house, and it had taken Brandon and Dennis and a soldier handpicked by Peyna three more days to make sure all the sharp things were removed. Then, at last, the dollhouse was delivered by two squire boys, who toiled up the three hundred stairs with the heavy, awkward thing spiked to a board between them. Beson followed closely behind, cursing and threatening terrible reprisals if they should drop it. Sweat rolled down the boys faces in rivers, but they made no reply. When the door of Peters prison opened and the dollhouse was brought in, Peter gasped with surprisenot just because the dollhouse was finally here, but because one of the two boys carrying it was Ben Staad. Give not a sign! Bens eyes flashed. Dont look at me too long! Peters flashed back. After the advice he had given, Peyna would have been stunned to see Ben here. He had forgotten that the logic of all the wise old men in the world cannot often stand against the logic of a boys heart, if the boys heart is large and kind and loyal. Ben Staads was all three. It had been the easiest thing in the world to exchange places with one of the squires meant to carry the dollhouse to the top of the Needle. For a guilderall the money Ben had in the world, as a matter of factDennis had arranged it. Dont tell your father of this, Ben cautioned Dennis. Why not? Dennis had asked. I tell my old da almost everything . . . dont you? I did, Ben said, remembering how his father had forbidden him to mention Peters name anymore in the house. But when boys grow up, I think that sometimes changes. However that may be, you mustnt tell him this, Dennis. He might tell Peyna, and then Id be in a hot pot on a highfire. All right, Dennis promised. It was a promise he kept. Dennis had been cruelly hurt when his master, whom he had loved, had been first accused and then convicted of murder. In the last few days, Ben had gone a long way toward filling the empty place in Denniss heart. Thats good, Ben said, and punched Dennis playfully on the shoulder. I only want to see him a minute, and refresh my heart. He was your best friend, wasnt he? Still is. Dennis had stared at him, amazed. How can you claim a man who murdered his own father as your best friend? Because I dont believe he did it, Ben said. Do you? To Bens utter amazement, Dennis burst into wretched tears. All my heart says the same, and yet Listen to it, then, Ben said, and gave Dennis a large rough hug. And dry off your mug before someone sees you bawling like a kid. Put it in the other room, Peter said now, distressed at the slight tremble in his voice. Beson didnt notice; he was too busy cursing the two boys for their slowness, their stupidity, their very existence. They carried the dollhouse into the bedroom and set it down. The other boy, who had a very stupid face, dropped his end too quickly and too hard. There was the tiny sound of something breaking inside. Peter winced. Beson cuffed the boybut he smiled as he did it. It was the first good thing that had happened to him since these two lads had appeared with the accursed thing. The stupid boy stood up, wiping the side of his face, which was already starting to swell, and staring at Peter with frank wonder and fear, his mouth wide open; Ben remained on his knees a moment longer. There was a small rattan mat in front of the houses front doorwhat we would call a welcome mat, I suppose. For just a moment Ben allowed his thumb to move over the top of this, and his eyes met Peters. Now get out! Beson cried. Get out, both of you! Go home and curse your mothers for ever bringing such slow, clumsy fools as yourselves into the world! The boys passed Peter, the loutish one shrinking away as if the prince might have a disease he could catch. Bens eyes met Peters once more, and Peter trembled at the love he saw in his old friends gaze. Then they were gone. Well, you have it now, my good little princeling, Beson said. What shall we be bringing you next? Little ruffly dresses? Silk underpants? Peter turned slowly and looked at Beson. After a moment, Beson dropped his eyes. There was something frightening in Peters gaze, and Beson was forced to remember again that, sissy or not, Peter had beaten him so badly that his ribs had ached for two days and he had had dizzy spells for a week. Well, its your business, he muttered. But now that you have it, I could find a table for you to put it on. And a chair to sit in while you . . . He grimaced. While you play with it. And how much would this cost? A mere three guilders, I should think. I have no money. Ah, but you know powerful people. No more, Peter said. I traded a favor for a favor, thats all. Sit on the floor, then, and get chilblains on your arse, and be damned to you! Beson said, and strode from the room. The little flood of guilders he had enjoyed since Peter came to the Needle had apparently dried up. It put Beson in a foul mood for days. Peter waited until he had heard all the locks and bolts go rattling home before lifting the rattan mat Ben had rubbed with his thumb. Beneath he found a square of paper no larger than the stamp on a letter. Both sides had been written on, and there were no spaces between the words. The letters were tiny indeedPeter had to squint to read them, and guessed that Ben must have made them with the aid of a magnifying glass. PeterDestroy this after you have read it. I dont believe you did it. Others feel the same I am sure. I am still your friend. I love you as I always did. Dennis does not believe it, either. If I can ever help get to me through Peyna. Let your heart be steadfast. As he read this, Peters eyes filled with warm tears of gratitude. I think that real friendship always makes us feel such sweet gratitude, because the world almost always seems like a very hard desert, and the flowers that grow there seem to grow against such high odds. Good old Ben! he whispered over and over again. In the fullness of his heart, he couldnt think to say anything else. Good old Ben! Good old Ben! For the first time he began to think that his plan, wild and dangerous as it was, might have a chance of succeeding. Next he thought of the note. Ben had put his life on the line to write it. Ben was noblebarelybut not royal; thus not immune from the headsmans axe. If Beson or one of his jackals found this note, they would guess that one or the other of the boys who had brought the dollhouse must have written it. The loutish one looked as if he couldnt read even the large letters in a childs book, let alone write such tiny ones as these. So they would look for the other boy, and from there to the chopping block might be a short trip for good old Ben. He could think of only one sure way to get rid of it, and he didnt hesitate; he crumpled the little note up between the thumb and forefinger of his right hand and ate it. 70 By now I am sure you have guessed Peters plan of escape, because you know a good deal more than Peyna did when he read Peters requests. But in any case, the time has come to tell you straight out. He planned to use linen threads to make a rope. The threads would come, of course, from the edges of the napkins. He would descend this rope to the ground and so escape. Some of you may be laughing very hard at this idea. Threads from napkins to escape a tower three hundred feet high? you could be saying. Either you are mad, Storyteller, or Peter was! Nothing of the sort. Peter knew how high the Needle was, and he believed he must never be greedy about how many threads he took from each napkin. If he unraveled too much, someone might become very curious. It didnt have to be the Chief Warder; the laundress who washed the napkins might be the one to notice rather a lot of each one was gone. She might mention it to a friend . . . who could mention it to another friend . . . and so the story would spread . . . and it wasnt really Beson Peter was worried about, you know. Beson was, all things said, a fairly stupid fellow. Flagg was not. Flagg had murdered his father and Flagg kept his ear to the ground. It was a shame Peter never stopped to wonder about that vague smell of must about the napkins, or to ask if the person hired to remove the royal crests had been let go after removing a certain number, or if that person was still at workbut, of course, his mind was on other things. He could not help noticing that they were very old, and this was certainly a good thinghe was able to take a great many more threads from each than he ever would have guessed in even his most optimistic moments. How many more than that he could have taken he came to know only in time. Still, I can hear some of you saying, threads from napkins to make a rope long enough to reach from the window of the Needles topmost cell to the courtyard? Threads from napkins to make a rope strong enough to support one hundred and seventy pounds? I still think you are joking! Those of you who think so are forgetting the dollhouse . . . and the loom within, a loom so tiny that the threads of napkins were perfect for its tiny shuttle. Those of you who think so are forgetting that everything in the dollhouse was tiny, but worked perfectly. The sharp things had been removed, and that included the looms cutting blade . . . but otherwise it was intact. It was the dollhouse about which Flagg had had vague misgivings so long ago which was now Peters only real hope of escape. 71 I would have to be a much better storyteller than I am, I think, to tell you how it was for Peter during the five years he spent at the top of the Needle. He ate; he slept; he looked out the window, which gave him a view to the west of the city; he exercised morning, noon, and evening; he dreamed his dreams of freedom. In the summer his apartment sweltered. In the winter it froze. During the second winter he caught a bad case of the grippe which almost killed him. Peter lay feverish and coughing under the thin blanket on his bed. At first, he was only afraid he would lapse into delirium and rave about the rope that was hidden in a neat coil under two of the stone blocks on the east side of his bedroom. As his fever grew worse, the rope he had woven with the tiny dollhouse loom came to seem less important, because he began to think he would die. Beson and his Lesser Warders were convinced of it. They had, in fact, begun to wager on when it would happen. One night, about a week after the onset of his fever, while the wind raged blackly outside and the temperature dropped down to zero, Roland appeared to Peter in a dream. Peter was convinced that Roland had come to take him to the Far Fields. Im ready, Da! he cried. In his delirium he didnt know if he had spoken aloud or only in his mind. Im ready to go! Yell not be dying yet, his father said in this dream . . . or vision . . . or whatever it was. Yeve much to do, Peter. Father! Peter shrieked. His voice was powerful, and below him, the wardersBeson includedquailed, thinking that Peter must be seeing the smoking, murdered ghost of King Roland, come to take Peters soul to hell. They made no more wagers that night, and in fact one of them went to the Church of the Great Gods the very next day and embraced his religion again, and eventually became a priest. This mans name was Curran, and I may tell you of him in another story. Peter really was seeing a ghost in a wayalthough whether it was the actual shade of his father or only a ghost born in his feverstruck brain, I cannot say. His voice lapsed into a mutter; the warders did not hear the rest. Its so cold . . . and I am so hot. My poor boy, his glimmering father said. Youve had hard trials, and there are more of them ahead, I think. But Dennis will know . . . Know what? Peter gasped. His cheeks were red, but his forehead was as pale as a wax candle. Dennis will know where the sleepwalker goes, his father whispered, and was gone. Peter lapsed into a faint that quickly became a deep, sound sleep. In that sleep, his fever broke. The boy who had made it his practice over the last year to do sixty pushups and a hundred situps each day awoke the next morning too weak to even get out of bed . . . but he was lucid again. Beson and the Lesser Warders were disappointed. But after that night, they always treated Peter with a kind of awe, and took care never to go too close to him. Which, of course, made his job that much easier. All that is an easy enough tale to tell, though it would no doubt be better if I could say for sure that the ghost was there or that it was not. But like other matters in the larger tale, youll have to make up your own mind about it, I suppose. But how am I to tell you about Peters endless, drudging work at that tiny loom? That tale is beyond me. All the hours spent, sometimes with frosty breath pluming from his mouth and nose, sometimes with sweat running down his face, always in fear of discovery; all those long hours alone, with nothing but long thoughts and almost absurd hopes to fill them. I can tell you some things, and will, but to convey such hours and days of slow time is impossible for me, and might be impossible for anyone except one of the great storytellers whose race is long vanished. Perhaps the only thing that even vaguely suggests how much time Peter spent in those two rooms was his beard. When he came in, it was only a shadow on his cheeks and a smudge under his nosea boys beard. In the 1,825 days which followed, it grew long and luxuriant; by the end it reached the middle of his chest, and although he was only twentyone, it was shot with gray. The only place it did not grow was along the length of the jagged scar left by Besons thumbnail. Peter dared pluck only five threads from each napkin the first yearfifteen threads each day. He kept them under his mattress, and at the end of each week, he had one hundred and five. In our measure, each thread was about twenty inches long. He wove the first batch a week after he received the dollhouse, working carefully with the loom. Using it was not as easy at seventeen as it had been at five. His fingers had grown; the loom had not. Also, he was horribly nervous. If one of the warders caught him at his work, he could tell them he was using the loom to weave errant threads from the old napkins for his own amusement . . . if they believed it. And if the loom worked. He wasnt sure that it would until he saw the first slim cable, perfectly woven, emerging from the looms far end. When Peter saw this, his nervousness abated somewhat and he was able to weave a little faster, feeding the threads in, tugging them to keep them straight, operating the foot pedal with his thumb. The loom squeaked a little at first, but the old grease soon limbered up and it ran as perfectly as it had in his childhood. But the cable was terribly thin, not even a quarter of an inch through the center. Peter tied off the ends and tugged experimentally. It held. He was a little encouraged. It was stronger than it looked, and he thought it should be strong. They were royal napkins, after all, woven from the finest cotton thread in the land, and he had woven tightly. He pulled harder, trying to guess how many pounds of strain he was putting on the slim cotton cable. He pulled even harder, the rope still held, and he felt more hope come stealing into his heart. He found himself thinking about Yosef. It had been Yosef, head of the stables, who told him about that mysterious and terrible thing called breaking strain. It was high summer, and they had been watching huge Anduan oxen pull stone blocks for the plaza of the new market. A sweating, cursing drover sat astride each oxs neck. Peter had then been no more than eleven, and he thought it better than a circus. Yosef pointed out that each ox wore a heavy leather harness. The chains that pulled the dressed blocks of stone were attached to the harness, one on each side of the animals neck. Yosef told him the cutters had to make a careful estimate of just how much each block of stone weighed. Because if the blocks are too heavy, the oxen might hurt themselves trying to pull them, Peter said. This wasnt even a question, because it seemed obvious to him. He felt sorry for the oxen, dragging those great blocks of rock. Nay, Yosef said. He lit a cigarette made of cornshuck, almost burning off the end of his nose, and drew deeply and contentedly. He always liked the young princes company. Nay! Oxen arent stupidpeople only think them so because they are large and tame and helpful. Says more about the people than about the oxen, if you ask me, but leave that bhind, leave that bhind. If an ox can pull a block, hell pull it; if he cant, why, hell try twice and then stand with is head down. And hell stand so, even if a bad master whups his hide to ribbons. Oxen look stupid, but they aint. Not a bit. Then why do the cutters have to guess at the weight of the blocks they cut, if the ox knows what he can pull and what he cant? Taint the blocks; its the chains. Yosef pointed to one of the oxen, which was dragging a block that looked to Peter almost as big as a small house. The oxs head was down, its eyes fixed patiently ahead, as its drover sat astride it and guided it with little taps of his stick. At the end of the double length of chain, the block moved slowly along, goring a furrow in the earth. It was so deep that a small child would need to work to climb out of it. If an ox can pull a block, he will, but an ox dont know nothing about chains, or about the breaking strain. Whats that? Put a thing under enough of a tug, and itll snap, Yosef said. If yonder chains were to snap, theyd fly around something tumble. You wouldnt want to be a witness to what can happen if a heavy chain lets go when its under such a tug as those oxen can put on. Its apt to fly anywhere. Backrds, mostly. Apt to hit the drover and tear him apart, or cut the legs from under the beast itself. Yosef took another drag at his makeshift cigarette and then tossed it in the dirt. He fixed Peter with a shrewd, friendly glare. Breaking strain, he said, is a good thing for a prince to know about, Peter. Chains break if you put on enough of a tug, and people do, too. Keep it in mind. He kept it in mind now, as he pulled at his first cable. How much of a tug was he putting on? Five rull? At least. Ten? Perhaps. But maybe that was only wishful thinking. He would say eight. No, seven. Better to make a mistake on the pessimistic side, if a mistake was to be made. If he miscalculated . . . well, the cobblestones in the Plaza of the Needle were very, very hard. He tugged harder still, the muscles on his arms now beginning to stand out a little. When the first cable finally snapped, Peter guessed he might be applying as much as fifteen rullalmost sixtyfour poundsof tug. He was not unhappy with this result. Later that night, he threw the broken cable out of his window, where the men who cleaned the Plaza of the Needle daily would sweep it up with the rest of the rubbish the following day. Peters mother, seeing his interest in the dollhouse and the little furnishings inside, had taught him how to weave cables and braid them into tiny rugs. When we have not done a thing for a long period, we are apt to forget exactly how that thing was done, but Peter had nothing but time, and after some experimentation, the trick of braiding came back to him. Braiding was what his mother had called it and so that was how he thought of it, but braiding was not really the right word for it; a braid, precisely speaking, is the handweaving of two cables. Wrapping, which is how rugs are made, is the handweaving of three or more cables. In wrapping, two cables are placed apart, but with their tops and bottoms even. The third is placed between them, but lower, so its end sticks out. This pattern is carried on as length after length is added. The result looks a little bit like Chinese fingerpullers . . . or the braided rugs in your favorite grandmothers house. It took Peter three weeks to save enough threads to try this technique, and most of a fourth to remember exactly how the overandunder pattern of wrapping had gone. But when he was done, he had a real rope. It was thin, and you would have thought him mad to entrust his weight to it, but it was much stronger than it looked. He found he could break it, but only by wrapping its ends firmly around his hands and pulling until the muscles bulged on his arms and chest and the cords stood out on his neck. Overhead in his sleeping chamber were a number of stout oak beams. He would have to test his weight from one of these, when he had a rope long enough. If it snapped, he would have to start all over again . . . but such thoughts were useless and Peter knew itso he just got to work. Each thread he pulled was about twenty inches long, but Peter lost roughly two inches in the weaving and wrapping. It took him three months to make a rope of three strands, each strand consisting of a hundred and five cotton threads, into a cable three feet long. One night, after he was sure all of the warders were drunk and at cards below, he tied this pigtail to a rope over one of the beams. When it had been looped over and tied in a slipknot, less than a foot and a half hung down. It looked woefully thin. Nevertheless, Peter seized it and hung from it, mouth tightened to a grim white line, expecting the threads to let go at any moment and spill him to the floor. But they held. They held. Hardly daring to believe it was happening, Peter hung there from a rope almost too thin to see. He hung there for almost a full minute, and then he stood on his bed to pull the slipknot free. His hands trembled as he did it, and he had to fumble at the knot twice, because his eyes kept blurring with tears. He didnt believe his heart had been so full since reading Bens tiny note. 72 He had been keeping the rope under his mattress, but Peter realized this would not do much longer. The Needle was three hundred and forty feet high at the peak of its conical roof; his window was just about three hundred feet above the cobblestones. He was six feet tall and believed he would dare to drop as much as twenty feet from the end of his rope. But even at best, he would eventually have to hide two hundred and seventy feet of rope. He discovered a loose stone on the east side of the bedroom floor, and cautiously pried it up. He was surprised and pleased to find a little space beneath. He couldnt see into it properly so he reached in and felt around in the darkness, his whole body stiff and tense as he waited for something down there in the dark to crawl over his hand . . . or bite it. Nothing did, and he was just about to withdraw it, when one of his fingers brushed somethingcold metal. Peter brought it out. It was, he saw, a heartshaped locket on a fine chain. Both locket and chain looked to be made of gold. Nor did he think, by its weight, that the locket was false gold. After some poking and feeling, he found a delicate catch. He pushed it and the locket sprang open. Inside were two pictures, one on each sidethey were as fine as any of the tiny paintings in Sashas dollhouse; even finer, perhaps. Peter stared at their faces with a boys frank wonder. The man was very handsome, the woman very beautiful. There was a faint smile on the mans lips and a devilmaycare look in his eyes. The womans eyes were grave and dark. Part of Peters wonder came from the fact that this locket must be very old, judging by what he could make out of their dress, but only part of it. Most came from the fact that these two faces looked eerily familiar. He had seen them before. He closed the locket and looked on the back. He thought there were initials entwined there, but they were too flounced and curlicued for him to read. On impulse, he delved into the hold again. This time he touched paper. The single sheet of foolscap he brought out was ancient and crumbling, but the writing was clear and the signature unmistakable. The name was Leven Valera, the infamous Black Duke of the Southern Barony. Valera, who might someday have been King, had instead spent the last twentyfive years of his life in the room at the top of the Needle for the murder of his wife. No wonder the pictures in the locket looked familiar! The man was Valera; the woman was Valeras murdered wife, Eleanor, about whose beauty ballads were still sung. The ink Valera had used was a strange rusty black, and the first line of his note chilled Peters heart. The note entire chilled his heart, and not only because the similarity between Valeras position and his own seemed too great for coincidence. To the Finder of the Note I write with my own Blood, drawn from a vayne I have opened in my left Forearm, my pen the Shaft of a Spune which I have sharpened long and long upon the stones of my Bedchamber. Nearly a quarter of a Centurie I have spent here in the skie; I came here a Young Man and now am I Old. The Coughing Spells and Fayver have come on me again, and this time I think I shall not survive. I did not kill my Wyfe. Nay, though all the Evidence say otherwise, I did not kill my Wyfe. I did love her and love her still, although her dear Face has grown misty in my treacherous Mind. I believe twas the Kings Magician who killed Eleanor, and arranged Matters to see me put asyde, for I stood in his Way. It seems his Plans have worked and he has prospered; yet I believe there are Gods who punish Wickedness in the end. His Day shall come, and I have come to feel more and more strongly as my own Death approaches that he shall be brought down by One who comes to this Place of Dispair, One who finds and reads this Letter written in my Blood. If tis so, I cry out to you; Avenge, Avenge, Avenge! Ignore me and my lost Years if you must, but never, never, never ignore my dear Eleanor, murdered as she slept in her Bed! It was not I who poisoned her Wine; I write the name of the Murderer here in Blood Flagg! Twas Flagg! Flagg! Flagg! Take the Locket, and show it to him the instant before you relieve this the World of Its greatest Scoundrelshow him so that he may know in that Instant that I have been a part of his Downfall, even from beyond my unjust Murderers Grayve. Leven Valera Perhaps now you can understand the true source of Peters chill; perhaps not. Perhaps you will understand it better if I remind you that, although he looked to be a man in a hale and hearty middle age, Flagg was really very old. Peter had read about the supposed crime of Leven Valera, yes. But the books in which he had read of it were histories. Ancient histories. This crumbling, yellowed parchment first spoke of the Kings magician, and then spoke of Flagg by name. Spoke his name? Cried it, shrieked itin blood. |
But Vateras supposed crime had happened in the reign of Alan II and Alan II had ruled Delain four hundred and fifty years ago. God, oh great God, Peter whispered. He staggered back to his bed and sat down on it heavily, just before his knees would have unhinged and spilled him to the floor. Hes done it all before! Hes done it all before, and in exactly the same way, but he did it over four centuries ago! Peters face was deadly white; his hair was standing on end. For the first time he realized that Flagg, the Kings magician, was in reality Flagg the monster, loose in Detain again now, serving a new Kingserving his own young, confused, easily led brother. 73 Peter at first entertained giddy thoughts of promising Beson another bribe to take the locket and the crumbling sheet of foolscap to Anders Peyna. In his initial flush of excitement, it seemed to him that this note must point the finger of guilt at Flagg and set him, Peter, free. A little reflection convinced him that while that might happen in a storybook, it would not happen in real life. Peyna would laugh and call it a forgery. And if he took it seriously? That might mean the end of both the JudgeGeneral and the imprisoned prince. Peters ears were sharp, and he listened closely to the gossip of the meadhouses and the wineshops as it was passed back and forth between Beson and the Lesser Warders. He had heard of the Farmers Tax Increase, had heard the bitter joke which suggested that Thomas the LightBringer should be renamed Thomas the TaxBringer. He had even heard that some few daring wags had renamed his brother Foggy Tom the Constantly Bombed. The headsmans axe had swung with the regularity of a clocks pendulum since Thomas had ascended Delains throne, only this clock called out treasonsedition, treasonsedition, treasonsedition with a regularity that would have been monotonous, had it not been so frightening. By now Peter had begun to suspect Flaggs goal to bring the ordered monarchy of Delain to an utter smash. Showing the locket and the note would only get him laughed at or cause Peyna to take some sort of action. And that would undoubtedly get them both killed. In the end Peter put the locket and foolscap back where they had come from. And with them he put the little threefoot pigtail it had taken him a month to weave. On the whole, he did not feel too bitter about the evenings workthe rope had held, and the finding of the locket and foolscap after more than four hundred years proved at least one thingthe hiding place was not apt to be discovered. Still, he had much food for thought, and he lay long awake that night. When he slept, he seemed to hear Leven Valeras dry, stony voice whispering in one ear Avenge! Avenge! Avenge! 74 Time, yes, timePeter spent a great deal of time at the top of the Needle. His beard grew long, save for where that white scar streaked his cheek like a lightning bolt. He saw many changes from his window, as it grew. He heard of more terrible changes yet. The headsmans pendulum had not slowed down but actually speeded up treasonsedition, treasonsedition, it sang, and sometimes half a dozen heads rolled in the course of but a single day. During Peters third year of imprisonment, the year in which Peter was first able to do thirty chinups in a single effort from his bedchambers central beam, Peyna resigned his post as JudgeGeneral in disgust. It was the talk of the meadhouses and wineshops for a week, and the talk of Peters keepers for a week and a day. The warders believed that Flagg would have Peyna jailed almost before the heat of the old mans burn had left the judges bench, and that soon after the citizens of Delain would find out once and for all if there was blood or ice water in the JudgeGenerals veins. But when Peyna remained free, the talk died down. Peter was glad Peyna had not been arrested. He bore him no ill will, in spite of Peynas willingness to believe that he had murdered his father; and he knew that the arrangement of the evidence had been Flaggs doing. Also during Peters third year in the Needle, Denniss good old da, Brandon, died. His passing was simple but dignified. He had finished his days work in spite of a terrible pain in his chest and side and came slowly home. He sat down in the little living room, hoping the pain would pass. Instead it grew worse. He called his wife and son to his side, kissed them both, and asked if he might have a glass of bundlegin. This was provided. He drank it off, kissed his wife again, and then sent her from the room. You must serve your master well now, Dennis, he said. Yere a man now, with a mans tasks set before you. Ill serve the King as well as I may, Da, Dennis said, although the thought of taking over his fathers responsibilities terrified him. His good, homely face was shiny with tears. For the last three years, Brandon and Dennis had buttled for Thomas, and Denniss responsibilities had been much the same as before, with Peter; but it had never been the same, somehownever even close to the same. Thomas, aye, Brandon said, and then whispered But if the time comes to do yer first master a service, Dennis, you mustnt hesitate. I have never At that moment, Brandon clutched the left side of his chest, stiffened, and died. He died where he would have wanted to die, in his own chair, in front of his own fire. In Peters fourth year of imprisonmenthis rope below the stones growing steadily longer and longerthe Staad family disappeared. The throne possessed itself of what little there remained of their lands, as it had done when other noble families disappeared. And as Thomass reign progressed, there were more and more disappearances. The Staads were only one item of meadhouse gossip in a busy week that included four beheadings, an increased levy against shopkeepers, and the imprisonment of an old woman who had for three days walked back and forth in front of the palace, screaming that her grandson had been taken and tortured for speaking against the previous years Cattle Levies. But when Peter heard the Staad name in the warders conversation, his heart had stopped for a moment. The chain of events leading to the disappearance of the Staads was one familiar to everyone in Delain by now. The ticktocking pendulum of the headsmans axe had thinned the numbers of the nobility terribly. Many of these nobles died because their families had served the Kingdom for hundredsor thousandsof years, and they could not believe such an unjust fate would or could fall on them. Others, seeing bloody handwriting on the wall, fled. The Staads were among these. And the whispering began. Tales were told behind cupped hands, tales suggesting that these nobles had not simply scattered to the four winds but had gathered together somewhere, perhaps in the deep woods at the northern end of the Kingdom, to plan an overthrow of the throne. These stories passed to Peter like the wind through his window, the drafts beneath his door. . . . They were dreams of a wider world. Mostly he worked on his rope. During the first year, the rope grew longer by eighteen inches every three weeks. At the end of that year, he had a slim cable that was twentyfive feet longa cable that was, theoretically at least, strong enough to bear his weight. But there was a difference between dangling from a beam in his bedroom and dangling above a drop of three hundred feet, and Peter knew it. He was, quite literally, staking his life on that slim cord. And twentyfive feet a year was perhaps not enough; it would take more than eight years before he could even try, and the rumblings he heard at second hand had grown loud enough to be disturbing. Above all else, the Kingdom must endurethere must be no revolt, no chaos. Wrongs must be put right, but by law, not by bows and slings and maces and clubs. Thomas, Leven Valera, Roland, he himself, even Flagg paled into insignificance next to that. There must be law. How Anders Peyna, growing old and bitter by his fire, would have loved him for that! Peter determined that he must make his effort to escape as soon as possible. Accordingly he made long calculations, doing the figures in his head so as to leave no trace. He did them again and again and again, proving to himself that he had made no mistake. In his second year in the Needle, he began to pluck ten threads from each napkin; in his third year fifteen; in his fourth year, twenty. The rope grew. Fiftyeight feet long after the second year; a hundred and four after the third; a hundred and sixty after the fourth. The rope at that time would still have fetched up a hundred and forty feet from the ground. During his last year, Peter began to take thirty threads from each napkin, and for the first time his robberies showed clearlyeach napkin looked frayed on all four sides, as if mice had been at it. Peter waited in agony for his thefts to be discovered. 75 But they were not discovered then, or ever. There was not so much as a question ever raised. Peter had spent endless nights (or so they seemed to him) wondering and worrying when Flagg would hear some wrong thing, some wrong note, and so get wind of what he was up to. He would send some underling, Peter supposed, and the questions would begin. Peter had thought things out with agonizing care, and he had made only one wrong assumptionbut that one led to a second (as wrong assumptions so often do) and that second was a dilly. He had assumed that there was some finite number of napkinsperhaps a thousand or so in alland that they were being used over and over again. His thinking on the subject of the napkin supply never went much further than that. Dennis could have told him differently and saved him perhaps two years of work, but Dennis was never asked. The truth was simple but staggering. Peters napkins were not coming from a supply of a thousand, or two thousand, or twenty thousand; there were nearly half a million of these old, musty napkins in all. On one of the deep levels below the castle was a storeroom as big as a ballroom. And it was filled with napkins . . . napkins . . . nothing but napkins. They smelled musty to Peter, and that wasnt surprisingmost of them, coincidentally or not, dated from a time not long after the imprisonment and death of Leven Valera, and the existence of all those napkinscoincidentally or notwas, indirectly at least, the work of Flagg. In a queer sort of way, he had created them. Those had been dark times indeed for Delain. The chaos Flagg so earnestly wished had almost come upon the land. Valera had been removed; mad King Alan had ascended the throne in his place. If he had lived another ten years, the Kingdom surely would have drowned in blood . . . but Alan was struck down by lightning while playing cubits on the back lawn in the pouring rain one day (as I told you, he was mad). It was lightning, some said, sent by the gods themselves. He was followed by his niece, Kyla, who became known as Kyla the Good . . . and from Kyla, the line of succession had run straight and true down through the generations to Roland, and the brothers to whose tale you have been listening. It was Kyla, the Good Queen, who brought the land out of its darkness and poverty. She had nearly bankrupted the Royal Treasury to do it, but she knew that currencyhard currencyis the lifes blood of a kingdom. Much of Delains hard currency had been drained away during the wild, weird reign of Alan II, a King who had sometimes drunk blood from the notched ears of his servants and who had insisted that he could fly; a King more interested in magic and necromancy than profit and loss and the welfare of his people. Kyla knew it would take a massive flow of both love and guilders to set the wrongs of Alans reign right, and she began by trying to put every ablebodied person in Delain back to work, from eldest to youngest. Many of the older citizens of the castle keep had been set to making napkinsnot because napkins were needed (I think I have already told you how most of Delains royalty and nobility felt about them), but because work was needed. These were hands that had been idle for twenty years or more in some cases, and they worked with a will, weaving on looms exactly like the one in Sashas dollhouse . . . except in the matter of size, of course! For ten years these old people, over a thousand of them, made napkins and drew hard coin from Kylas Treasury for their work. For ten years people only slightly younger and a little more able to get about had taken them down to the cool, dry storeroom below the castle. Peter had noticed that some of the napkins brought to him were motheaten as well as mustysmelling. The wonder, although he didnt know it, was that so many of them were still in such fine condition. Dennis could have told him that the napkins were brought, used once, removed (minus the few threads Peter plucked from each), and then simply thrown away. After all, why not? There were enough of them, all told, to last five hundred princes five hundred years . . . and longer. If Anders Peyna had not been a merciful man as well as a hard one, there really might have been a finite number of napkins. But he knew how badly that nameless woman in the rocking chair needed the work and the pittance it brought in (Kyla the Good had known the same, in her time), and so he kept her on, as he continued to see that Besons guilders went on flowing after the Staads were forced to flee. She became a fixture outside the room of the napkins, that old woman with her needle for unmaking rather than making. There she sat in her rocker, year after year, removing tens of thousands of royal crests, and so it was really not surprising that no word of Peters petty thievery ever reached Flaggs ears. So you see that, except for that one mistaken assumption and that one unasked question, Peter could have gotten about his work much faster. It did sometimes seem to him that the napkins were not shrinking as rapidly as they ought to have done, but it never occurred to him to question his basic (if vague) idea that the napkins he used were being regularly returned to him. If he had asked himself that one simple question! But perhaps, in the end, all things worked for the best. Or perhaps not. That is another thing you must decide for yourself. 76 Eventually Dennis got over his fright of being Thomass butler. After all, Thomas ignored him almost completely, except to sometimes berate him for forgetting to put out his shoes (usually Thomas himself had left his shoes somewhere else, then forgotten where) or to insist Dennis have a glass of wine with him. The wine always made Dennis feel sick to his stomach, although he had come to enjoy a wee drop of bundlegin in the evenings. He drank it nonetheless. He did not need his good old da around to tell him one did not refuse to drink with the King when asked. And sometimes, usually when he was drunk, Thomas would forbid Dennis to go home but insist that he spend the night in Thomass apartments instead. Dennis supposedand rightlythat these were nights on which Thomas simply felt too lonely to bear his own solitary company. He would give long, besotted, rambling sermons on how difficult it was to be King, how he was trying to do the best job he could and be fair, and how everyone hated him for some reason or other just the same. Thomas often wept during these sermons, or laughed wildly at nothing, but usually he just fell asleep halfway through some mangled defense of one tax or another. Sometimes he staggered off to his bed, and Dennis could sleep on the couch. More often, Thomas fell asleepor passed outon the couch, and Dennis made his uncomfortable bed on the cooling hearth. It was perhaps the strangest existence any Kings butler had ever known, but, of course, it seemed normal enough to Dennis because it was all he had ever known. Thomas mostly ignoring him was one thing. Flagg ignoring him was another, even more important thing. Flagg had, in fact, entirely dismissed Denniss part in his scheme to send Peter to the Needle. Dennis had been no more than a tool to hima tool which had served its purpose and could be put aside. If he had thought of Dennis, it would have seemed to him that the tool had been well rewarded Dennis was the Kings butler, after all. But on an early winters night in the year when Peter was twentyone and Thomas sixteen, a night when Peters thin rope was finally nearing completion, Dennis saw something which changed everythingand it is with the thing Dennis saw that cold night that I must begin to narrate the final events in my tale. 77 It was a night much like those during the terrible time just before and after Rolands death. The wind shrieked out of a black sky and moaned in the alleys of Delain. Frost lay thick in the pastures of the Inner Baronies and on the cobbles of the castle city. At first, a threequarters moon chased in and out of the rushing clouds, but by midnight the clouds had thickened enough to obscure the moon completely, and by two in the morning, when Thomas awoke Dennis by rattling the latch of the door between his sitting room and the corridor outside, it had begun to snow. Dennis heard the rattling and sat up, grimacing at the stiffness in his back and the pins and needles in his legs. Tonight Thomas had fallen asleep on the couch instead of lurching his way to bed, so it had been the hearth for the young butler. Now the fire was almost out. The side of him which had been lying closer to it felt baked; the other side of him felt frozen. He looked toward the rattling sound . . . and for a moment terror froze his heart and vitals. For that one moment he thought there was a ghost at the door, and he almost screamed. Then he saw it was only Thomas in his white nightshirt. MMy Lord King? Thomas took no notice. His eyes were open, but they were not looking at the latch; they were wide and dreaming and they looked straight ahead at nothing. Dennis suddenly guessed that the young King was sleepwalking. Even as Dennis decided this, Thomas seemed to realize that the reason the latch wouldnt work was that the bolt was still on. He drew it and then passed out into the hall, looking more ghostlike than ever in the guttering light of the corridor sconces. There was a swirl of nightshirt hem, and then he was gone on bare feet. Dennis sat stockstill on the hearth for a moment, crosslegged, his pins and needles forgotten, his heart thumping. Outside, the wind hurled snow against the diamondshaped panes of the sittingroom window and uttered a long banshee howl. What should he do? There was only one thing, of coursethe young King was his master. He must follow. Perhaps it was the wild night which had brought Roland so vividly to Thomass mind, but not necessarilyin fact, Thomas thought of his father a great deal. Guilt is like a sore, endlessly fascinating, and the guilty party feels compelled to examine it and pick at it, so that it never really heals. Thomas had drunk far less than usual, but, strangely, had seemed drunker than ever to Dennis. His sentences had been broken and garbled, his eyes wide and staring, showing too much of the whites. This was, to a large extent, because Flagg was gone. There had been rumors that the renegade nobitityStaads among themhad been seen gathered together in the Far Forests at the northern reaches of the Kingdom. Flagg had led a regiment of tough, battlehardened soldiers in search of them. Thomas was always more skittish when Flagg was gone. He knew it was because he had come to depend completely on the dark magician . . . but he had come to depend on Flagg in ways he did not fully understand. Too much wine was no longer Thomass only vice. Sleep is often denied to those with secrets, and Thomas was afflicted with severe insomnia. Without knowing it, he had become addicted to Flaggs sleeping potions. Flagg had left a supply of the drug with Thomas when he led the soldiers north, but Flagg had expected to be gone only three daysfour at the most. For the last three days, Thomas had slept badly, or not at all. He felt strange, never quite awake, never quite asleep. Thoughts of his father haunted him. He seemed to hear his fathers voice in the wind, crying out Why do you stare at me? Why do you stare at me so? Visions of wine . . . visions of Flaggs darkly cheerful face . . . visions of his fathers hair catching fire . . . these things drove sleep away and left him wideeyed in the long watches of the night while the rest of the castle slept. When Flagg had still not returned on the eighth night (he and his soldiers were even then camped fifty miles from the castle and Flagg was in a foul mood; the only trace of the nobles they found had been frozen hoofprints that might have been days or weeks old), Thomas sent for Dennis. It was later that night, that eighth night, that Thomas arose from his couch and began to walk. 78 So Dennis followed his lord and master the King down those long, drafty stone corridors, and if you have come along this far, I think you must know where Thomas the LightBringer finished up. Late stormy night had passed into early stormy morning. No one was abroad in the corridorsat least, Dennis saw no one. If anyone had been abroad, he or she might well have fled in the other direction, perhaps screaming, believing he or she had seen two ghosts walking, the one leading in a long white nightshirt that could easily have been mistaken for a shroud, the other following in a plain jerkin, but with bare feet and a face pale enough to have been mistaken for the face of a corpse. Yes, I believe anyone who saw them would have fled, and told long prayers before sleeping . . . and even many prayers might not have kept the nightmares at bay. Thomas stopped in the middle of a corridor that Dennis had seldom been down, and he opened a recessed door which Dennis had never really noticed at all. The boy King stepped into another corridor (no chambermaid passed them with an armload of sheets, as one had once passed Thomas and Flagg when Flagg had brought the prince this way some years before; all good chambermaids were long since in their beds), and partway down it, Thomas stopped so suddenly that Dennis almost ran into him. Thomas looked around, as if to see if he had been followed, and his dreaming eyes passed directly over Dennis. Denniss skin crawled, and it was all he could do to keep from crying out. The sconces in this almost forgotten hallway guttered and stank foully of das oil; the light was faint and gruesome. The young butler could feel his hair trying to clump up and push out in spikes as those empty eyeseyes like dead lamps lit only by the moonpassed over him. He was there, standing right there, but Thomas did not see him; to Thomas, his butler was dim. Oh, I must run, part of Denniss mind whispered distractedlybut inside his head, that distracted little whisper was like a scream. Oh, I must run, he has died, he has died in his sleep and I am following a walking corpse! But then he heard the voice of his da, his own dear, dead da, whispering If the time ever comes to do yer first master a service, Dennis, you mustnt hesitate. A voice deeper than either told him that the time for that service had come. And Dennis, a lowly servant boy who had changed a kingdom once by discovering a burning mouse, perhaps changed it again by holding his place, in spite of the terror which froze his bones and pushed his heart into his throat. In a strange, deep voice that was nothing at all like his usual voice (but to Dennis that voice sounded weirdly familiar), Thomas said Fourth stone up from the one at the bottom with the chip in it. Press it. Quick! The habit of obedience was so ingrained in Dennis that he had actually begun to move forward before realizing that Thomas, in his dream, had commanded himself in the voice of another. Thomas pushed the stone before Dennis could move more than a single step. It slid in perhaps three inches. There was a click. Denniss jaw dropped, as part of the wall swung inward. Thomas pushed it farther, and Dennis saw there was a huge secret door here. Secret doors made him think of secret panels, and secret panels made him think of burning mice. Again he felt an urge to run and fought it down. Thomas went in. For a moment he was only a glimmering nightshirt in the dark, a nightshirt with no one inside it. Then the stone wall closed again. The illusion was perfect. Dennis stood there, shifting from one cold bare foot to the other cold bare foot. What should he do now? Again, it was his das voice he seemed to hear, impatient now, brooking no refusal. Follow, you paltry boy! Follow, and be quick! This is the moment! Follow! But Da, the dark He seemed to feel a stinging slap, and Dennis thought hysterically Even when youre dead you got a strong right hand, Da! All right, all right, Im going! He counted up four from the chipped stone and pushed. The door swung about four inches inward on darkness. There was a tiny clittering sound in the awesome silence of the corridora sound like mice made of stone. After a moment Dennis realized that sound was his own teeth, chattering together. Oh Da, Im so scared, he mourned . . . and then followed King Thomas into the darkness. 79 Fifty miles away, rolled into five blankets against the bitter cold and the roaring wind, Flagg cried out in his sleep at the precise moment Dennis followed the King into the secret passageway. On a knoll not far distant, wolves howled in unison with that cry. The soldier sleeping nearest Flagg on the left died instantly of a heart attack, dreaming that a great lion had come to gobble him up. The soldier sleeping on Flaggs right woke up in the morning to discover he was blind. Worlds sometimes shudder and turn inside their axes, and this was such a time. Flagg felt it, but did not grasp it. The salvation of all that is good is only thisat times of great import, evil beings sometimes fall strangely blind. When the Kings magician awoke in the morning, he knew that he had had a bad dream, probably from his own longforgotten past, but he did not remember what it had been. 80 The darkness inside the secret passage was utter and complete, the air still and dry. In it, coming from somewhere ahead, Dennis heard a terrible, desolate sound. The King was weeping. At that sound, some of Denniss fear left him. He felt a great wonder, and a great pity for Thomas, who always seemed so unhappy, and who had grown fat and pimply as Kingoften he was pallid and shakyhanded from too much wine the night before, and his breath was usually bad. Already Thomass legs were beginning to bow, and unless Flagg was with him, he had a tendency to walk with his head down and his hair hanging in his face. Dennis felt his way forward, his hands held out in front of him. The sound of weeping grew closer in the dark . . . and then, suddenly, the dark was no longer complete. He heard a faint sliding noise and then he could see Thomas faintly. He was standing at the end of the corridor, and faint amber light was coming in from two small holes in the dark. To Dennis, those holes looked strangely like floating eyes. Just as Dennis began to believe that he would be all right, that he would probably survive this strange night walk, Thomas shrieked. He shrieked so loudly it seemed that his vocal cords must split open. The strength ran out of Denniss legs and he fell to his knees, hands clapped over his mouth to stop his own screams, and now it seemed to him that this secret way was filled with ghosts, ghosts like strange flapping bats that might at any moment snare themselves in his hair; oh yes, the place seemed filled with the unquiet dead to Dennis, and perhaps it was; perhaps it was. He almost swooned . . . almost . . . but not quite. Somewhere below him, he heard barking dogs and realized they were above the old Kings kennels. The few of Rolands dogs still alive had never been moved outside again. They were the only living beingsbesides Dennis himselfthat had heard those wild shrieks. But the dogs were real, not ghosts, and Dennis held on to that thought the way a drowning man might hold on to a floating mast. A moment or two later, he realized that Thomas was not just shriekinghe was crying out words. At first Dennis could make out only a single phrase, howled out again and again Dont drink the wine! Dont drink the wine! Dont drink the wine! 81 Three nights later, a light knock came at the closed sittingroom door of a farm in one of the Inner Baronies, a farm quite close to where the Staad family had lived not so long ago. Come! Anders Peyna growled. And it better be damned good, Arlen! Arlen had aged in the years since Beson had appeared at Peynas door with Peters note. The changes in him, however, were slight when compared with the changes in Peyna. The former JudgeGenerals hair was almost all gone. His spareness of frame had become gauntness. The loss of hair and weight were very little, however, when compared with the changes in his face. Formerly he had been stern. Now he was grim. Darkbrown hollows floated below his eyes. The stamp of despair was clear on his face, and there was good reason for this. He had seen the things he had spent his life defending brought to ruin . . . and this ruin had been accomplished with shocking ease, and in a shockingly brief period of time. Oh, I suppose all men of intelligence know how fragile such things as Law and Justice and Civilization really are, but its not a thing they think of willingly, because it disturbs ones rest and plays hob with ones appetite. Seeing his lifes work knocked casually apart like a childs tower of blocks was bad enough, but there was another thing which had haunted Peyna these last four years, something that was even worse. This was the knowledge that Flagg had not achieved all the dark changes in Delain alone. Peyna had helped him. For who else had seen Peter brought to a trial which was perhaps too speedy? Who else had been so convinced of Peters guilt . . . and not so much by the evidence as by a young boys shocked tears? Since the day Peter had been led to the top of the Needle, the chopping block in the Plaza of the Needle had been stained a sinister rusty color. Not even the hardest rain could wash it clean. And Peyna thought he could detect that sinister red stain spreading out from the blockspreading out to cover the Plaza, the market streets, the alleys. In his troubled dreams Peyna saw rills of fresh blood washing in bright, accusing threads between the cobblestones and running down the gutters in streamlets. He saw the redans of Castle Delain gleaming bloody in the sun. He saw the carp in the moat floating bellyup, poisoned by the blood which poured out of the sewers in floods and which rose from the springs in the earth itself. He saw the blood rising everywhere, staining the fields and forests. In these unhappy dreams even the sun began to look like a bloodshot, dying eye. Flagg had let him live. In the meadhouses, people whispered behind their hands that he had reached an agreement with the magicianthat he had perhaps given Flagg the names of certain traitors, or that perhaps Peyna had something on Flagg, some secret that would come out if Peyna died suddenly. This was, of course, ridiculous. Flagg was not a man to be threatenednot by Peyna, not by anyone. There were no secrets. There had been no agreements or deals. Flagg had simply let him live . . . and Peyna knew why. Dead, he would perhaps have been at peace. Alive, he was left to twist on the rack of his own bad conscience. He was left to watch the terrible changes Flagg had wrought on Delain. Well? he asked irritably. What is it, Arlen? A boy has come, my Lord. He says he must see you. Send him away, Peyna said moodily. He reflected that, even a year ago, he would have heard a knock at the front door, but it seemed that he became more deaf with every passing day. I see no one after nine, you know that. |
Much has changed, but not that. Arlen cleared his throat. I know the boy. It is Dennis, son of Brandon. It is the Kings butler who calls. Peyna stared at Arlen, hardly believing what he had heard. Perhaps he was growing deaf even faster than he had thought. He asked Arlen to repeat, and it came out sounding just the same. Ill see him. Send him in. Very good, my Lord. Arlen turned to leave. The similarity to the night Beson had come with Peters noteeven down to the cold wind screaming outsidecame strongly to Peyna now. Arlen, he called. Arlen turned back. My Lord? The right corner of Peynas mouth quirked the smallest bit. Are you quite sure its not a dwarfboy? Quite sure, my Lord, Arlen replied, and the left corner of his own mouth twitched the tiniest bit. There are no dwarves left in the known world. Or so my mother told me. Obviously she was a woman of good sense and clear discernment, dedicated to raising her son properly and not to be held responsible for any inherent flaws in the material she had to work with. Bring the boy here directly. Yes, my Lord. The door closed. Peyna looked into his fire again and rubbed his old, arthritiscrippled hands together in a gesture of unaccustomed agitation. Thomass butler. Here. Now. Why? But there was no sense in speculating; the door would open in a moment, and the answer would come walking through it in the form of a manboy who would be shaking with the cold, perhaps even frostbitten. Dennis would have found it a good deal easier to reach Peyna if Peyna had still been at his fine house in the castle city, but his house had been sold from beneath him for unpaid taxes following his resignation. Only the few hundred guilders he had put away over the course of forty years had allowed him to buy this small, drafty farmhouse and continue to pay Beson. It was technically in the Inner Baronies, but he was still many miles west of the castle . . . and the weather had been very cold. In the hallway beyond the door, he heard the murmur of approaching voices. Now. Now the answer would come through the door. Suddenly that absurd feelingthat feeling of hope, like a ray of strong light shining in a dark cavecame back to him. Now the answer will come through the door, he thought, and for a moment he found himself believing that was really true. As he drew his favorite pipe from the rack beside him, Anders Peyna saw that his hands were trembling. 82 The boy was really a man, but Adens use of the word was not unjustifiedat least not on this night. He was cold, Peyna saw, but he also knew that the cold alone does not make anyone shudder as Dennis was shuddering. Dennis! Peyna said, sitting forward sharply (and ignoring the twinge in his back the sudden movement caused). Has something happened to the King? Dreadful images, awful possibilities suddenly filled Peynas old headthe King dead, either from too much wine, or possibly by his own hand. Everyone in Delain knew that the young King was deeply moody. No . . . that is . . . yes . . . but no . . . not the way you mean . . . the way I think you mean . . . Come in here close to the fire, Peyna snapped. Arlen, dont just stand there gawking! Get a blanket! Get two! Wrap this boy up before he shakes himself to death like a buggerlug bug! Yes, my Lord, Arlen said. He had never gawked in his lifehe knew it, and Peyna did, too. But he recognized the gravity of this situation and left quickly. He stripped the two blankets from his own bedthe only other two in this glorified peasants hut were the ones on Peynasand brought them back. He took them to where Dennis crouched as close to the fire as he could without bursting into flames. The deep frost which had covered his hair had begun to melt and to run down his cheeks like tears. Dennis wrapped himself in the blankets. Now, tea. Strong tea. A cup for me, a pot for the boy. My Lord, we only have half a canister left in the whole Bugger how much we have left! A cup for me, a pot for the boy. He considered. And make a cup for yourself, Arlen, and then come in here and listen. My Lord? Even all of his breeding could not keep Arlen from looking frankly astounded at this. Damn! Peyna roared. Would you have me believe youre as deaf as Ive become? Get about it! Yes, my Lord, Arlen said, and went to brew the last tea in the house. 83 Peyna had not forgotten everything he had ever known about the fine art of questioning; in point of fact, he had forgotten damned little of that, or anything else. He had had long sleepless nights when he wished that he could forget some things. While Arlen made the tea, Peyna went about the task of putting this frightenedno; this terrifiedyoung man at his ease. He asked after Denniss mum. He asked if the drainage problems which had so plagued the castle of late had improved. He asked Denniss opinion on the spring plantings. He steered clear of any and all subjects which might be dangerous . . . and little by little, as he warmed, Dennis calmed. When Arlen served the tea, hot and strong and steaming, Dennis slurped half the cup at a gulp, grimaced, then slurped the rest. Impassive as ever, Arlen poured more. Easy, my lad, Peyna said, lighting his pipe at last. Easys the word for hot tea and skittish horses. Cold. Thought I was going to freeze coming out here. You walked? Peyna was unable to conceal his surprise. Yes. Had my mother leave word with the lesser servants that I was home with the grippe. Thatll hold all for a few days, it being so catching this time of year . . . or should do. Walked. Whole way. Didnt dare ask a ride. Didnt want to be remembered. Didnt know it was quite this far. If Id known, I might have taken a ride after all. I left at three of the clock. He struggled, his throat working, and then burst out And Im not going back, not ever! I seen the way he looks at me since he come back! Narrow and on the side, his eyes all dark! He never used to look at me that waynever used to look at me at all! He knows I seen something! Knows I heard something! He dont know what, but he knows theres something! He hears it in my head, like Id hear the bell ringin out from the Church of the Great Gods! If I stay, hell get it out of me! I know he will! Peyna stared at the boy under furrowed brows, trying to sort out this amazing flood of declaration. Tears were standing in Denniss eyes. I mean F Softly, Dennis, Peyna said. His voice was mild, but his eyes were not. I know who you mean. Best not to speak his name aloud. Dennis looked at him with dumb, simple gratitude. Youd better tell me what you came to say, Peyna told him. Yes. Yes, all right. Dennis hesitated for a moment, trying to get himself under control and to arrange his thoughts. Peyna waited impassively, trying to control his rising excitement. You see, Dennis began at last, three nights ago Thomas called me to come and stay with him, as he sometimes does. And at midnight, or sometime thereabouts 84 Dennis told what you have already heard, and to his credit, he did not try to lie about his own terror, or gloss it over. As he spoke, the wind whined outside and as the fire burned low Peynas eyes burned hotter and hotter. Here, he thought, were worse things than he ever could have imagined. Not only had Peter poisoned the King, Thomas had seen it happen. No wonder the boy King was so often moody and depressed. Perhaps the rumors that passed in the meadhouses, rumors that had Thomas more than half mad already, were not so farfetched as Peyna had thought. But as Dennis paused to drink more tea (Arlen refilled his cup from the bitter lees of the pot), Peyna drew back from that idea. If Thomas had witnessed Peter poisoning Roland, why was Dennis here now . . . and in such deadly terror of Flagg? You heard more, Peyna said. Aye, my Lord JudgeGeneral, Dennis said. Thomas . . . he raved quite some time. We were closed up in the dark together long. Dennis struggled to be clearer, but found no words to convey the horror of that closedin passageway, with Thomas shrieking in the darkness before him and the dead Kings few surviving dogs barking below them. No words to describe the smell of the placea smell of secrets which had gone rancid like milk spilled in the dark. No words to tell of his growing fear that Thomas had gone mad while in the grip of his dream. He had screamed the name of the Kings magician over and over again; had begged the King to look deep into the goblet and see the mouse that simultaneously burned and drowned in the wine. Why do you stare at me so? he had shrieked. And then I brought you a glass of wine, my King, to show you that I, too, love you. And finally he had shrieked out words that Peter himself would have recognized, words better than four hundred years old Twas Flagg! Flagg! Twas Flagg! Dennis reached for his cup, got it halfway to his mouth, and then dropped it. The cup shattered on the hearthstones. The three of them looked at the shards of crockery. And then? Peyna asked, in a deceptively gentle voice. Nothing for a long, long time, Dennis said in a halting voice. My eyes had . . . had gotten used to the darkness, and I could see him a little. He was asleep . . . asleep at those two little holes, with his chin on his breast and his eyes closed. And he remained so for how long? My Lord, I know not. The dogs had all quieted again. And perhaps I . . . I . . . Dozed a bit yourself? I think it is likely, Dennis. Then, later, he seemed to wake. His eyes opened, at any rate. He closed the little panels and all was dark again. I heard him moving and I drew my legs back so he would not trip over them . . . his nightshirt . . . it brushed my face. . . . Dennis grimaced as he remembered a feeling like cobwebs drawn in a whisper over his left cheek. I followed him. He let himself out . . . I followed still. He closed the door so that it looked like only plain stone wall again. He went back to his apartments and I followed him. Did you meet anyone? Peyna rapped so sharply that Dennis jumped. Anyone at all? No. No, my Lord JudgeGeneral. No one at all. Ah. Peyna relaxed. That is very well. And did anything else happen that night? No, my Lord. He went to bed and slept like a dead man. Dennis hesitated and then added, I didnt sleep a wink, meself, and havent slept many since, either. And in the morning he? Remembered nothing. Peyna grunted. He steepled his fingers and looked at the dying fire through the little fingerbuilding he had built. And did you go back to that passageway? Curiously, Dennis asked Would you have gone back, my Lord? Yes, Peyna said dryly. The question is, did you? I did. Of course you did. Were you seen? No. A chambermaid passed me in the hallway. The laundry is down that way, I think. I smelled lye soap, like my mum uses. When she was gone, I counted up four from the chipped stone and went in. To see what Thomas had seen. Aye, my Lord. And did you? Aye, my Lord. And what was it? Peyna asked, knowing. When you slid aside those panels, what did you see? My Lord, I saw King Rolands sitting room, Dennis said. With all them heads on the walls. And . . . my Lord . . . In spite of the heat of the dying fire, Dennis shuddered. All of them heads . . . they seemed to be looking at me. But there was one head you didnt see, Peyna said. No, my Lord, I saw them a Dennis stopped, eyes widening. Niner! He gasped. The peepholes He stopped, his eyes now almost as big as saucers. Silence fell again inside. Outside, the winter wind moaned and whined. And miles away, Peter, rightful King of Delain, hunched over a tiny loom high in the sky and wove a rope almost too fine to see. At last, Peyna fetched a deep sigh. Dennis was looking up at him from his place on the hearth pleadingly . . . hopefully . . . fearfully. Peyna bent forward slowly and touched his shoulder. You did well to come here, Dennis, son of Brandon. You did well to make a reason for your absencequite a plausible one, I think. Youll sleep here with us tonight, in the attic, under the eaves. Itll be cold, but I think youll sleep better than you have of late. Am I wrong? Dennis shook his head slowly once, and a tear spilled from his right eye and ran slowly down his cheek. And your mum knows naught of your reason for needing to be away? No. Then the chances are very good shell not be touched by it. Arlen will take you up. Those are his blankets, I think, and youll have to return them. But theres straw above, and its clean. Ill sleep just as well with only one blanket, my Lord, Arlen said. Hush! Young blood runs hot even in its sleep, Arlen. Your blood has cooled. And you may want your blankets . . . in case dwarves and trolls come in your dreams. Arlen smiled a little. In the morning, well talk more, Dennisbut you may not see your mum for a bit now; I must tell you that, although I suspect you already know it might not be healthy for you to go back to Delain, by the look of you. Dennis tried to smile, but his eyes were shiny with fear. I had thoughts of more than the grippe when I came here, and thats the honest truth. But now Ive put your own health in danger as well, havent I? Peyna smiled dryly. Im old, and Arlen is old. The health of the old is never very strong. Sometimes that makes them more careful than they should be . . . but sometimes it makes them dare much. Especially, he thought, if they have much to atone for. Well speak more in the morning. In the meantime, you deserve your rest. Will you light his way upstairs, Arlen? Yes, my Lord. And then come back to me. Yes, my Lord. Arlen led the exhausted Dennis from the room, leaving Anders Peyna to brood before his dying fire. 85 When Arlen came back, Peyna said quietly We have plans to make, Arlen, but perhaps youll draw us a drop of wine. It would be well to wait until the boy is asleep. My Lord, he was asleep before his head touched the hay he had gathered for his pillow. Very well. But draw us a drop of wine anyway. A drop is all there is to draw, Arlen said. Good. Then well not have to set out with big heads tomorrow, will we? My Lord? Arlen, we leave here tomorrow, the three of us, for the north. I know it, you know it. Dennis says theres grippe in Delainand so there is; one who would grip us if he could, anyway. We go for our health. Arlen nodded slowly. It would be a crime to leave that good wine behind us for the tax man. So well drink it . . . and then take ourselves off to bed. As you say, my Lord. Peynas eyes glinted. But before you go to bed, youll mount to the attic and get the blanket you left with the boy, against my strict and specific instructions. Arlen gaped at Peyna. Peyna mocked his gape with uncanny aptness. And for the first and last time in his service as Peynas butler, Arlen laughed out loud. 86 Peyna went to bed but could not sleep. It wasnt the sound of the wind that kept him awake, but the sound of cold laughter coming from inside his own head. When he could stand that laughter no longer, he got up, went back into the sitting room, and sat before the cooling fireplace ashes, his white hair floating in small clouds over his skull. Unaware of his comic look (and if he had been aware of it, he would have been unmindful), he sat wrapped in his blankets like the oldest Indian in the universe and looked into the dead fire. Pride goes before a fall, his mother had told him when he was a child, and Peyna had understood that. Prides a joke thatll make the stranger inside you laugh sooner or later, she had also told him, and he hadnt understood that . . . but he did now. Tonight the stranger inside was laughing very hard indeed. Too hard for him to be able to sleep, even though the next day was apt to be long and difficult. Peyna was fully able to appreciate the irony of his position. All his life, he had served the idea of the law. Ideas like prison break and armed rebellion horrified him. They still did, but certain truths had to be faced. That the machinery of revolt had come to exist in Delain, for instance. Peyna knew that the nobles who had fled to the north called themselves exiles, but he also knew that they were edging ever closer to calling themselves rebels. And if he were to keep that revolt from happening, he might well have to use the machinery of rebellion to help a prisoner break out of the Needle. That was the joke the stranger inside was laughing at, laughing too loudly for sleep to be even a remote possibility. Such actions as the ones he was now thinking about went against the grain of his whole life, but he would go ahead anyway, even if it killed him (which it just might). Peter had been falsely imprisoned. Delains true King was not on the throne, but locked in a cold tworoom cell at the top of the Needle. And if it took lawless forces to put things right again, so it must be. But . . . The napkins, Peyna muttered. His mind circled back to them and back to them. Before we resort to force of arms to free the rightful King and see him enthroned, the business of the napkins should be investigated. Hell have to be asked. Dennis . . . and the Staad boy, perhaps . . . aye . . . My Lord? Arlen asked from behind him. Are you unwell? Arlen had heard his master rise, as butlers almost always do. I am unwell, Peyna agreed gloomily. But its nothing my physician can fix, Arlen. Im sorry, my Lord. Peyna turned to Arlen, and fixed his bright, sunken eyes upon the butler. Before we become outlaws, I want to know why he asked for his mothers dollhouse . . . and for napkins with his meals. 87 Go back to the castle? Dennis asked the next morning, in a hoarse voice that was almost a whisper. Go back to where he is? If you feel you cant, Ill not press you, Peyna said. But you know the castle well enough, I think, to stay out of his way. If, that is, you know a way to get in unnoticed. To be noticed would be bad. You look much too lively for a boy who is supposed to be home sick. The day was cold and bright. The snow on the long, rolling hills of the Inner Baronies threw back a diamond dazzle which made the eyes water before long. Ill probably be snowblind by noon, and itll serve me right, Peyna thought grumpily. The stranger inside seemed to find this prospect hilarious indeed. Castle Delain itself could be seen in the distance, blue and dreaming on the horizon, its walls and towers looking like an illustration in a book of fairy stories. Dennis, however, did not look like a young hero in search of adventure. His eyes were full of fear, and his face bore the expression of a man who has escaped from a den of lions . . . only to be told hes forgotten his lunch, and must go back in and get it, even though hes lost his appetite. There might be a way to get in, he said. But if he smells me, how I get in or where I hide wont matter. If he smells me, hell run me down. Peyna nodded. He did not want to add to the boys fear, but in this situation, nothing less than the truth could serve them. What you say is true. But you still ask me to go? If you can, I still ask it. Over a meager breakfast, Peyna had told Dennis what he wanted to know, and had suggested some ways Dennis might go about getting the information. Now Dennis shook his head, not in refusal but in bewilderment. Napkins, he said. Peyna nodded. Napkins. Denniss fearful eyes went back to that distant fairytale castle dreaming on the horizon. When he was dying, my da said if I ever saw a chance to do a service for my first master, I must do it. I thought Id done it coming here. But if I must go back . . . Arlen, who had been busy closing up the house, now joined them. Your house key, please, Arlen, Peyna said. Arlen handed it to him, and Peyna handed it to Dennis. Arlen and I go north to join thePeyna hesitated and cleared his throatthe exiles, he finished. Ive given you Arlens key to this house. When we reach their camp, Ill give mine to a fellow you know, if he be there. I think he will be. Whos that? Dennis asked. Ben Staad. Sunshine broke on Denniss gloomy face. Ben? Bens with them? I think he may be, Peyna said. In truth, he knew perfectly well that the entire Staad family was with the exiles. He kept his ear firmly to the earth, and his ears had not grown so deaf that he was not able to hear many movements in the Kingdom. And youd send him down here? If hell come, aye, I mean to, Peyna replied. To do what? My Lord, Im still not clear about that. Nor am I, Peyna said, looking cross. He felt more than cross; he felt bewildered. Ive spent my whole life doing some things because they were logical and not doing others because they were not. Ive seen what happens when people act on intuition, or for illogical reasons. Sometimes the results are ludicrous and embarrassing; more often they are simply horrible. But here I am, just the same, behaving like a crackbrained crystal gazer. I dont understand you, my Lord. Neither do I, Dennis. Neither do I. Do you know what day this is? Dennis blinked at this sudden change in direction, but answered readily enough. YesTuesday. Tuesday. Good. Now Im going to ask you a question that my cursed intuition tells me is very important. If you dont know the answereven if you are not surefor the gods sake, say so! Are you ready for the question? Yes, my Lord, Dennis said, but he wasnt sure that he really was. Peynas piercing blue eyes under the wild tangle of his white brows had made him very nervous. The question was apt to be very difficult indeed. That is, I think so. Peyna asked his question, and Dennis relaxed. It didnt make much sense to himit was only more nonsense about the napkins, as far as he could seebut at least he knew the answer, and gave it. Youre sure? Peyna persisted. Yes, my Lord. Good. Then here is what I want you to do. Peyna spoke to Dennis for some time, as the three of them stood in the chilly sunshine in front of the retirement cottage where the old judge would never come again. Dennis listened earnestly, and when Peyna demanded that he repeat the instructions back, Dennis was able to do it quite neatly. Good, Peyna said. Very, very good. Im glad Ive pleased you, sir. Nothing about this business pleases me, Dennis. Nothing at all. If Ben Staad is with those unfortunate outcasts in the Far Forests, I mean to send him away from relative safety and into danger because he may be of some use to King Peter. Im sending you back to the castle because my heart tells me theres something about those napkins he asked for . . . and the dollhouse . . . something. Sometimes I think I almost have it, and then it dances out of my grasp again. He did not ask for those things idly, Dennis. Id wager my life on that. But I dont know. Peyna abruptly slammed his fist down on his leg in frustration. I am putting two fine young men into terrible danger, and my heart tells me I am doing the right thing, but I . . . dont . . . know . . . WHY! And inside the man who had in his heart once condemned a boy because of that boys tears, the stranger laughed and laughed and laughed. 88 The two old men parted from Dennis. They shook hands all around; then Dennis kissed the Judges ring, which bore the Great Seal of Delain on its face. Peyna had given up his JudgeGenerals bench, but had not been able to part with the ring, which to him summed up all the goodness of the law. He knew he had made mistakes from time to time, but he had not allowed them to break his heart. Even over this last and greatest of mistakes, his heart did not break. He knew as well as we in our own world do that the road to hell is paved with good intentionsbut he also knew that, for human beings, good intentions are sometimes all there are. Angels may be safe from damnation, but human beings are less fortunate things, and for them hell is always close. He protested Denniss act of kissing his ring, but Dennis insisted. Then Arlen shook Denniss hand and wished him speed o the gods. Smiling (but Peyna could still see the fear lurking in Denniss eyes), Dennis wished them the same. Then the young butler turned east, toward the castle, and the two old men headed west, toward the farmstead of one Charles Reechul. Reechul, who raised Anduan huskies for a living, paid the grinding taxes the King had imposed without complaint, and was thus considered loyal . . . but Peyna knew that Reechul was sympathetic to the exiles encamped in the Far Forests, and had helped others reach them. Peyna had never expected to need Reechuls services himself, but the time had come. The farmers eldest daughter, Naomi, drove Peyna and Arlen north on a sled pulled by twelve of the doggers strongest huskies. By Wednesday night, they reached the edge of the Far Forests. How long to the camp of the exiles? Peyna asked Naomi that night. Naomi cast the thin, evilsmelling cigar she had been smoking into the fire. Two more days if the skies keep fair. Four more days if it snows. Maybe never, if it blizzards. Peyna turned in. He drifted off to sleep almost at once. Logic or illogic, he was sleeping better than he had in years. The weather kept clear the next day, and on Friday as well. At dusk of that daythe fourth since Peyna and Arlen had parted from Dennisthey reached the small huddle of tents and makeshift wooden huts for which Flagg had searched in vain. Ho! Who comes, and can you say the password? a voice called. It was strong, sturdy, cheerful, and unafraid. Peyna recognized it. Its Naomi Reechul, the girl called, and the password two weeks ago was tripos. If its not that now, Ben Staad, then put an arrow through me and Ill come back and haunt you! Ben appeared from behind a rock, laughing. Id not dare meet you as a ghost, Naomiyoure fearsome enough alive! Ignoring this, she turned to Peyna. Weve come, she said. Yes, Peyna said. So I see. And I believe its well that we have . . . because something tells me that time has grown short . . . very short indeed. 89 Peter had the same feeling. By Sunday, two days after Peyna and Arlen reached the camp of the exiles, his rope would still, by his calculations, finish up thirty feet short of the ground. This meant that when he dangled from the end of it with his arms fully extended, he would face a drop of at least twentyone feet. He knew that he would be wiser by far to go on with his rope for another four monthseven another two. If he dropped from the rope, fell badly, and broke both of his legs so that the Plaza guards found him groaning on the cobbles when they made their roundotheclock, he would have wasted more than four years, simply because he did not have the patience to pursue his labor another four months. This was logic Peyna could have appreciated, but Peters feeling that he must now hurry was much stronger. Once Peyna would have snorted at the idea that feelings could be more trustworthy than logic . . . but now he might have been less sure. Peter had been having a dreamfor almost a week running now it had played over and over, gradually becoming more distinct. In it, he saw Flagg, bent over some bright and glowing objectit lit the magicians face a sickly greenishyellow. In this dream, there always came a point when Flaggs eyes first widened, as if in surprise, and then narrowed to cruel slits. His brows pulled down; his forehead darkened; a grimace as bitter as a crescent moon twisted his mouth. In this expression, the dreaming Peter read one thing and one thing only death. Flagg said only one word as he leaned forward and blew upon the brightly glowing object, which whiffed out like a candle when the magicians breath touched it. Only one word, but one was enough. The word from Flaggs mouth was Peters own name, uttered in tones of angry discovery. The night before, Saturday night, there had been a fairyring around the moon. The Lesser Warders thought it would soon snow. Examining the sky this afternoon, Peter knew they were right. It was his father who had taught Peter to read the weather, and standing at the window, Peter felt a pang of sadness . . . and a renewed spark of cold, quiet anger . . . the need to make things right again. Ill make my try under cover of darkness and under cover of storm, he thought. Therell even be a bit of snow to cushion my fall. He had to grin at that ideathree inches of light, powdery snow between him and the cobbles would do precious little one way or the other. Either his perilously thin rope would hold . . . or it would break. Assuming it held, he would take the drop. And his legs would either take the impact . . . or they wouldnt. And if they do take it, where will you go on them? a little voice whispered. Any who might have shielded you or helped you . . . Ben Staad, for instancehave long since been driven from the castle keep . . . from the very Kingdom itself for all you know. He would trust to luck, then. Kings luck. It was a thing his father had often talked about. There are lucky Kings and unlucky. But youll be your own King and youll have your own luck. Mself I think youll be very lucky. He had been King of Delainat least in his own heartfor five years now, and he thought his luck had been the kind which the Staad family, with its famous bad luck, would have understood. But perhaps tonight would make up for all. His rope, his legs, his luck. Either all would hold or all would break, quite possibly at the same time. No matter. Poor as it had been, he would trust to his luck. Tonight, he murmured, turning from the window . . . but something happened at supper which changed his mind. 90 It took Peyna and Arlen all day Tuesday to make the ten miles to the Reechul farm, and they were nearly done in when they arrived. Castle Delain was twice as far, but Dennis probably could have been knocking at the West Gateif he had actually been mad enough to do such a thingby two that afternoon, in spite of his long walk the day before. Such is the difference, of course, between young men and old men. But what he could have done really didnt matter, because Peyna had been very clear in his instructions (especially for a man who claimed not to have the slightest idea of what he was doing), and Dennis meant to follow them to the letter. As a result, it would be some time yet before he entered the castle. After covering not quite half the distance, he began to look for a place where he could hole up for the next few days. So far he had met no one on the road, but noon had passed and soon there would be people returning from the castle market. Dennis wanted no one to see him and mark him. He was, after all, supposed to be home, sick in bed. He did not have to look long before he found a place that suited him well enough. It was a deserted farmstead, once well kept but now beginning to fall into ruin. Thanks to Thomas the TaxBringer, there were many such places on the roads leading to the castle keep. Dennis remained there until late Saturday afternoonfour days in all. Ben Staad and Naomi were already on their way back from the Far Forests to Peynas farm by then, Naomi pushing her team of huskies for all they were worth. The knowledge would have eased Dennis a bit if he had knownbut of course he did not, and he was lonely. There was no food at all upstairs, but in the cellar he found a few potatoes and a handful of turnips. He ate the potatoes (Dennis hated turnips, always had, and always would), using his knife to cut out the rotten placeswhich meant he cut away threefourths of every potato. He was left with a handful of white globes the size of pigeons eggs. He ate a few, looked toward the turnips in the vegetable bin, and sighed. Like them (he didnt) or hate them (he did), he supposed he would be reduced to eating them by Friday or so. If Im hungry enough, Dennis thought hopefully, maybe theyll taste good. Maybe Ill just gobble those old turnips up and beg for more! He finally did have to eat a number of them, although he managed to hold out until Saturday noon. By then, they actually had begun to look good, but as hungry as he was, they still tasted terrible. Dennis, who suspected the days ahead might be very hard, ate them anyway. |
91 Dennis also found an old pair of snowshoes in the basement. The straps were far too large, but he had plenty of time to shorten them. The lacings had begun to rot, and there was nothing Dennis could do about that, but he thought they would serve the purpose. He wouldnt need them for long. He slept in the cellar, fearing surprise, but during the daylight hours of those four long days, Dennis spent most of his time in the parlor of the deserted farmstead, watching the traffic pass to and frowhat little there was began around three o the clock and had mostly ceased by five, when earlywinter shadows began to cover the land. The parlor was a sad, empty place. Once it had been a cheery spot in which the family had gathered to discuss the day just done. Now it belonged only to the mice . . . and to Dennis, of course. Peyna, after hearing Dennis declare that he could read and write pretty well for a fellow in service and seeing him draw his Great Letters (this had been over breakfast on Tuesdaythe last real meal Dennis had had since his own lunch on Monday, a meal he looked back on with understandable nostalgia), had provided him with several sheets of paper and a lead pencil. And during most of the hours he spent in the deserted house, Dennis labored earnestly over a note. He wrote, scratched out, rewrote, frowned horribly as he reread, scratched his head, resharpened his pencil with his knife, and wrote again. He was ashamed of his spelling, and terrified he would forget some crucial thing Peyna had told him to put in. There were several times, times when his poor frazzled brain could make no more progress, when he wished Peyna had stayed up an hour longer on the night Dennis had come and written his own damned note, or called it aloud to Arlen. Most times, however, he was glad of the job. He had worked hard his whole life, and idleness made him nervous and uneasy. He would rather have worked his sturdy young mans body than his notsosturdy young mans brains, but work was work, and he was glad to have it. By Saturday noon, he had a letter he was pretty well satisfied with (which was good, since he had worked his way down to the final two sheets of notepaper). He looked at it with some admiration. It covered both sides of the paper, and was by far the longest thing he had ever written. He folded it to the size of a medicine tablet, and then peeked out the sittingroom window, waiting impatiently for it to be dark enough to leave. Peter saw the gathering clouds from his own poor sitting room atop the Needle, Dennis from the sitting room of this deserted house; but both had been taught by their fathersone a King and the other a butter to that Kingto read the sky, and Dennis also thought there would be snow tomorrow. By four, the long, blue shadow of the house had begun to creep out from the foundations, and Dennis no longer felt so eager to go. It was danger ahead . . . deadly danger. He was to go where Flagg was perhaps even now brooding long over his infernal magics, perhaps even now checking upon a certain sick butler. But how he felt did not really matter, and he knew itthe time had come to do his duty, and as every butler in his family line had done for centuries and centuries, Dennis would do his best. He left the house in the bleak sunset hour, donned the snowshoes, and struck off across the field on a direct line toward the castle keep. The idea of wolves occurred to his uneasy mind, and he could only hope there would be none, and if there were, that they would leave him alone. He hadnt the slightest idea that Peter had decided to make his dangerous escape attempt the following night, but like Peynaand Peter himselfhe felt a need to hurry; it seemed to him that there were mackerelscale clouds laid across his heart as well as the sky. As he trudged through the snowdesolate fields, Denniss thoughts turned to how he might enter the castle without being seen and challenged. He thought he knew how it could be done . . . if, that was, Flagg did not smell him. He had no more than thought the magicians name when a wolf howled somewhere out in the still white wastes. In a dark room below the castle, Flaggs own sitting room, the magician sat bolt upright suddenly in his chair, where he had fallen asleep with a book of arcane lore open on his stomach. Who speaks the name of Flagg? the magician whispered, and the twoheaded parrot shrieked. Standing in the center of a long and desolate field of white, Dennis heard that voice, as dry and scabrous as a spiders scuttle, in his own head. He paused, his breath indrawn and held. When he finally let it go, it plumed frosty from his mouth. He was cold all over, but hot drops of sweat stood out on his forehead. From his feet he heard dry snapping noisesPouck! Pouck! Pouck!as several of the snowshoes rotted crosslacings let go. The wolf howled in the silence. It was a hungry, heartless sound. No one, Flagg muttered in the sitting room of his dark apartments. He was rarely sickcould remember being sick only three or four times in all of his long lifebut he had caught a bad cold in the north, sleeping on the frozen ground, and although he was improving, he was still not well. No one. A dream. Thats all. He took the book from his lap, closed it, and set it on a side tablethe surface of this table had been handsomely dressed in human skinand settled back in his chair. Soon he slept again. In the snowy fields west of the castle, Dennis slowly relaxed. A single drop of stinging sweat ran into his eye and he wiped it away absently. He had thought of Flagg . . . and somehow Flagg had heard him. But now the dark shadow of the magicians thought had passed over him, as the shadow of a hawk may pass over a crouching rabbit. Dennis let out a long, shaky sigh. His legs felt weak. He would tryoh, with all his heart he would tryto think of the magician no more. But as the night came on and the moon with its ghostly fairyring rose in the sky, that was a thing easier resolved upon than done. 92 At eight of the clock, Dennis left the fields and entered the Kings Preserves. He knew them well enough. He had been a squireen for Brandon when his da buttled the old King in the fields of the hunt, and Roland had come here often, even in his old age. Thomas came less often, but on the few occasions when the boy King did come, Dennis had, of course, been required to come with him. Soon he struck on a trail he knew, and just before midnight he reached the verge of this toy forest. He stood behind a tree, looking out at the castle wall. It was half a mile away over open, snowcovered ground. The moon was still shining, and Dennis was all too aware of the sentries who walked the castle parapet. He would have to wait until Prince Ailon had driven his silvery chariot over the edge of the world before crossing that open space. Even then he would be horribly exposed. He had known from the first that this would be the riskiest part of the whole adventure. Parting from Peyna and Arlen, with the good sun shining down, the risk had seemed acceptable. Now it seemed utterly mad. Go back, a cowardly voice inside him begged, but Dennis knew he couldnt. His father had laid a charge on him, and if the gods meant him to die trying to fulfill it, then he would die. Faint and yet clear, like a voice heard in a dream, came the call of the Crier, drifting out to him from the castles central tower Twelve oclock and alls well. . . . Nothings well, Dennis thought miserably. Not one single thing. He drew his thin coat more tightly around him and began the long job of waiting down the moon. Eventually it left the sky, and Dennis knew he had to move. Time had grown short. He stood, said a brief prayer to his gods, and began to walk across the open space as rapidly as he could, expecting a hail of Who goes there? from the castle walls at every moment. The hail did not come. The clouds had thickened across the night sky. All below the castle wall was one dark shadow. In less than ten minutes, Dennis had reached the edge of the moat. He sat on its low bank, the snow crunching under his bottom, and took the snowshoes off. He slid down onto the moat itself, which was frozen and covered with more snow. Denniss thundering heart slowed down. He was in the shadow of the bulking castle wall now, and would not be seen unless a sentry happened to look straight down, and most probably not even then. Dennis was careful not to go all the way across the moatnot yetbecause the ice close to the castle wall would be rotted and thin. He knew why this was so; the reason for the thin ice and the unpleasant smell here and the mossy wetness on the huge stones of the outer wall was his hope of entering the castle secretly. He moved carefully to the left, ears listening for the noise of running water. At last he heard it, and looked up. There, at eye height, was a round black hole in the solid castle wall. Fluid ran from it in listless streams. It was a sewer outflow pipe. Now for it, Dennis muttered. He drew back five paces, ran, and leaped. As he did, he felt the ice, rotted by the constant outflow of warm waste from the pipe, give under his feet. Then he was clinging to the mossy lip of the pipe. It was slick, and he had to clutch hard to keep from falling. He pulled himself up, digging for purchase with his feet, and finally yanked himself inside. He paused for a moment, trying to get his breath back, then began to crawl along the pipe, which slanted steadily upward. He and several of his playmates had found these pipes when they were children, and had been quickly warned off by their parents, partly because they might become lost, mostly because of the sewer rats. Still, Dennis thought he knew where he would come out. An hour later, in a deserted corridor of the castles east wing, a sewer grating movedwas stillthen moved again. It was shoved partway aside, and a few moments later a very dirty (and very smelly) butler named Dennis pulled himself out of a hole in the floor and lay panting on the cold cobbles. He could have used a longer rest, but someone might come along, even at this unearthly hour. So he replaced the grating and looked around. He did not recognize the hallway at once, but this in no way upset him. He started down it toward the Tintersection at the far end. At least, he reflected, there had been no rats in the warren of sewer pipes below the castle. That had been a great relief. He had been prepared for them, not just because of the gruesome tales his da had told him, but because there had been rats on a few occasions when he and his mates had ventured with fearful screeches of laughter down into the pipes as childrenthe rats had been part of the scary, dareyou adventure of it. Probably there were just a few mice, and your memorys exaggerated them into rats, Dennis thought now. This was not the truth, but Dennis would never know it. His memory of the rats in the sewers was a true one. The pipes had been infested with great, diseasebearing rodents since time out of mind. It had only been for the last five years that they had ceased to teem in the sewers. They had been wiped out by Flagg. The magician had rid himself of both a piece of stone and his own dagger by means of a sewer grating similar to the one from which Dennis had emerged on this early Sunday morning. He had rid himself of them, of course, because there were a few flecks of the deadly green Dragon Sand on each. The fumes from those few grains had killed the rats, burning many of them alive even as they paddled through the scummy water in the pipes, suffocating all the others before they could flee. Five years later, the rats had still not come back, although most of the poisonous fumes had dissipated. Most, but not all. If Dennis had entered one of the sewer pipes a bit closer to Flaggs apartments, he might well have died himself. Perhaps it was luck that saved him, or fate, or those gods he prayed to; Ill not take a stand on the matter. I tell tales, not tea leaves, and on the subject of Denniss survival, I leave you to your own conclusions. 93 He reached the junction, peered around the corner, and saw a sleepy young Guard o the Watch passing farther up the way. Dennis pulled back. His heart was thumping hard again, but he was satisfiedhe knew where he was. When he looked back, the guard was gone. Dennis moved quickly, up this corridor, down that flight of stairs, across tother gallery. He moved with speedy surefootedness, for he had spent his whole life in the castle. He knew it well enough, certainly, to find his way from the east wing, where he had come out of the sewers, to the lower west wing, where the napkins were stored. But because he dared not be seennot by anyoneDennis went by the most obscure corridors he knew, and at the sound of every footfall (either real or imagined, and I do think quite a few of them were imagined), he withdrew into the nearest cranny or niche. In the end, it took him over an hour. He thought he had never been so hungry in his life. Never mind your cussed belly now, Dennistake care of your master first, your belly later. He was standing far back in a shadowy doorway. Faintly, he heard the Crier call four oclock. He was about to move forward when slow, echoing footfalls came down the hallway . . . a clank of steelandscabbarda creak of leather leggings. Dennis pushed himself farther back into the shadows, sweating. A Guard o the Watch paused just in front of the thinly shadowed doorway where Dennis hid. The fellow stood for a moment rooting in his nose with his little finger, and then leaned over to blow a stream of snot between his knuckles. Dennis could have reached out and touched him, and felt certain that any moment the guard would turn . . . his eyes would widen . . . he would draw his shortsword . . . and that would be the end of Dennis, son of Brandon. Please, Denniss frozen mind whispered. Please, oh, please He could smell the guard, could smell the old wine and burned meat on his breath, and the sour sweat coming out of his skin. The guard started to move on . . . Dennis began to relax . . . then the guard stopped and began rooting in his nose again. Dennis could have screamed. I have a girrul name of MarchyMarchyMelda, the guard began to sing in a lowpitched, droning voice, rooting in his nose all the while. He produced a large green something, examined it thoughtfully, and flicked it onto the wall. Splat. Shes got a sister named Esamerelda. . . . I would sail the seven seas . . . Just to kiss her dimply knees! Tootiesingtay, singtiy, and pass me a bucketda wine. Something exceedingly horrible was now happening to Dennis. His nose had begun to itch and tickle in a way which was unmistakable. Very soon he would sneeze. Go! he screamed in his mind. Oh, why dont you go, you stupid fool? But the guard seemed to have no intentions of going. He had apparently struck a rich lode up in the left nostril, and he meant to mine it. I have a girrul name of DarchyDarchyDarla. . . . Shes got a sister named Red Headed Carla. . . . I would take a thousand sips . . . From her pretty pretty lips. . . . Tootiesingtay, singtiy, and pass me a bucketda wine. Ill hit you over the HEAD with a bucket of wine, you fool! Dennis thought. Move ON!! The itch in his nose grew steadily worse, but he did not dare even touch it, for fear the guard would see the movement from the corner of his eye. The guard frowned, bent over, blew his nose between his knuckles again, and finally moved on, still singing his droning song. He was barely out of sight before Dennis threw his arm over his own nose and mouth and sneezed into the crook of his elbow. He waited for the clash of metal as the guard drew his sword and whirled back, but the fellow was half asleep, and still half drunk from whatever party he had been at before his tour of duty commenced. Once, Dennis knew, such a slovenly creature would have been quickly discovered and sent to the farthest reaches of the Kingdom, but times had changed. There was a click of a latch, the screeeeee of hinges as a door was drawn open, and then it boomed closed, cutting off the guards song just as he reached the chorus again. Dennis sagged back in his niche for a moment, eyes closed, cheeks and forehead on fire, his feet twin blocks of ice. For a few minutes there I didnt think of my belly at all! he thought, and then had to slam both hands over his mouth to stifle a giggle. He peeked out of his hiding place, saw no one about, and moved to a doorway down the corridor and on his right. He knew this doorway very well, although the empty rocker and needlework case outside it were new to him. The door led to the room where all of those napkins had been stored since the time of Kyla the Good. It had never been locked before, and was not now. Old napkins were apparently not considered worth locking up. He peered inside, hoping that his answer to Peynas key question still held true. Standing there in the road on that bright morning five days ago, Peyna had asked him this Do you know when they take fresh stores of napkins to the Needle, Dennis? This seemed like a simple question indeed to Dennis, but you may have noticed that all questions seem simple if you know the answers, and most horribly difficult if you dont. That Dennis knew the answer to this one was a testament to his honesty and honor, although those traits were so deeply ingrained in his character that he would have been surprised if someone had told him this. He had taken moneyAnders Peynas money, in factfrom Ben Staad to make sure those napkins were delivered. Only a guilder, true, but money was money and pay was pay. He had felt honorbound to make sure, from time to time, that the service was continuing. He told Peyna about the big storeroom (Peyna was flabbergasted to hear of it) and how each Saturday night around seven oclock, a maid took twentyone napkins, shook them, ironed them, folded them, and set them in a stack on a small wheeled cart. This cart stood just inside the rooms doorway. Early on Sunday morningat six o the clock, less than two hours from right nowa servant boy would pull the cart to the Plaza of the Needle. He would rap at the bolted door at the base of the ugly stone tower, and one of the Lesser Warders would pull the cart inside and place the napkins on a table, where they would be doled out, meal by meal, through the week. Peyna had been satisfied. Dennis now hurried forward, feeling inside his shirt for the note he had written at the farmhouse. He had a bad moment or two when he couldnt find it, but then his fingers closed over it and he sighed with relief. It had only slipped a little to one side. He lifted the Sunday breakfast napkin. Sunday lunch. For a moment he almost passed over Sunday supper as well, and if he had done that, my tale would have had a very different endingbetter or worse I cannot say, but surely different. In the end, however, Dennis decided three napkins deep was safe enough. He had found a pin in a crack between two boards in the farmhouse living room and had nipped it into one shoulder strap of the rough linsey camisole he wore as underwear (and if he had been thinking a little better, he would have nipped the note to his underwear with it in the bargain, and spared himself that bad moment, but as I may have told you, Denniss brains were sometimes a little lacking). Now he retrieved the pin and carefully attached the note to an inner fold of the napkin. Let it find you, Peter, he murmured in the ghostly silence of that storeroom, piled high with napkins made in another age. Let it find you, my King. Dennis knew he must lie low now. The castle would be waking up soon; stableboys would be stumbling out to the barns, washerwomen would be moving to the laundries, cooks apprentices would be stumbling puffyeyed and sleepy to their fires (thinking of the kitchens made Denniss belly rumble anewby now even the hateful turnips would have tasted quite nicebut food, he reckoned, would have to wait). He worked his way farther back into the big room. The stacks were so high, the ways so zigzagging and irregular, that it was like working his way into a maze. The napkins gave off a sweet, dry, cottony smell. He finally reached one of the far corners, and here he reckoned he would be safe. He overspilled a stack of the napkins, spread them out, and took another handful for a pillow. It was by far the most luxurious mattress he had ever lain upon, and, hungry as he was, he needed sleep much more than food after his long walk and the frights of the night. He was asleep in no time at all, and he was troubled by no dreams. We will leave him now, with the first part of his job well and bravely accomplished. We will leave him turned upon his side, right hand curled under his right cheek, sleeping on a bed of royal napkins. And I would like to make a wish for you, Readerthat your sleep this night be as sweet and as blameless as his was all that day. 94 On Saturday night, as Dennis was standing in the horror of that wolfs howl and feeling the shade of Flaggs thought pass over him, Ben Staad and Naomi Reechul were encamped in a snowy hollow thirty miles north of Peynas farm . . . or what had been Peynas farm before Dennis showed up with his story of a King who walked and talked in his sleep. They had made the sort of rough camp people make when they mean to spend only a few hours and then push on. Naomi had seen to her beloved huskies while Ben put up a small tent and built a roaring fire. Shortly, Naomi joined him at the fire and cooked deer meat. They ate in silence, and then Naomi went to check the dogs again. All were sleeping except for Frisky, her favorite. Frisky looked at her with almost human eyes, and licked her hand. A good pull today, mdear, Naomi said. Sleep, now. Catch a moon rabbit. Frisky obediently put her head down on her paws. Naomi smiled and went back to the fire. Ben sat before it, his knees pulled up to his chest and his arms around them. His face was somber and thoughtful. Snows coming. I can read the clouds as well as you, Ben Staad. And the fairies have made a ring around Prince Ailons head. Ben glanced at the moon and nodded. Then he looked back at the fire. Im worried. Ive had dreams of . . . well, dreams of one its better not to name. She lit a cigar. She offered the little package, which was wrapped in muslin to prevent drying, to Ben, who shook his head. Ive had the same dreams, I think, she said. She tried to make her voice casual, but was betrayed by a slight tremor. He stared around at her, eyes wide. Aye, she said, as if he had asked. In them, he looks into some bright glowing thing and speaks Peters name. Ive never been one of your skittish little girls who screeches at the sight of a mouse or a spider in its web, but I wake from that dream wanting to scream aloud. She looked both ashamed and defiant. How many nights have you had it? Two. Ive had it four arunning. Mines just the same as yours. And you neednt look like Im going to laugh at you or call you Little Nell Weeping at the Well. I also wake up wanting to scream. This bright thing . . . at the end of my dreams, he seems to blow it out. Is it a candle, do you think? No. You know its not. She nodded. Ben considered. Something far more dangerous than a candle, I think . . . Ill take that cigar you offered, if I may. She gave him one. He lit it from the fire. They sat a while in silence, watching the sparks rise toward the dark wind which trawled nets of powdery field snow through the sky. Like the light in the dream theyd shared, the sparks blew out. The night seemed very black. Ben could smell snow in that wind. A great deal of snow, he thought. Naomi seemed to read his thought. I think such a storm as the old folks tell about may be on the way. What do you think? The same. With a hesitation utterly unlike her usual forthright manner, Naomi asked What does the dream mean, Ben? He shook his head. I cant tell. Danger to Peter, that much is clear. If it means anything elseanything I can kenits that we must hurry. He looked at her with an urgent directness that made her heart speed up. Can we reach Peynas farm tomorrow, do you think? We should be able to. No one but the gods can say that a dog wont break a leg or that a killer bear who cant sleep his winter sleep wont come out of the woods and kill us all, but aye . . . we should be able to. ! exchanged all the dogs I used on the run up, except for Frisky, and Friskys almost tireless. If the snow comes early itll slow us down, but I think it will hold off . . . and off . . . and for every hour it does, itll be that much worse when it finally comes. Or so I think. But if it does hold off, and if we take turns jumping off the sledge and running alongside, I think we can make it. But what can we do except sit there, unless your friend the butler returns? I dont know. Ben sighed and rubbed a hand over his face. What good, indeed? Whatever it was the dreams foretold, it would happen at the castle, not at the farm. Peyna had sent Dennis to the castle, but how did Dennis mean to get in? Ben didnt know, because Dennis hadnt told Peyna. And if Dennis did gain entry undetected, where would he hide? There were a thousand possible places. Except . . . Ben! What? Jerked out of his thoughts, he turned to her. What did you think of just now? Nothing. Yes, something. Your eyes gleamed. Did they? I must have been thinking of pies. Its time you and I turned in. Well want to be off at first light. But in the tent, Ben Staad lay awake long after Naomi had gone to sleep. There were a thousand places in the castle to hide, yes. But he could think of two rather special ones. He thought he might well find Dennis in one . . . or the other. At last he fell asleep . . . . . . and dreamed of Flagg. 95 Peter began that Sunday as he always did, with his exercises and a prayer. He had awakened feeling fresh and ready. After a quick look at the sky to gauge the progress of the coming storm, he ate his breakfast. And, of course, he used his napkin. 96 By Sunday noon, everyone in Delain had come out of his or her house at least once to look worriedly toward the north. Everyone agreed that the storm, when it came, would be one to tell stories about in later years. The clouds rolling in were a dull gray, the color of wolf pelts. Temperatures rose until the icicles hanging beneath the eaves of the alleys began to drip for the first time in weeks, but the oldtimers told each other (and anyone else who would listen) that they were not fooled. The temperature would plummet quickly, and hours laterperhaps two, perhaps fourthe snow would begin. And, they said, it might fall for days. By three oclock that afternoon, those farmers of the Inner Baronies fortunate enough to still have livestock to watch out for had gotten their animals into the barns. The cows went mooing their displeasure; the snow had melted enough for them to crop last falls dry grasses for the first time in months. Yosef, older, grayer, but still lively enough at seventytwo, saw that all the Kings horses were stabled. Presumably there was someone else to take care of all the Kings men. Wives took advantage of the mild temperatures to attempt to dry sheets which otherwise simply would have frozen on the lines, and then took them in as the daylight lowered toward an early, stormcolored dark. They were disappointed; their washing had not dried. There was too much moisture in the air. Animals were skittish. People were nervous. Wise meadhouse keepers would not open their doors. They had observed the falling mercury in their barometric glasses, and long experience had taught them that low air pressure makes men quick to fight. Delain battened down for the coming storm, and everyone waited. 97 Ben and Naomi took turns running beside the sledge. They reached the Peyna farm at two oclock that Sunday afternoonat about the same time Dennis was stirring awake on his mattress of royal napkins and Peter was beginning his meager lunch. Naomi looked beautiful indeedthe flush of her exercise had colored her tanned cheeks the pretty dusky red of autumn roses. As the sledge pulled into Peynas yard, the dogs barking wildly, she turned her laughing face to Ben. A record run, by the gods! she cried. Weve made it threeno, four!hours earlier than I would have believed when we left! And not one dog has burst its heart! Aiy, Frisky! Aiy! Good dog! Frisky, a huge blackandwhite Anduan husky with graygreen eyes, was at the head of the tether. She was jumping in the air, straining against the traces. Naomi unhooked her and danced with her in the snow. It was a curious waltz, both graceful and barbaric. Dog and mistress seemed to laugh at each other in a powerful shared affection. Some of the other dogs were lying down on their sides now, panting hard, obviously exhausted, but neither Frisky nor Naomi seemed even slightly winded. Aiy, Frisky! Aiy, my love! Good dog! Youve led a famous chase! But for what? Ben asked glumly. She released Friskys paws and turned to him, angry . . . but the dejection on his face robbed her of her anger. He was looking toward the house. She followed his gaze and understood. They were here, yes, but where was here? An empty farmhouse, that was all. What in the world had they come so far and so fast for? The house would have been just as empty an hour . . . two hours . . . four hours from now. Peyna and Aden were in the north, Dennis somewhere in the depths of the castle. Or in a prison cell or a coffin awaiting burial, if he had been caught. She went to Ben and put a hesitant hand on his shoulder. Dont feel so bad, she said. Weve done all we could do. Have we? he asked. I wonder. He paused, and sighed deeply. He had taken off his knitted cap and his golden hair gleamed mellowly in the dull afternoon light. Im sorry, Naomi. I dont mean to snap at you. You and your dogs have done wonders. Its just that I feel were very far from where we could give any real aid. I feel helpless. She looked at him, sighed, and nodded. Well, he said, lets go in. Maybe therell be some sign of what were to do next. Well at least be out of the blow when it comes. There were no clues inside. It was just a big, drafty, empty farmhouse that had been quit in a hurry. Ben prowled restlessly from room to room and found nothing at all. After an hour, he collapsed unhappily beside Naomi in the sitting room . . . in the very chair where Anders Peyna had sat when he listened to Denniss incredible story. If only there was a way to track him, Ben said. He looked up to see her staring at him, her eyes bright and round and full of excitement. There might be! she said. If the snow holds off What are you talking about? Frisky! she cried. Dont you see? Frisky can track him! She has the keenest nose of any dog Ive ever known! The scent would be days old, he said, shaking his head. Even the greatest tracking dog that ever lived could not . . . Frisky may be the greatest tracking dog that ever lived, Naomi replied, laughing. And tracking in winters not like tracking in summer, Ben Staad. In summer, trace dies quickly . . . it rots, my da says, and there are a hundred other traces to cover the one the dog seeks. Not just of other people and other animals, but of grasses and warm winds, even the smells that come on running water. But in the winter, trace lasts. If we had something that belonged to this Dennis . . . something that carried his scent . . . What about the rest of your team? Ben asked. I should open the shed over thereshe pointed at itand leave my bedroll in it. If I show them where it is and then free them, theyll be able to forage for their own foodrabbits and suchand theyll also know where to come for shelter. They wont follow us? Not if theyre told not to. You can do that? He looked at her with some awe. No, Naomi said matteroffactly. I dont speak Dog. |
Nor does Frisky speak Human, but she understands it. If I tell Frisky, shell tell the others. Theyll hunt what they need, but they wont range far enough to lose the scent of my bedroll, not with the storm coming. And when it starts, theyll go to shelter. It wont matter if their bellies are hungry or full. And if we had something that belonged to this boy Dennis, you really believe Frisky could track him? Aye. Ben looked at her long and thoughtfully. Dennis had left this farm on Tuesday; it was now Sunday. He didnt believe any scent could last that long. But there was something in the house which would bear Denniss scent, and perhaps even a fools errand would be better than only sitting here. It was the pointless sitting more than anything else that grated on him, the hours ahead when things of grave importance might be happening elsewhere, while they sat and twiddled their thumbs here. Under other circumstances, the possibility of being snowbound with a girl as beautiful as Naomi would have delighted him, but not while a kingdom might be won and lost twenty miles to the east . . . and his best friend might be living or dying with only that confounded butler to help him. Well? she asked eagerly. What do you think? I think its crazy, he said, but worth a try. She grinned. Do we have something with his scent strong upon it? We do, he said, getting up. Bring your dog in, Naomi, and lead her upstairs. To the attic. 98 Although most humans dont know it, scents are like colors to dogs. Faint scents have faint colors, like pastels washed out by time. Clear scents have clear colors. Some dogs have weak noses, and they read scents the way humans with poor eyes see colors, believing this delicate blue may actually be a gray, or that dark brown may actually be a black. Friskys nose, on the other hand, was like the eyesight of a man with the gaze of a hawk, and the scent in the attic where Dennis had slept was very strong and very clear (it may have helped that Dennis had been some days without a bath). Frisky sniffed the hay, then sniffed the blanket THE GIRL held for her. She scented Arlen upon it, but disregarded the scent; it was weaker, and not at all the scent she had found on the hay. Arlens smell was lemony and tired, and Frisky knew at once that it was the smell of an old man. Denniss smell was more exciting and vital. To Friskys nose, it was the electric blue of a summer lightning stroke. She barked to show that she knew this smell and had put it safely away in her library of scents. All right, good girl, THE TALL BOY said. Can you follow it? Shell follow it, THE GIRL said confidently. Lets go. Itll be dark in an hour. Thats so, THE GIRL said, and then grinned. When THE GIRL grinned that way, Frisky thought her heart might just burst with love of her. But it isnt her eyes that we want, is it? THE TALLBOY smiled. I guess not, he said. You know, I must be crazy, but I think were going to pick up these cards and play them. Course we are, she said. Come on, Ben. Lets use what little daylights leftitll be dark soon enough. Frisky, her nose full of that brightblue scent, barked eagerly. 99 Peters supper came promptly at six oclock that Sunday night. The storm clouds hung heavy over Delain and the temperature had begun to drop, but the winds hadnt yet begun to blow and not a snowflake had fallen. On the far side of the Plaza, shivering in stolen cookboys whites, Dennis stood anxiously, drawn back into the deepest shadow he could find, staring at the single square of paleyellow light at the top of the NeedlePeters candle. Peter, of course, knew nothing of Denniss vigilhe was filled with the wonder of the idea that, live or die, this would be the last meal he would ever eat in this damned prison cell. It was just more tough, salty meat, halfrotted potatoes, and watery ale, but he would eat it all. For the last three weeks he had eaten little and had spent all the waking time he did not spend working at the tiny loom exercising, readying his body. Today, however, he had eaten everything brought to him. He would need all his strength tonight. What will happen to me? he wondered again, sitting down at the little table and grasping the napkin that lay over his meal. Where exactly will I go? Who will take me in? Anyone? All men, its said, must trust in the gods . . . but Peter, you are trusting so much its ridiculous. Stop. Whatll be is whatll be. Now eat, and think no more of But that was where his restless thoughts broke off, because as he shook the napkin out, he felt a small stab, like the prick of a nettle. Frowning, he looked down and saw that a tiny bead of blood had seeped up on the ball of his right forefinger. Peters first thought was of Flagg. In the fairy tales, it was always a needle that bore the poison. Perhaps he had been poisoned now, by Flagg. That was his first thought, and not such a silly one, at that. After all, Flagg had used poison before. Peter picked the napkin up, saw a tiny folded object with black, smudgy marks on it . . . and flipped the napkin back down at once. His face remained calm and peaceful, giving away none of the wild excitement that had burst up inside him at the sight of the note pinned inside the napkin. He glanced casually toward the door, suddenly afraid he would see one of the Lesser Wardersor Beson himselfstaring suspiciously in at him. But there was no one. The prince had been a great object of curiosity when he first came to the Needle, stared at as avidly as a rare fish is stared at in a collectors tanksome of them had even smuggled their ladyloves up to look at the murdering monster (and they would have been imprisoned for it themselves, if they had been caught). But Peter was a model prisoner, and he had palled quickly. No one was looking at him now. Peter forced himself to eat his entire meal, although he no longer wanted it. He wanted to take not the slightest chance of rousing suspicionsnow more than ever. He had no idea who the note might be from, or what it might say, or why it had aroused such a fever in him. But for a note to come now, only hours before he planned to make his try to escape, seemed an omen. But of what? When his meal was finally eaten, he glanced toward the door again, made sure the spyhole was closed, and walked to his bedroom with his napkin still held casually in one hand, almost as if he had forgotten that he held it at all. In the bedroom, he unpinned the note (his hands were trembling so badly he pricked himself again) and unfolded it. It was written closely on both sides in letters which were rusty and a bit childish, but readable enough. His glance went first to the signature . . . and his eyes widened. The note was signed Dennisyour Friend and Servant ForEver. Dennis? Peter muttered, so flabbergasted he was unaware that he had whispered aloud. Dennis? He turned back then, and the letters opening was enough to shock his heartbeat into a fast drumroll. The salutation was My King. 100 My King, As you may Noe, for the last 5 Yeres I have Buttled in Service to your Brother, Thomas. In just this last Week I have found out that You did not Murther you Father Roland the Good. I Noe who Did, and Thomas Noes as Well. You would Noe the name of this Black Killer if I dared to Rite it, but I do Not. I went to Peyna. Peyna has gone to join the Exiles with his Butler, Orlon. He has commanded I come to the Castle, and Rite to you this note. Peyna says that the Exiles may soon become Rebels and this must not Be. He thinks you may have some sort of Plan, but what he Noes Not. He commands that I be of Service to You, and my Da commanded it too, before He Dyed, and my Heart commands it, for our Famly has always served the King and you are the Right King. If you have a Plan, I will aid you in Any Way I can, even if it means my Death. As you read this, I am across the Platza in the shadows looking at the Needle where you are Pent Up. If you have a Plan, come I pray You and stand at the Window. If You have something on which You can rite, then throe down a Note and I will try to retreeve It late this Night. Wave twyce if you will try this idea. Your friend Ben is with the Exiles. Peyna said He would send Him. I Noe were He (Ben) will be. If You say I should fetch Him (Ben) I can, in a Day. Or perhaps Two if there is Snoe. I Noe that throwing down a Note might be Riskee, but I feel Time is short. Peyna feels the Same Way. I will be Watching and Praying. Dennis Your Friend and Servant ForEver 101 It was a long time before Peter could put his whirling thoughts in order. His mind kept circling back to one question What had Dennis seen to change his mind so radically and completely? What, in the names of all the gods, could it have been? Little by little he came to realize that it didnt matterDennis had seen something, and that was enough. Peyna. Dennis had gone to Peyna, and Peyna had sensed . . . well, the old fox had sensed something. He thinks you may have some sort of Plan, but what he Noes Not. Old fox indeed. He had not forgotten Peters request for the dollhouse, and the napkins. He hadnt known exactly what those things meant, but he had sensed something in the wind. Aye, well and truly. Then what was Peter to do? Part of hima very large partwanted to go ahead just as he had planned. He had worked his courage up to this desperate adventure; now it was hard to let it go for nothing but more waiting. And there were the dreams, urging him on, as well. You would Noe the name of this Black Killer if I dared to Rite it, but I do Not. Peter knew just the same, of course, and it was that more than anything else that convinced him Dennis really had stumbled onto something. Peter felt that Flagg might soon awake to this new developmentand he wanted to be gone before that happened. Was a day too long to wait? Perhaps. Perhaps not. Peter was torn in an agony of indecision. Ben . . . Thomas . . . Flagg . . . Peyna . . . Dennis . . . they whirled in his brain like figures seen in a dream. What should he do? In the end, it was the appearance of the note itselfnot what was in itthat persuaded him. For it to come this way, pinned to a napkin on the very night he meant to try his rope made of napkins . . . it meant he should wait. But only for a night. Ben would not be able to help. Could Dennis help him, though? What could he do? And suddenly, in a flash of light, an idea came to him. Peter had been sitting on his bed, hunched over the note, his brows furrowed. Now he straightened up, his eyes alight. His eyes fell on the note again. If You have something on which You can rite, then throe down a Note and I will try to retreeve It late this Night. Yes, of course, he had something to write on. Not the napkin itself, because it might be missed. Not Denniss note, either, because it was written on both sides, from side to side and top to bottom. But Valeras parchment was not. Peter went back into his sitting room. He glanced at the door and saw that the spyhole was closed. Dimly he could hear the warders at cards below. He crossed to the window and waved twice, hoping that Dennis was really out there somewhere, and could see him. He would just have to hope so. Peter went back to the bedroom, pulled up the loose stone, and after some reaching and fumbling, retrieved the locket and the parchment. He turned the parchment over to the blank side . . . but what was he to do for ink? After a moment the answer came to him. The same thing Valera had done, of course. Peter worked at his thin straw mattress, and after some tugging opened a seam. The stuffing was of straw, and before long, he had found a number of good long stalks that would serve as pens. Then he opened the locket. It was in the shape of a heart, and the point at the bottom was sharp. Peter closed his eyes for a moment and said a brief prayer. Then he opened them and drew the point of the locket across his wrist. Blood welled up at oncemuch more than had come from the pinprick earlier. He dipped the first straw in his blood and began to write. 102 Standing in the cold darkness across the Plaza, Dennis saw Peters shape come to the small window at the top of the Needle. He saw Peter raise his arms over his head and cross them twice. There would be a message, then. It doubledno, trebledhis risk, but he was glad. He settled in to wait, feeling numbness slowly creep over his feet and kill the feeling in them. The wait seemed very long. The Crier called ten . . . then eleven . . . finally twelve o the clock. The clouds had hidden the moon, but the air seemed strangely lightanother sign of a coming storm. He was beginning to think that Peter must have forgotten him, or changed his mind, when that shape came to the window again. Dennis straightened up, wincing at a pain in his neck, which had been cocked upward for the last four hours. He thought he saw something arc out . . . and then Peters shape left the high window. A moment later, the light up there was extinguished. Dennis looked left and right, saw no one, took all of his courage in his hands, and ran out into the Plaza. He knew perfectly well that there might be someonea more alert Guard o the Watch than last nights tuneless singer, for instancewhom he hadnt seen, but there was nothing to be done about that. He was also gruesomely aware of all the men and women who had been beheaded not far from here. What if their ghosts were still around, lurking? But thinking about such things did no good, and so he tried to put them from his mind. Of more immediate concern was just finding the thing that Peter had thrown. The area at the foot of the Needle below Peters window was a featureless white snowfield. Feeling horribly exposed, Dennis began to cast about like an inept hunting dog. He wasnt sure what he had seen glimmering in the airit had been there only for a secondbut it had looked solid. That made sense; Peter would not have thrown a piece of paper, which might have fluttered anywhere. But what, and where was it? As the seconds ticked by, turning into minutes, Dennis began to feel more and more frantic. He dropped to his hands and knees and began to crawl about, peering into footprints which had melted to the size of dragon prints earlier that day and which were now refreezing, hard and blue and shiny. Sweat coursed down his face. And he began to be deviled by a recurring ideathat a hand would fall on his shoulder, and when he turned he would see the grinning face of the Kings magician inside his dark cowl. A little late for hide and seek, isnt it, Dennis? Flagg would say, and although his grin would widen, his eyes would burn a baleful, hellish red. What have you lost? Can I help you find it? Dont think his name! For the gods sake, dont think his name! But it was hard to stop. Where was it? Oh, where was it? Back and forth Dennis crawled, his hands now as numb as his feet. Back and forth, back and forth. Where was it? Bad enough if he was unable to find it. Worse still if the snow held off until morning light and someone else did. Gods knew what it might say. Dimly, he heard the Crier call one o the clock. He was now covering ground he had already covered before, becoming more and more panicky. Stop, Dennis. Stop, boy. His das voice, too clear in his head to be mistaken. Dennis had been on his hands and knees, his nose almost on the ground. Now he straightened up a little. Youre not SEEING anything anymore, boy. Stop and close your eyes for a moment. And when you open em, look around. Really look around. Dennis closed his eyes tight and then opened them wide. This time, he looked around almost casually, scanning the whole snowy, tracked area around the foot of the Needle. Nothing. Nothing at Wait! There! Over there! Something glimmered. Dennis saw a curve of metal, barely poking half an inch out of the snow. Beside it, he could see a round track made by one of his kneeshe had almost crawled over the thing during his frantic hunt. He tried to pluck it from the snow and on his first try only pushed it farther in. His hand was almost too numb to close. Digging in the snow for the metal object, Dennis realized that if his knee had come down on it instead of beside it, he would have driven it more deeply into the snow without even feeling ithis knees were as numb as the rest of him. And then he never would have seen it at all. It would have remained buried until the spring thaws. He touched it, forced his fingers to close, and brought it out. He looked at it wonderingly. It was a tocketa locket which might be gold, in the shape of a heart. There was a fine chain attached to it. The locket was shutbut caught in its jaws was a folded piece of paper. Very old paper. Dennis pulled the note free, closed his hand gently over the old paper, and slipped the lockets chain over his head. He got creakily to his feet and ran back toward the shadows. That run was, in a way, the worst part of the whole business for him. He had never felt so exposed in his whole life. For every step he ran, the comforting shadows of the buildings on the far side of the Plaza seemed to recede a step. At last he reached comparative safety and stood in the shadows for a while, panting and shuddering. When he had gotten his breath, he returned to the castle, slinking along the Fourth Alley in the shadows and entering by Cooks Way. There was a Guard of the Watch at the doorway leading into the castle proper, but he was as sloppy about his duties as his mate had been the night before. Dennis waited, and eventually the guard wandered off. Dennis darted inside. Twenty minutes later, he was safely back in the storeroom of the napkins. Here he unfolded the note and looked at it. One side was closely writ in an archaic hand. The writer had used a strange rustcolored ink and Dennis could make nothing of it. He turned the note over and his eyes widened. He recognized the ink that had been used to write the short message on this side easily enough. Oh, King Peter, he moaned. The message was smeared and blurrythe ink had not been blottedbut he could read it. Meant to try Escape tonight. Will wait 1 night. Dare wait no longer. Dont go for Ben. No time. Too dangerous. I have a Rope. Thin. May break. Too short. Will be a drop in any case. 20 feet. Midnight tomorrow. Help me away if you can. Safe place. May be hurt. In the hands of the gods. I love you my good Dennis. King Peter. Dennis read this note three times and then burst into tearstears of joy. That light Peyna had sensed was now shining brightly in Denniss own heart. That was well, and soon all would be well. His eyes returned again and again to the tine I love you my good Dennis, written in the Kings own blood. He had not needed to add that for the message to make sense . . . and yet, he had. Peter, I would die a thousand deaths for you, Dennis thought. He put the note inside his jerkin, and lay down with the locket still around his neck. It was a very long time before sleep found him this time. And he had not slept long before he snapped wide awake. The door of the storeroom was openingthe low creak of its hinges seemed an inhuman shriek to Dennis. Before his sleepfuddled mind even had time to realize he had been found, a dark shadow with burning eyes swept down on him. 103 The snow began at around three o the clock that Monday morningBen Staad saw the first flakes go skating past his eyes as he and Naomi stood at the edge of the Kings Preserves, looking out toward the castle. Frisky sat on her haunches, panting. The humans were tired, and Frisky was tired as well, but she was eager to gothe scent had grown steadily fresher. She had led them easily from Peynas farm to the deserted house where Dennis had spent some four days, eating raw potatoes and thinking sour thoughts about turnips which turned out to be as sour as the thoughts themselves. In that empty Inner Baronies farmstead, the brightblue scent she had followed this far had been everywhereshe had barked excitedly, running from room to room, nose down, tail wagging cheerfully. Look, Naomi said. Our Dennis burnt something here. She was pointing at the fireplace. Ben came and looked, but he could make out nothingthere were only bundles of ash which fell apart when he poked at them. Of course, they were Denniss early tries at his note. Now what? Naomi asked. He went to the castle from here, thats clear. The question is, do we follow or spend the night here? It had then been six oclock. Outside it was already dark. I think we had better go on, Ben said slowly. After all, it was you who said we wanted Friskys nose, not her eyes . . . and I, for one, would testify before the throne of any King in creation that Frisky has a noble nose. Frisky, sitting in the doorway, barked as if to say she knew it. All right, Naomi said. He looked at her closely. It had been a long run from the camp of the exiles, with little rest for either of them. He knew they should stay . . . but he was nearly frantic with urgency. Can you go on? he asked. Dont say you can if you cant, Naomi Reechul She put her hands on her hips and looked at him haughtily. I could go on a hundred koner from the place where you dropped dead, Ben Staad. Ben grinned. You may get your chance to prove it, too, he said. But first well have a bite to eat. They ate quickly. When the meal was finished, Naomi knelt by Frisky and quietly told her that she must take up the scent again. Frisky didnt have to be asked twice. The three of them quit the farmhouse, Ben with a large pack on his back, Naomi with one only slightly smaller. To Frisky, Denniss scent was a blue mark in the night, as bright as a wire glowing with an electric charge. She began to follow at once, and was confused when THE GIRL called her back. Then it came to her; if Frisky had been human, she would have slapped her forehead and groaned. In her impatience to be off, she had started sniffing up Denniss backtrail. By midnight she would have had them back at Peynas farmhouse. Thats all right, Frisky, Naomi said. Take your time. Sure, Ben said. Take a week or two, Frisky. Take a month, if you want. Naomi cast a sour glance Bens way. Ben shut upprudently, perhaps. The two of them watched Frisky nose back and forth, first across the dooryard of the deserted farm, then across the road. Has she lost it? Ben asked. No, shell pick it up in a minute or two I think, Naomi didnt say aloud. Its just that shes found a whole tangle of scents in the road and she has to sort them out. Look! Ben said doubtfully. Shes off into the field there. That cant be right, can it? I dont know. Would he have taken the road to the castle? Ben Staad was human, and he did slap his forehead. No, of course not. Im a dolt. Naomi smiled sweetly and said nothing. In the field, Frisky had paused. She turned toward THE GIRL and THE TALLBOY and barked impatiently for them to follow. Anduan huskies were the tame descendants of the great white wolves the residents of the Northern Barony had feared in earlier times, but tame or not, they were hunters and trackers before they were anything else. Frisky had isolated that brightblue thread of scent again, and was in a fever to be off. Come on, Ben said. I just hope shes found the right scent. Of course she has! Look! She pointed, and Ben was just able to make out long, shallow tracks in the snow. Even in the dark Ben and Naomi knew the tracks for what they weresnowshoes. Frisky barked again. Lets hurry, Ben said. By midnight, as they began to draw close to the Kings Preserves, Naomi began to regret the crack shed made about how she could go on a hundred koner from the place where Ben dropped dead, because she had begun to feel as if that might soon happen to her. Dennis had made the trip in better time, but Dennis had set out after four days of rest, Dennis had had snowshoes, and Dennis had not been following a dog who sometimes lost the scent and had to cast about for it again. Naomis legs felt hot and rubbery. Her lungs burned. There was a stitch in her left side. She had taken a few mouthfuls of snow, but they could not slake her raging thirst. Frisky, who was not burdened by a pack and who could run lightly along the snow crust, was not tired at all. Naomi was able to walk on the crust for short distances, but then she would strike a rotten spot and plunge through the crust into soft snow up to her knees . . . and on several occasions, up to her hips. Once she plunged in waistdeep and floundered about in a tired fury until Ben worked his way over and pulled her out. Wish . . . sled, she panted now. . . . wishes . . . horses . . . beggarsd ride, he panted back, grinning in spite of his own weariness. Funny, she gasped. Haha. Ought to be a court jester, Ben Staad. Kings Preserves up there. Less snow . . . easier. He bent over, hands on his knees, and gasped for breath. Naomi suddenly felt that she had been selfish and unkind, thinking about how she herself felt, when Ben must be even closer to the point of exhaustionhe was much heavier than she, especially with the weight of the larger pack he carried added into the bargain. He had been breaking through the snow crust on almost every step, leaping through the long fields like a man running in deep water, and yet he had not complained or slowed. Ben, are you all right? No, he wheezed and grinned. But Ill make it, pretty child. I am not a child! she said angrily. But you are pretty, he said, and put his thumb to the tip of his nose. He wiggled his fingers at her. Oh, Ill get you for that Later, he panted. Race you to the woods. Come on. So they raced, with Frisky chasing along the scent ahead of them, and he beat her, and that made her madder than ever . . . but she admired him, too. 104 Now they stood looking across the seventy koner of open ground between the edge of the forest where King Roland had once slain a dragon and the walls of the castle where he had been slain himself. A few more snowflakes skirted down from the sky . . . and a few more . . . and suddenly, magically, the air was filled with snow. In spite of his weariness, Ben felt a moment of peace and joy. He looked at Naomi and smiled. She tried a scowl but it wouldnt fit her face and so she smiled, too. A moment later, she ran her tongue out and tried to catch a flake of snow. Ben laughed quietly. How did he get inside, if he did? Naomi asked. I dont know, Ben said. He had grown up on a farm, and knew nothing of the casdes sewer system. Probably every bit as well for him, you might say, and you would be right. Perhaps your champion dog can show us how he did it. You really think he did, dont you, Ben? Oh, aye, Ben said. What do you think, Frisky? At the sound of her name, Frisky got up, ranged along the scent for a few feet, and looked back at them. Naomi looked at Ben. Ben shook his head. Not yet, he said. Naomi called Frisky softly, and she came back, whining. If she could talk, shed tell you shes afraid of losing the scent. The snow will cover it. Well not wait long. Dennis had the snowshoes, but were going to have something he didnt, Naomi. Whats that? Cover. 105 In spite of Friskys growing restlessness at being checked on the scent, Ben made them wait fifteen minutes. By then the air had become a shifting cloud of white. Snow frosted Naomis brown hair and his own blond hair; Frisky wore a cold ermine stole. They could no longer see the castle walls ahead of them. All right, Ben said softly, lets go. They crossed the open ground behind Frisky. The big husky moved slowly now, her nose constantly at the snow, puffing it up every now and again in cold little bursts. The brightblue runner of scent was dimming, being covered by the white nosmell stuff from the sky. We may have waited too long, Naomi said quietly beside him. Ben said nothing. He knew it, and the knowledge gnawed at his heart like a rat. Now a dark bulk loomed out of the whitenessthe castle wall. Naomi had moved slightly ahead. Ben reached out and grabbed her arm. The moat, he said. Dont forget that. Its up here somewhere. Youll go over the side and land on the ice and break your ne He got just so far and then Naomis eyes blazed with alarm. She pulled out of his grip. Frisky! she hissed. Hai! Frisky! Danger! Dropoff! She darted after the dog. That girl is absolutely giddy bonkers, Ben thought with a certain admiration. Then he darted after her. Naomi neednt have worried. Frisky had stopped at the edge of the moat. Her nose was buried in the snow and her tail was wagging happily. Now she bit down on something and dragged it out of the loose powder. She turned to Naomi, eyes asking Now am I a good dog, or what? What do you think? Naomi laughed and hugged her dog. Ben glanced toward the castle wall. Hush! he whispered at her. If the guards hear you, were in the slatecracker for sure! Where do you think we are? Your back garden? Pooh! If they heard anything, theyd think it was snow sprites and run for their mommies. But she whispered, too. Then she buried her face in Friskys fur and told her again what a good dog she was. Ben scratched Friskys head. Because of the snow, neither of them had the horribly exposed sense Dennis had had when he had sat in the same place, taking off the snowshoes Frisky had now found. Nose of the gods, all right, Ben said. But what happened after he took off the snowshoes, Frisky? Did he grow wings and fly over Westrd Redan? Where did he go from here? As if in answer, Frisky broke away from both of them and went floundering and slipping down the steep bank to the frozen moat. Frisky! Naomi called, her voice low but alarmed. Frisky only stood on the ice looking up at them, hockdeep in new snow. Her tail was wagging slightly, and her eyes begged them to come. She did not bark; somehow she knew better, even though Naomi had not thought to warn her to silence. But she barked in her mind. The scent was still here, and she wanted to follow it before it disappeared completely, as it now would within minutes. Naomi looked questioningly at Ben. Yes, he said. Of course. We have to. Come on. But keep her to heeldont let her range ahead. Theres danger here. I feel it. He held out his hand. Naomi grasped it, and they slid down to the moat together. Frisky led them slowly across the ice toward the castle wall. She was now actually digging for the scent, her nose furrowing the snow. It had begun to be overlaid with a thick, unpleasant smelldirty, warm water, garbage, ordure. Dennis had known that the ice would begin to grow dangerously rotten as he got closer to the outflow pipe. Even if he hadnt known, he was able to see the three feet or so of open water next to the wall. Things werent so easy for Ben, Naomi, and Frisky. They had simply assumed that if the ice was thick along the moats outer bank, it must be thick all the way across. And their eyes were of little use to them in the thickly falling snow. Friskys eyes were the weakest of the three, and she was in the lead. Her ears were sharp enough, and she had heard the ice groaning beneath the new snow . . . but the scent was too much on her mind for her to take much notice of the faint creaks . . . until the ice gave way beneath her and she plunged into the moat with a splash. Frisky! Fr Ben clapped a hand over her mouth. She struggled to get away from him. Ben had now seen the danger, however, and held her fast. Naomi neednt have worried. Of course all dogs can swim, and with her thick, oily coat, Frisky was safer in the water than either of the humans would have been. She paddled almost to the castle wall amid chunks of rotted ice and whippedcream globs of snow that quickly turned into dark slush and disappeared. She raised her head, smelling, searching for the scent . . . and when she knew where it went, she turned and paddled back toward Ben and Naomi. She found the edge of the ice. Her paws broke it off, and she tried again. Naomi cried out. Be still, Naomi, or youll have us in the dungeons by dawn, Ben said. Hold my ankles. |
He let her go and then sprawled on his belly. Naomi crouched behind him and seized his boots. This close to the ice, Ben could hear it groaning and muttering. It could have been one of us, he thought, and that would have been trouble indeed. He spread his legs out a bit to distribute his weight better, and then grabbed Frisky by the forepaws just below her wide, strong chest. Here you come, girl, Ben grunted. I hope. Then he putted. For a moment, Ben thought that the ice would just go on breaking under Friskys weight as he dragged her forwardfirst he and then Naomi would follow Frisky into the moat. Crossing that moat on his way into the castle to play with his friend Peter on a summers day, with blue sky and white clouds reflecting off its surface, Ben had always thought it beautiful, like a painting. He had never once suspected that he might die in it one black night during a snowstorm. And it smelled very bad. Pull me backward! he grunted. Your damn dog weighs a ton! Dont you say mean things about my dog, Ben Staad! Bens eyes were slitted shut with strain, his lips split open over clenched teeth. A million pardons. And if you dont start pulling me, Im going to be taking a bath, think. Somehow she managed to do it, although Ben and Frisky together must have been three times her own weight. Bens prone, splayed body dug a channel in the new powder; a snow pyramid built up in his crotch, the way it will build up in the angle of a wooden plow. At lastit seemed like at last to Ben and Naomi, although in truth it was probably only a matter of secondsFriskys chest stopped breaking the ice and slid onto it. A moment later, her rear paws were digging for purchase. Then she was up and shaking herself vigorously. Dirty moat water sprayed into Bens face. Pah! he grimaced, wiping it off. Thanks a lot, Frisky! But Frisky paid no attention. She was looking toward the wall of the castle again. Although the ice was already freezing to her pelt in dirty spicules, the scent was what interested her. She had smelled it clearly, above her but not far above her. There was a darkness there. No cold white nosmell stuff there. Ben was getting to his feet, brushing the snow off. Im sorry I yelled like that, Naomi whispered. If it had been any other dog but Frisky . . . do you think I was heard? If youd been heard, wed have been challenged, Ben whispered back. Gods, that was close. Now they could see the open water just in front of the ancient stone wall of Castle Delains outer redan, because they were looking for it. What do we do? We cant go on, Ben whispered, thats obvious. But what did he do, Naomi? Where did he go from here? Maybe he did fly. If we But Naomi never finished the thought, because that was when Frisky took matters into her own paws. All of her ancestors had been famous hunters, and it was in her blood. She had been set upon this exciting, enticing electricblue scent, and she found she could not leave it. So she screwed her haunches down to the ice, tensed her sledtoughened muscles, and leaped into the dark. Her eyes, as Ive said, were the least of her sensory equipment, and her leap really was blind; she could not see the dark hole of the sewer pipe from the edge of the ice. But she had seen it from the water, and even if she hadnt, she had her nose, and she knew it was there. 106 Its Flagg, Denniss sleepfuddled mind thought as that dark shape with the burning eyes swept down on him. Its Flagg, hes found me, and now hell rip my throat out with his teeth He tried to scream, but no sound came out. The mouth of the intruder did open; Dennis saw huge white teeth . . . and then a big warm tongue was lapping his face. Ulf! Dennis said, trying to push the thing away. Paws came up on either shoulder, and Dennis fell back on his mattress of napkins like a pinned wrestler. Laplap, licklick. Ulf! Dennis said again, and the dark, shaggy shape uttered a low, companionable woof, as if to say I know it, Im glad to see you, too. Frisky! a low voice called from the darkness. Stand down, Frisky! No sounds! The dark shape was not Flagg at all; it was an extremely large doga dog which looked too much like a wolf for comfort, Dennis thought. When the girl spoke, it drew away and sat down. It looked happily at Dennis; its tail thumped mutedly on Denniss bed of napkins. Two more shapes in the darkness, one taller than the other. Not Flagg, that much was clear. Castle guards, then. Dennis grabbed his dagger. If the gods were good, he might be able to get rid of both of them. If not, then he would try to die well in the service of his King. The two figures had stopped a little short of him. Come on, Dennis said, and raised his dagger (it was really not much more than a pocketknife, and was rather rusty and quite dull) in a brave gesture. First you two and then your devildog! Dennis? The voice was eerily familiar. Dennis, have we really found you? Dennis started to lower his dagger, then brought it up again. It had to be a trick. Had to be. But the voice sounded so much like Ben? he whispered. Is it Ben Staad? Its Ben, the taller shape confirmed, and gladness filled Denniss heart. The shape began to come forward. Alarmed, Dennis raised his dagger again. Wait! Do you have a light? Flint and steel, yes. Strike it. Aye. A moment later, a big yellow spark, surely dangerous in that room filled with dry cotton napkins, flared in the gloom. Come forward, Ben, Dennis said, reseating his poor excuse for a dagger in its sheath. He got to his feet, trembling with gladness and relief. Ben was here. By what magic Dennis did not knowonty that it had somehow happened. His feet caught in the napkins and he stumbled forward, but there was no danger that he might fall, because Bens arms swept him up in a strong embrace. Ben was here and all would be well, Dennis thought, and it was all he could do to keep from bursting into unmanly tears. 107 There followed a great exchange of storiesI think you have heard most of them, and the parts you havent can be told quickly enough. Friskys leap was a bullseye. She carried straight into the pipe and then turned around to see if Naomi and Ben would follow her. If they hadnt done so, Frisky would have eventually leaped back to the iceshe should have been greatly disappointed to do it, but she would not have left her mistress for the most exciting scent in the world. Frisky knew that; Naomi was less sure. She didnt even dare call Frisky back, for fear of a guards overhearing. She therefore intended to go after the dog. She would not leave Frisky, and if Ben tried to make her, she would deck him with a right hook. She neednt have worried. The minute he spotted the pipe, Ben understood where Dennis had gone. Noble nose, Frisky, he said again. He turned to Naomi. Can you make it? If I draw back and run, I can make it. Dont misjudge where the ice goes rotten or youll take a dunking. And your heavy clothes will drag you down very quickly. I wont misjudge. Let me go first, Ben said. If I have to, maybe I can catch you. He drew back a few paces and jumped so strongly that he almost took off the top of his head on the upper curve of the pipe. Frisky barked once, excitedly. Shut up, dog! Ben said. Naomi drew back to the edge of the moat, stood there for a moment (the snow had by then been coming down so heavily that Ben couldnt see her), and then ran forward. Ben held his breath, hoping she wouldnt misjudge the edge of the good ice. If she ran too far before trying to make her leap, the longest arms in the world wouldnt catch ber. But she timed it perfectly. Ben didnt need to catch her; all he had to do was to get out of her way as she carried into the pipe. She didnt even bump her head, as Ben had done. The worst part of it was the smell, Naomi said as they told their story to a wondering Dennis. How did you stand it? Well, I just kept reminding myself of what would happen to me if I got caught, Dennis said. Every time I did that, the air seemed to smell a little better. Ben laughed at this and nodded, and Dennis looked at him with shining eyes for a moment. Then he looked back at Naomi. It did smell awfully bad, though, he agreed. I remember that it smelled bad when I was a kid, but not that bad. Maybe a kid doesnt really know how bad a smell is. Or something. I guess that could be, Naomi said. Frisky was lying on a pile of royal napkins with her muzzle on her paws, her eyes moving from one person to the next as each spoke. She knew very little of what they were saying, but if she had, and if she could have spoken, she would have told Dennis that his perceptions of what made a really bad smell hadnt changed at all since he was a boy. It had been the last dying remainder of the Dragon Sand they had smelled, of course. The odor had been much stronger to Frisky than to THE GIRL and THE TALLBOY. Denniss scent had still been there, now mostly in splashes and blobs on the curved walls (these were the places Dennis had touched with his hands; the floor of the pipes was covered with a foul warm water that had washed away all scent). It was the same bright electric blue. The other scent was a dull leathery greenFrisky was afraid of it. She knew that some scents could kill, and she knew that, not so long ago, this had been just such a scent. But it was losing its potency now, and in any case, Denniss scent led away from the greater concentrations of it. Not too long before they reached the grating Dennis had used to get out of the sewer system, she began to lose the green smell altogetherand Frisky was never in her whole life so happy to lose a smell. You met no one? No one at all? Dennis asked anxiously. No one, Ben said. I ranged a little bit ahead to keep an eye out. I saw guards several times, but we always had plenty of time to get to some cover before they could see us. In truth, I think we could have come directly here and passed twenty guards and only have been challenged once or twice. Most of them were drunk. Naomi nodded. Guards o the Watch, she said. Drunk. And not drunk out on picket along the northern borders of some pissy little barony no one ever heard of; drunk in the castle. Right in the castle! Dennis, remembering the toneless, noseblowing singer, nodded gloomily. I suppose we should be glad. If the Guard o the Watch was now what it was in Rolands day, wed all be in the Needle along wi Peter. But I cant be glad, somehow. Ill tell you this, Ben said in a soft voice, if I were Thomas, Id quake in my boots every time I looked north, if such as we saw tonight are all he has around him. Naomi looked very troubled at this. Pray the gods it never comes to that, she said. Ben nodded. Dennis reached out and stroked Friskys head. Followed me all the way from Peynas, did you? What a smart dog you are, aye! Frisky thumped her tail happily. Naomi said I would hear this story of the sleepwalking King, Dennis, if you would tell it again. So Dennis told his story, much as he told it to Peyna and as I have told it to you, and they listened as spellbound as children hearing the tale of the talking wolf in the gammers nightcap. 108 By the time he had finished, it was seven oclock. Outside, a dim gray glow had come over Delainthat clotted stormlight was as bright at seven as it would be at noon, for the greatest storm of that winterand perhaps the greatest in historyhad come to Delain. The wind howled around the eaves of the castle like a tribe of banshees. Even down here, the fugitives could hear it. Frisky raised her head and whined uneasily. What do we do now? Dennis asked. Ben, who had gone over Peters brief note again and again, said Until tonight, nothing. The castles awake by now, and theres no way we could get out of here without being seen under any circumstances. We sleep. Get our strength back. And tonight, before midnight Ben spoke briefly. Naomi grinned; Denniss eyes grew bright with excitement. Yes! Dennis said. By the gods! Youre a genius, Ben! Please, I wouldnt go that far, Naomi said, but by then her grin was so broad it seemed in danger of splitting her head in two. She reached over, put her arms around Ben, and kissed him soundly. Ben turned an absolutely alarming shade of red (he looked as if he might be on the verge of bursting his brains, as they said in Delain in those longago days)I must tell you, though, that he also looked delighted. Will Frisky help us? Ben asked when he got his breath back. At the sound of her name, Frisky looked up again. Of course she will. But well need . . . They discussed this new plan for some time longer, and then Bens lower face seemed to almost disappear in a great yawn. Naomi also looked tired out. They had been awake for over twentyfour hours by then, you will remember, and had come a great distance. Enough, Ben said. Its time for sleep. Hooray! Naomi said, beginning to arrange more napkins in a mattress for herself beside Frisky. My legs feel as if Dennis cleared his throat politely. What is it? Ben asked. Dennis looked at their packsBens big one, Naomis slightly smaller one. I dont suppose youve got . . . um, anything to eat in there, do you? Impatiently, Naomi said Of course we do! What do you think Then she remembered that Dennis had left Peynas farmhouse six days ago, and that the butler had been skulking and hiding ever since. He had a pallid, undernourished look, and his face was too narrow and too bony. Oh, Dennis, Im sorry, were idiots! When did you eat last? Dennis thought about this. I cant remember exactly, he said. But the last sitdown meal I had was my lunch, a week ago. Why didnt you say so first thing, you dolt? Ben exclaimed. I guess because I was so excited to see you, Dennis said, and grinned. As he watched the two of them open their packs and begin rooting through the remainder of their supplies, his stomach gurgled noisily. Saliva squirted into his mouth. Then a thought struck him. You didnt bring any turnips, did you? Naomi turned to look at him, puzzled. Turnips? I dont have any. Do you, Ben? No. A gentle and supremely happy smile spread across Denniss face. Good, he said. 109 That was a mighty storm indeed, and its still told of in Detain today. Five feet of new snow had fallen by the time an early, howling dark came down on the castle keep. Five feet of new snow in one day is mighty enough, but the wind made drifts that were much, much bigger. By the time dark fell, the wind was no longer blowing a forcegale; it was blowing a hurricane. In places along the castle walls, snow was piled twentyfive feet deep, and covered the windows of not just first and second floors, but the thirdfloor windows as well. You might think this would have been good for Peters escape plans, and it might have been if the Needle hadnt stood all alone in the Plaza. But it did, and here the wind blew its hardest. A strong man couldnt have stood against that wind; he would have been sent rolling, head over heels, until he crashed against the first stone wall on the far side of the Plaza. And the wind had another effect, as wellit was like a giant broom. As fast as the snow fell, the wind blew it out of the Plaza. By dark there were huge drifts piled against the castle and clogging most of the alleys on the west side of the castle keep, but the Plaza itself was clean as a whistle. There were only the frozen cobbles, waiting to break Peters bones if his rope should break. And I must tell you now that Peters rope was bound to break. When he tested it, it had held his weight . . . but there was one fact about that mystic thing called breaking strain that Peter didnt know. Yosef hadnt known, either. The ox drivers knew it, though, and if Peter had asked them, they would have told him an old axiom, one known to sailors, loggers, seamstresses, and anyone else who works with thread or rope The longer the cord, the sooner the break. Peters short test rope had held him. The rope to which he meant to entrust his lifethe very thin ropewas about two hundred and sixtyfive feet long. It was bound to break, I tell you, and the cobbles below waited to catch him, and break his bones, and bleed away his life. 110 There were many disasters and neardisasters on that long, stormy day, just as there were many acts of heroism, some successful and some doomed to failure. Some farmhouses in the Inner Baronies blew over, as the houses of the indolent pigs were blown over by the wolfs hungry breath in the old story. Some of those who were thus rendered homeless managed to work their way across the white wastes to the castle keep, roped together for safety; others wandered off the Delain Great Road and into the whiteness, where they were losttheir frozen, wolfgnawed bodies wouldnt be found until the spring. But by seven that evening, the snow had finally begun to abate a little, and the wind to fall. The excitement was ending, and the castle went to bed early. There was little else to do. Fires were banked, children tucked in, last cups of fieldtea drunk, prayers said. One by one, the lights went out. The Crier called in his loudest voice, but the wind still tore his voice out of his mouth at eight o the clock and again at nine; it was not until ten that he could be heard again, and by then, most people were asleep. Thomas was also asleepbut his sleep was not easy. There was no Dennis to stay with him and comfort him this night; Dennis was still home ill. Thomas had thought several times of sending a page to check on him (or even to go himself; he liked Dennis very much), but something always seemed to come uppapers to sign . . . petitions to hear . . . and, of course, bottles of wine to be drunk. Thomas hoped Flagg would come and give him a powder to help him sleep . . . but ever since Flaggs useless trip into the north, the magician had been strange and distant. It was as if Flagg knew there was something wrong, but could not quite tell what it was. Thomas hoped the magician would come, but hadnt dared to summon him. As always, the shrieking wind reminded Thomas of the night his father died, and he feared he would have a hard time getting to sleep . . . and that, once he was asleep, horrible nightmares might come, dreams in which his father would scream and rant and finally burst into flames. So Thomas did what he had grown accustomed to doing; he spent the day with a glass of wine always in his hand, and if I told you how many bottles of wine this mere boy consumed before he finally went to bed at ten o the clock, you probably wouldnt believe meso ! I wont say. But it was a lot. Lying there miserably on his sofa, wishing that Dennis was in his accustomed place on the hearth, Thomas thought My head aches and my stomach feels sick . . . Is being King worth all this? I wonder. You might wonder, too . . . but before Thomas himself could wonder anymore, he fell heavily asleep. He slept for almost an hour . . . and then he rose and walked. Out the door he went and down the halls, ghostly in his long white nightshirt. This night a lategoing maid with an armload of sheets saw him, and he looked so much like old Kng Roland that the maid dropped her sheets and fled, screaming. Thomass darkly dreaming mind heard her screams and thought they were his fathers. He walked on, turning into the less used corridor. He paused halfway down and pushed the secret stone. He went into the passageway, closed the door behind him, and walked to the end of the corridor. He pushed aside the panels which were behind Niners glass eyes, and though he was still asleep, he pushed his face up to the holes, as if looking into his dead fathers sitting room. And here we will leave the unfortunate boy for a while, with the smell of wine surrounding him and tears of regret running from his sleeping eyes and down his cheeks. He was sometimes a cruel boy, often a sad boy, this pretend King, and he had almost always been a weak boy . . . but even now I must tell you that I do not believe he was ever really a bad boy. If you hate him because of the things he didand the things he allowed to be doneI will understand; but if you do not pity him a little as well, I will be surprised. 111 At quarter past eleven on that momentous night, the storm breathed its last gasp. A tremendous cold gust of wind swept down on the castle. It ran in excess of a hundred miles an hour. It tore the thinning clouds overhead apart like the swipe of a great hand. Cold, watery moonlight shone through. In the Third Eastard Alley was a squat stone tower called the Church of the Great Gods; it had stood there since time out of mind. Many people worshipped there, but it was empty now. A good thing, too. The tower was not very tallnowhere near the height of the Needlebut it nevertheless stood high above the neighboring buildings in the Third Eastard Alley, and all day long it had been punished by the unbroken force of the storm wind. This final gust was too much for it. The top thirty feetall stonesimply blew off, as a hat might fly off a scarecrow in a high gale. Part landed in the alley; part hit the neighboring buildings. There was a tremendous crash. Most of the populace of the castle keep, wearied by the excitement of the storm and already sleeping deeply, took no mind of the fall of the Church of the Great Gods (although they would wonder greatly over the snowcovered wreckage in the morning). Most simply muttered, turned over, and went back to sleep. Some Guards of the Watchthose not too drunk to careheard it, of course, and ran to see what had happened. Other than by these few, the fall of the tower went mostly unremarked when it happened . . . but there were a few others who heard it, and by now you know them all. Ben, Dennis, and Naomi, who were getting ready for their attempt to rescue the rightful King, heard it in the napkin storeroom, and looked around at each other with wide eyes. Never mind, Ben said, after a moment. I dont know what it was, but it doesnt matter. Lets get on with it. Beson and the Lesser Warders, all of them drunk, didnt hear the Church of the Great Gods fall down, but Peter did. He was sitting on the floor of his bedroom, carefully pulling his woven rope through his fingers, looking anxiously for weak points. He raised his head at the snowmuted thunder of falling stones, and went rapidly to the window. He could see nothing ; whatever had fallen was on the Needles far side. After several considering moments, he went back to his rope. Midnight was close now, and he had come to much the same conclusion as his friend Ben. It didnt matter. The dice had been thrown. Now he must go on. Deep in the darkness of the secret passage, Thomas heard the muffled thunderthud of the falling tower and woke up. He heard the muffled barking of dogs below him and realized in horror where he was. And one other who had been sleeping lightly and dreaming troubled dreams awoke at the fall of the tower. He woke even though he was deep in the bowels of the castle. Disaster! one of the parrots two heads screamed. Fire, flood, and escape! the other screamed. Flagg had awakened. I have told you that evil is sometimes strangely blind, and so it is. Sometimes evil is lulled with no reason, and sleeps. But now Flagg had awakened. 112 Flagg had come back from his trip into the north with a bit of a fever, a heavy cold, and a troubled mind. Something wrong, something wrong. The very stones of the castle seemed to whisper it to him . . . but Flagg was damned if he knew what it was. All he knew for sure was that unknown something wrong had sharp teeth. It felt like a ferret running around in his brain, taking a bite here and a bite there. He knew exactly when that animal had begun to run and gnaw while he was coming back from the fruitless expedition in search of the rebels. Because . . . because . . . Because the rebels should have been there! They hadnt been, and Flagg hated to be fooled. Worse, he hated feeling that he might have made a mistake. If he had made a mistake about where the rebels were to be found, then perhaps he had made mistakes about other things. What other things? He didnt know. But his dreams were bad. That small, badtempered animal ran around in his head, worrying him, insisting that he had forgotten things, that other things were going on behind his back. It raced, it gnawed, it ruined his sleep. Flagg had medicines that would rid him of his cold, but none that would touch that growing ferret in his brain. What could possibly be wrong? He asked himself this question over and over again, and in truth it seemedon the surface, at leastthat nothing could be. For many centuries, the old dark chaos inside him had hated the love and light and order of Detain, and he had worked hard to destroy all thatto knock it down as that last cold gust of storm had knocked down the Church of the Great Gods. Always, something had interfered with his plansa Kyla the Good, a Sasha, someone, something. But now he saw no possible interference, no matter where he looked. Thomas was totally his creature; if Flagg told him to step off the highest parapet of the castle, the fool would want to know only at which oclock he should do it. The farmers were groaning under the weight of the killing taxes Flagg had persuaded Thomas to impose. Yosef had told Peter there was a breaking strain on people as well as on ropes and chains, and so there isthe farmers and the merchants of Detain had nearly reached theirs. The rope by which the great blocks of taxes are attached to any citizenry is simple loyaltyloyalty to King, to country, to government. Flagg knew that if he made the taxblocks big enough, all the ropes would snap, and the stupid oxenfor that was really how he saw the people of Detainwould stampede, knocking down everything in their path. The first of the oxen had already broken free and had gathered in the north. They called themselves exiles now, but Flagg knew they would call themselves rebels soon enough. Peyna had been driven away and Peter was locked in the Needle. So what could be wrong? Nothing! Damn it, nothing! But the ferret ran and squirmed and gnawed and twisted. Many times over the last three or four weeks he had awakened in a cold sweat, not because of his recurring fever but because he had had some horrible dream. What was the substance of this dream? He could never remember. He only knew that he woke from it with his left hand pressed to his left eye, as if he had been wounded thereand that eye would burn, although he could find nothing wrong with it. 113 On this night, Flagg awoke with his dream fresh in his mind, because he was awakened before it was over. It was, of course, the fall of the Church of the Great Gods which woke him. Huh! Flagg cried, sitting bolt upright in his chair. His eyes were wide and staring, his white cheeks damp and shiny with sweat. Disaster! one of the parrots heads screamed. Fire, flood, and escape! the other screamed. Escape, Flagg thought. Yesthats whats been on my mind all this time, thats whats been gnawing at me. He looked down at his hands and saw that they were trembling. This infuriated him, and he sprang out of his chair. He means to escape, he muttered, running his hands through his hair. He means to try, anyway. But how? How? Whats his Plan? Who helped him? Theyll pay with their heads, I promise that . . . and they wont come off all in a chop, no! Theyll come off an inch . . . a haftinch . . . a quarterinch . . . at a time. Theyll be driven insane with the agony long before they die . . . Insane! one of the parrot heads shrieked. Agony! the other shrieked back. Will you shut up and let me think! Flagg howled. He seized a jar filled with murky brown fluid from a nearby table and threw it at the parrots cage. It struck and shattered; there was a flash of bright, heatless light. The parrots two heads squawked in terror; it fell off its perch and lay stunned at the bottom of its cage until morning. Flagg began to pace rapidly back and forth. His teeth were bared. His hands worked together restlessly, the fingers of one warring with the fingers of the other. His boots struck up greenish sparks from the nitercaked stones of his laboratory floor; these sparks smelled like summer lightning. How? When? Who helped? He could not remember. Already the dream was fading. But . . . I have to know! he whispered. I have to know! Because it would be soon; he sensed that much. It would be very, very soon. He found his keyring and opened the bottom drawer of his desk. He took out a box made of finely carved ironwood, opened it, and drew out a leather bag. He opened the bags drawstring top and carefully took out a chunk of rock that seemed to glow with its own inner light. This rock was as milky as an old mans blind eye. It looked like a piece of soapstone, but was in fact a crystalFlaggs magic crystal. He circled his room, turning down the lamps and capping the candles. Soon his apartment was in absolute darkness. Dark or not, Flagg returned to his desk with quick confidence, passing easily around objects that you or I would have barked our shins on or fallen over. The dark was nothing to the Kings magician; he liked the dark, and he could see in it like a cat. He sat down and touched the stone. He slipped his palms down its sides, feeling its ragged edges and angles. Show me, he murmured. This is my command. At first, nothing. Then, little by little, the crystal began to glow from within. There was only a tiny light at first, diffuse and pallid. Flagg touched the crystal again, this time with the tips of his fingers. It had grown warm. Show me Peter. This is my command. Show me the whelp that dares put himself in my way, and show me what he plans to do. The light grew brighter . . . brighter . . . brighter. Eyes glittering, cruel thin lips parted to show his teeth, Flagg bent over his crystal. Now Peter, Ben, Dennis, and Naomi would have recognized their dreamand they would have recognized the glow which lit the magicians face, the glow which was not a candle. The crystals milky cast suddenly disappeared, drawing into the brightening glow. Now Flagg could see into its heart. His eyes widened . . . then narrowed in bewilderment. It was Sasha, very pregnant, sitting at a little boys bed. The little boy was holding a slate. On it were written two words GOD and DOG. Impatiently, Flagg passed his hands over the crystal, which now gave off waves of heat. Show me what I need to know! This is my command! The crystal cleared again. It was Peter, playing with his dead mothers do house, pretending the house and the family inside were being attacked by Indians . . . or dragons . . . or some foolish thing. The old King stood in the corner, watching his son, wanting to join in . . . Bah! Flagg cried, waving his hands over the crystal again. Why do you show me these old, meaningless stories? I need to know how he plans to escape . . . and when! Now show me! This is my command!. The crystal had grown hotter and hotter. If he did not allow it to go dark soon, it would split apart forever, Flagg knew, and magic crystals were not easy to come byit had taken thirty years of searching to find this one. But he would see it broken into a billion pieces before he gave up. This is my command! he repeated again, and for the third time, the milkiness of the crystal drew inward. Flagg bent over it until its heat made his eyes water and gush tears. He slitted them . . . and then, in spite of the heat, they flew open wide in shock and fury. It was Peter. Peter was slowly descending the side of the Needle. Surely this was some treacherous magic, because, although he was making handoverhand motions, there was no rope to be seen Or . . . was there? Flagg waved a hand in front of his face, dissipating the heat for a moment. A rope? Not exactly. But there was something . . . something as gossamer as a strand of spiderweb . . . and yet it bore his weight. Peter, Flagg breathed, and at the sound of his voice, the tiny figure looked around. |
Flagg blew on the crystal and its bright, wavering light went out. He saw its afterglow in front of his eyes as he sat in the dark. Peter. Escaping. When? It had been night in the crystal, and Flagg had seen errant, gritty sheaves of snow blowing past the tiny figure working its way down the rounded wall. Was it to be later tonight? Tomorrow night? Sometime next week? Or Flagg pushed back from his desk and stood up with a lurch. His eyes filled with fire as he looked around his dark and stinking basement rooms. or had it happened already? Enough, he breathed. By all the gods that ever were and ever will be, this is enough. He strode across the darkened room and seized a huge weapon that hung on the wall. It was clumsy, but he held it with ease and familiarity. Familiar with it? Yes, of course he was! He had swung it many times when he had lived here and done business as Bill Hinch, the most feared executioner Delain had ever known. This terrible blade had bitten through hundreds of necks. Above the blades, which were of twiceforged Anduan steel, was Flaggs own modificationa spiked iron ball. Each spike had been tipped with poison. ENOUGH! Flagg screamed again in a fury of rage and frustration and fear. The twoheaded parrot, even in the depths of its unconsciousness, moaned at that sound. Flagg pulled his cloak from the hook by the door, swept it over his shoulders, and fastened the claspa hammeredsilver scarab beetleat his throat. It was enough. This time his plans would not be thwarted, certainly not by one hateful boy. Roland was dead, Peyna unbenched, the nobles driven into exile. There was no one to raise an outcry over one dead prince . . . especially one who had murdered his own father. If you have not escaped, my fine prince, you never willand something tells me youre still in the coop. But part of you WILL leave tonight, I promise you thatthat part I intend to carry out by the hair. As he strode down the corridor toward the Dungeon Gate, Flagg began to laugh . . . a sound which would have given a stone statue bad dreams. 114 Elaggs intuition was right. Peter had finished going over his rope of twisted linen fibers, but he was still in his tower room, awaiting the Criers announcement of midnight, when Flagg burst out of the Dungeon Gate and began to cross the Plaza of the Needle. The Church of the Great Gods had fallen at quarter past eleven; it was quarter of twelve when the crystal showed Flagg what he wanted to know (and perhaps youll agree with my idea that it tried to show him the truth in two other ways at first), and when Flagg started across the Plaza, it was still lacking ten minutes of midnight. The Dungeon Gate was on the northeast side of the Needle. On the southwest side was a little castle entrance known as the Peddlers Gate. A straight diagonal line could have been drawn between the Dungeon Gate and the Peddlers Gate. At the exact midpoint of that line was the Needle itself, of course. At almost the same time that Flagg came out of the Dungeon Gate, Ben, Naomi, Dennis, and Frisky came out of the Peddlers Gate. They approached each other without knowing it. The Needle was between them, but the wind had dropped, and Bens party should have heard the clangrasp of Flaggs bootheels against the cobbles; Flagg should have heard the faint squeak of an ungreased wheel. But all of them, including Frisky (who was back to her old job of pulling again), were lost in their own thoughts. Ben and his party reached the Needle first. Now Ben began, and at that moment, from the other side, less than forty paces around the outside perimeter from where they now stood, Flagg began to hammer on the triplebolted Warders Door. Open! Flagg screamed. Open in the name of the King! What Dennis began, and then Naomi clamped a hand like steel over his mouth and looked at Ben with frightened eyes. 115 The voice came spiraling up to Peter on the cold poststorm air. It was faint, that voice, but perfectly clear. Open in the name of the King! Open in the name of hell, you mean, Peter thought. The good brave boy had become a good brave man, but when he heard that hoarse voice and remembered that narrow white face and those reddish eyes, always shadowed by the hood of his robe, Peters bones turned to ice and his stomach to fire. His mouth went as dry as a wood chip. His tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth. His hair stood on end. If someone has ever told you that being good and being brave means you will never be afraid, what that someone told you is not so. At that moment, Peter had never been so afraid in his whole life. Its Flagg, and hes come for me. Peter got up and, for a moment, he thought he was going to simply fall over as his legs buckled under him. Doom was down there, hammering at the Warders Door to be let in. Open up! On your feet, you licey drunken buggers! Beson, you son of a sot! Dont hurry, Peter told himself. If you hurry youll make a mistake and do his work for him. No ones come to let him in yet. Besons drunkhe was tiddly at supper and probably paralyzed by the time he got to bed. Flagg hasnt a key or he wouldnt be wasting time knocking. So . . . one step at a time. Just as you planned it. Hes got to get in, and then climb those stairsall three hundred of them. You may beat him yet. He went into his bedroom and pulled out the rough iron cotter pins that held the crude bedframe together. The bed collapsed. Peter grabbed one of the iron sidebars and carried it back into the sitting room. He had measured this bar carefully and knew it was wider than his window, and while its outer surface was rusted, he thought it was strong yet through the middle. It had better be, he thought. It would be a bitter joke indeed if my rope held but my anchor broke. He looked out briefly. He could see no one now, but he had observed three figures crossing the Plaza toward the Needle shortly before Flaggs wild pounding had begun. Dennis had recruited friends, then. Had one of them been Ben? Peter hoped so, but did not dare to really believe it. Who was the third? And why the wagon? They were questions he had no time for now. Oh, you dogs! Open this door! Open it in the Kings name! Open it in the name of FLAGG! Open the door! Open In the stillness of almost midnight, Peter heard the rattlethud of the wristthick iron bolts far below being drawn back. He supposed the door opened, but he didnt hear that. Silence . . . . . . and then a gurgling, choked scream. 116 The unfortunate Lesser Warder who finally answered Flaggs summons lived less than four seconds after drawing the third bolt on the Warders Door. He caught a nightmare glimpse of a white face, glaring red eyes, and a black cloak that blew backward in the dying breeze like the wings of a raven. He screamed. Then the air was filled with a dry whooshing sound. The Lesser Warder, who was still half drunk, looked up just as Flaggs battleaxe split his head in two. Next time someone knocks in the name of the King, bestir yourselves and you wont have a mess to clean up in the morning! Flagg bellowed. Then, laughing wildly, he kicked aside the body and strode up the corridor toward the stairs. Things were still all right. He had awakened to the danger in time. He knew it. He felt it. He opened a door on the right and stepped into the main corridor leading away from the courtroom where Anders Peyna had once dispensed justice. At the end of that corridor, the stairs began. He looked up, grinning his dreadful, sharklike grin. Here I come, Peter! he cried happily, his voice echoing and rebounding, spiraling up and up and up to where Peter stood preparing to tie his thin rope to the bar he had taken from the bed. Here I come, dear Peter, to do what I should have done a long, long time ago! Flaggs grin broadened and now he looked terrible indeedhe looked like a demon which might have climbed lately from some reeking pit in the earth. He raised the executioners axe; drops of the slain warders blood fell onto his face and ran down his cheeks like tears. Here I come, dear Peter, to chop off your head! Flagg screamed and began to run up the stairs. One. Three. Six. Ten. 117 Peters shaking hands went wrong somehow. A knot he had made easily a thousand times before now fell apart and he had to start over again. Dont let him scare you. That was idiotic. He was scared, all right; scared green. Thomas would have been astounded to know that Peter had always been frightened of Flagg; Peter had just hid it better. If hes going to kill you, make HIM do it! Dont do it for him! The thought came from inside his own head . . . but it sounded like his mothers voice. Peters hands steadied a bit, and he began to knot the end of his rope to his anchor again. 118 Ill carry your head on my saddle horn for a thousand years! Flagg screamed. Up and up, around and around. Oh, what a pretty trophy youll make! Twenty. Thirty. Forty. His bootheels struck green fire from the stones. His eyes glared. His grin was poison. HERE I COME, PETER! Seventytwo hundred and thirty steps to go. 119 If you have ever awakened in a strange place in the middle of the night, youll know that just to be alone in the dark can be frightening enough; now try to imagine waking in a secret passage, looking through concealed eyeholes into the room where you saw your own father murdered! Thomas shrieked. No one heard him (unless the dogs below did, and I doubt thatthey were old, deaf, and making too much noise themselves). Now, there was an idea about sleepwalking in Delainone that has also been commonly held as the truth in our world. This idea is that if a sleep . walker wakes up before returning to his or her bed, he or she will go mad. Thomas might have heard this tale. If so, he could attest that it wasnt true at all. Hed had a bad scare, and he had screamed, but he did not come even close to going mad. In fact, his initial fright passed rather quicklymore quickly than some of you might thinkand he looked back into the peepholes again. This may strike some of you as strange, but you have to remember that, before the terrible night when Flagg had come with his own glass of wine after Peter left, Thomas had spent some pleasant times in this dark passageway. The pleasantness had a sour undertone of guilt, but he had also felt close to his father. Now, being back here, he felt a queer sense of nostalgia. He saw that the room had hardly changed at all. The stuffed heads were still thereBonsey the elk, Craker the lynx, Snapper the great white bear from the north. And, of course, Niner the dragon, which he now looked through, with Rolands bow and the arrow FoeHammer mounted above it. Bonsey . . . Craker . . . Snapper . . . Niner. I remember all their names, Thomas thought with some wonder. And I remember you, Dad. I wish you were alive now and that Peter was free, even if it meant no one even knew I was alive. At least I could sleep at night. Some of the furniture had been covered with white dustsheets, but most had not. The fireplace was cold and dark, but a fire had been laid. Thomas saw with mounting wonder that even his fathers old robe was still there, hung in its accustomed place on the hook by the bathroom door. The fireplace was cold, but it wanted only a match struck and held to the kindling to bring it alive, roaring and warm; the room wanted only his father to do the same for it. Suddenly Thomas became aware of a strange, almost eerie desire in himself; he wanted to go into that room. He wanted to light the fire. He wanted to put on his fathers robe. He wanted to drink a glass of his fathers mead. He would drink it even if it had gone bad and bitter. He thought . . . he thought he might be able to sleep in there. A wan, tired smile dawned on the boys face, and he decided to do it. He wasnt even afraid of his fathers ghost. He almost hoped it would come. If it did, he could tell his father something. He could tell his father he was sorry. 120 GOMING, PETER! Flagg shrieked, grinning. He smelled like blood and doom; his eyes were deadly fire. The headsmans axe swished and whickered, and a last few drops of blood flew from the blade and splashed on the walls. COMING NOW! COMING FOR YOUR HEAD! Up and around, up and around, higher and higher. He was a devil with murder on his mind. A hundred. A hundred and twentyfive. 121 Easter, Ben Staad panted to Dennis and Naomi. The temperature had begun to fall again, but all three of them were sweating. Some of the sweat came from exertionthey were working very hard. But much of their sweat had been caused by fear. They could hear Flagg shrieking. Even Frisky, with her brave heart, felt afraid. She had withdrawn a little and huddled on her haunches, whimpering. 122 COMING, YOU LITTLE WHELP! Closer nowhis voice was flatter, with less echo. COMING TO DO WHAT I SHOULD HAVE DONE A LONG TIME AGO! The twin blades swished and whickered. 123 This time the knot held. Gods help me, Peter thought, and looked back once more toward the sound of Flaggs rising, shrieking voice. Gods help me now. Peter threw one leg out the window. Now he sat astride the sill as if it were Peonys saddle, one leg on the stone floor of his sitting room, the other dangling over the drop. He held the heap of his rope and the iron bar from his bed in his lap. He tossed the rope out the window, watching as it fell. It tangled and bound up halfway down, and he had to spend more time shaking the rope like a fishline before it would drop free again. Then, uttering one final prayer, he grasped the iron bar and pulled it against the window. His rope hung down from the middle. Peter slipped the leg that was inside over the sill, twisted around at the waist, holding on to the bar for dear life. Now only his bottom was on the sill. He made a halfturn so that the cold outer edge of the sill was pressed against his belly instead of his butt. His legs hung down. The iron bar was seated firmly across the window. Peter let go of it with his left hand and caught hold of his narrow napkin rope. For a moment he paused, battling his fear. Then he closed his eyes and let go of the bar with his right hand. His whole weight was on the rope now. He was committed. For better or worse his life now depended on the napkins. Peter began to lower himself. 124 COMING Two hundred. FOR YOUR HEAD Two hundred and fifty. MY DEAR PRINCE! Two hundred and seventyfive. 125 Ben, Dennis, and Naomi could see Peter, a dark manshape against the curved wall of the Needle, high above their headshigher than even the bravest acrobat would dare to go. Faster, Ben pantedalmost moaned. For your lives . . . for his life! They went about emptying the cart even faster . . . but in truth, all they could do was almost done. 126 Flagg raced up the stairs, his hood falling back, his lank dark hair flying off his waxy brow. Almost there nowalmost there. 127 The wind was light now, but very cold. It blew against Peters bare cheeks and bare hands, numbing them. Slowly, slowly, he descended, moving with careful deliberation. He knew that if he let his descent get out of hand, he would fall. In front of him, the great mortared stone blocks rolled steadily upwardvery soon he came to feel that he was remaining still and it was the Needle itself which was moving. His breath came in tight gasps. Cold dry snow rattled on his face. The rope was thinif his hands grew much number, he wouldnt be able to feel it at all. How far had he come? He didnt dare look down and see. Above him, individual strands of thread, cunningly woven together as a woman might braid a rug, had begun to pop threads. Peter did not know this, which was probably just as well. The breaking strain had nearly been reached. 128 Easter, King Peter! Dennis whispered. The three of them had finished emptying the cart; now they could only watch. Peter had descended perhaps half of the distance. Hes so high, Naomi moaned. If he falls If he falls, hell be killed, Ben said with a flat and toneless finality that silenced them all. 129 Flagg reached the top of the stairs and ran down the corridor, his chest heaving as he gasped for breath. Sweat stood out all over his face. His grin was huge, horrible. He put his great axe down and pulled the first of the three bolts on the door to Peters quarters. He pulled the second . . . and paused. It would not be smart to simply go rushing in, oh no, not smart at all. The caged bird might be trying to fly the coop right this moment, but he might also be standing to one side of the door, ready to brain Flagg with something the moment he rushed in. When he opened the spyhole in the middle of the door and saw the bar from Peters bed placed across the window, he understood everything and roared with rage. Not so easy as that, my young bird! howled Flagg. Lets see how you fly with your rope cut, shall we? Flagg yanked the third bolt and charged into Peters room with his axe held high over his head. After one quick look out the window, his grin resurfaced. He decided not to cut the rope, after all. 130 Down and down Peter went. His arm muscles trembled with exhaustion. His mouth was dry; he couldnt remember ever wanting a drink as badly as he did right now. It seemed that he had been on this rope for a very, very long time, and a queer certainty had stolen into his hearthe would never get the drink of water he wanted. He was meant to die after all, and that wasnt even the worst of it. He was going to die thirsty. Right now that seemed the worst of it. He still did not dare look down, but he felt a queer compulsionevery bit as strong as his brothers compulsion to go into their fathers sitting roomto look up. He obeyed itand some two hundred feet above, he saw Flaggs white, murderous face grinning down at him. Hello, my little bird, Flagg called down cheerfully. Ive an axe, but I really dont think Ill need to use it after all. Ive put it aside, see? And the magician held out his bare hands. All the strength was trying to run out of Peters arms and handsjust the sight of Flaggs hateful face had done that. He concentrated on holding on. He couldnt feel the thin rope at all anymorehe knew he still had it because he could see it coming out of his fists, but that was all. His breath rasped in and out of his throat in hot gasps. Now he looked down . . . and saw the white, upturned circles of three faces. Those circles were very, very smallhe was not twenty feet above the frozen cobbles, or even forty feet; he was still a hundred feet up, as high as the fourth floor of one of our buildings. He tried to move and found he could notif he moved, he would fall. So he hung there against the side of the building. Cold, gritty snow blew in his face, and from the prison above, Flagg began to laugh. 131 Why doesnt he move? Naomi cried, digging one mittened hand into Bens shoulder. Her eyes were fixed on Peters twisting form. The way it hung there, slowly turning, made it look dreadfully like the body of a man who had been hanged. Whats wrong with him? I dont Above them, Flaggs chilly laughter abruptly stopped. Who goes there? he called. His voice was like thunder, like doom. Answer me, if you want to keep your heads! Who goes there? Frisky whined and shrank against Naomis side. Oh gods, now youve done it, Dennis said. What do we do, Ben? Wait, Ben said grimly. And if the magician comes down, fight. We wait for what happens next. We But that was all the waiting any of them had to do, for in the next few seconds, muchnot all, but a great deatwas resolved. 132 Flagg had seen the thinness of Peters rope, its whitenessand in a trice he understood everything, from beginning to endthe napkins and the dollhouse as well. Peters means of escape had been under his nose the whole time, and he had very nearly missed it. But . . . he saw something else as well. Little pops of fiber where the strands were giving way, some fifteen feet down the taut length of rope. Flagg could have turned the iron bar he was resting his hand on and sent Peter plummeting that way, with the anchor trailing after to perhaps bash his head in when he struck bottom. He could have swung the battleaxe and parted the fragile rope. But he preferred to let matters take their course, and a moment after he had challenged the voices, matters did take their course. The ropes breaking strain was reached. It parted with a twang like a lute string that has been wound too far on its peg. Goodbye, birdie, Flagg cried happily, leaning far out to watch Peters fall. He was laughing. Goodb Then his voice ceased and his eyes widened as they had when he looked into the crystal and saw the tiny figure descending the side of the Needle. He opened his mouth and screamed with rage. That awful cry woke up more people in Delain than the fall of the Tower. 133 Peter heard that twanging sound, felt the rope part. Cold wind rushed up past his face. He tried to steel himself for the crash, knowing it would come in less than a second. The pain if he didnt die instantly would be the worst. And that was when Peter struck the thick, deep drift of royal napkins which Frisky had hauled out of the castle and across the Plaza in a stolen cartthe royal napkins which Ben, Dennis, and Naomi had worked so feverishly to pile up. The size of that pileit looked like a whitewashed haystackwas never really known, because Ben, Dennis, and Naomi all had different estimates on the subject. Perhaps Peters own idea was the best, since he was the one who fell squarely into the middle of ithe believed that messy, lovely, lifesaving pile of napkins must have been at least twenty feet high, and for all I know, he may have been right. 134 He fell squarely into the middle, as I have said, making a crater. Then he fell over on his back and lay still. Far above, Ben heard Flagg howl with rage and he thought You dont need to do that, everythings going to be just fine for you, magician. He has died anyway, in spite of all we could do. Then Peter sat up. He looked dazed but very much alive. In spite of Flagg, in spite of the fact that there might be Guards of the Watch racing toward them at that moment, Ben Staad whooped. It was a sound of pure triumph. He grabbed Naomi and kissed her. Hoorah! Dennis cried, grinning dizzily. Hoorah for the King! Then Flagg screeched again far above themthe sound of a devilbird cheated of its prey. The whooping, the kissing, and the hoorahing all stopped right then. Youll pay with your heads! Flagg shrieked. He was insane with rage. Youll pay with your heads, all of you! Guards of the Watch, to the Needle! To the Needle! The regicide has escaped! To the Needle! Kill the murdering prince! Kill his gang! Kill them all! And in the castle that surrounded the Plaza of the Needle on all four sides, windows began to be lit . . . and from two sides came the sound of running feet and the clash of metal as swords were drawn. Kill the prince! Flagg shrieked hellishly from the top of the Needle. Kill his gang! KILL THEM ALL! Peter tried to get up, floundered, and fell over again. Part of his mind was crying out urgently that he must get on his feet, that they must be away or they would be killed . . . but another part insisted that he was already dead, or severely wounded, and all of this was only a dream of his perishing mind. He seemed to have landed in a bed of the very napkins which had occupied so much of his mind over the last five years . . . and how could that be anything but a dream? Bens strong hand gripped his upper arm, and he knew it was all real, all happening. Peter, are you all right? Are you really all right? Not hurt a bit, Peter said. We have to get away from here. My King! Dennis cried, falling on his knees before the dazed Peter and grinning the same dizzy, foolish grin. My oath of fealty forever! I swear my Swear later! Peter cried, laughing in spite of himself. As Ben had pulled him to his feet, so Peter now pulled Dennis to his. Lets get out of here! Which gate? Ben asked. He knewas Peter did himselfthat Flagg would already be on his way back down. They come from all sides, by the sound. In truth, Ben thought any direction would do for the battle which would surely come, and result in their eventual slaughter. But, dazed or not, Peter knew perfectly well where he wanted to go. The West Gate, he said, and quickly! Run! The four of them ran, Frisky at their heels. 135 Still fifty yards from the West Gate, Peters band met a party of seven sleepy, confused guards. Most of them had sheltered from the storm in one of the warm Lower Kitchens of the castle, drinking mead and exclaiming to one another that they would have something to tell their grandchildren about. They did not know the half of what they would have to tell their grandchildren about, as it happened. Their leader was a manboy of just twenty, and only a goshawk . . . what we would call a corporal, I suppose. Still, he hadnt had anything to drink and was reasonably alert. And he was determined to do his duty. Halt in the name of the King! he called out as Peters group closed with his slightly larger one. He tried to thunder this command, but a storyteller should tell as much of the truth as he can, and I must tell you that the goshawks voice was more squeak than thunder. Peter was unarmed, of course, but Ben and Naomi both carried shortswords, and Dennis had his rusty dagger. All three of them at once pushed in front of Peter. Bens and Naomis hands went to their hilts. Dennis had already pulled his dagger. Stop! Peter cried; his voice was thunder. You must not draw! Surprisedshocked, evenBen threw a glance at Peter. Peter stepped to the fore. He stood with his eyes flashing moonlight and his beard riffling in the light, chilledged wind. He was dressed in the rough clothes of a prisoner, but his face was commanding and regal. Halt in the name of the King, you say, Peter said. He stepped calmly toward the terrified goshawk until the two of them were almost chest to chestless than six inches separated them. The guard fell back a step in spite of his own drawn sword and the fact that Peters hands were empty. And yet I tell you, goshawk I am the King. The guard licked his lips. He looked around at his men. But . . . he began. You . . . What is your name? Peter asked quietly. The goshawk gaped. He could have run Peter through in a second, but he only gaped helplessly, like a fish drawn from water. Your name, goshawk? My Lord . . . I mean . . . prisoner . . . you . . . I . . . The young soldier fumbled once more and then said helplessly, My name is Galen. And do you know who I am? Yes, one of the others growled. We know you, murderer. I did not murder my father, Peter said quietly. It was the Kings magician who did that. He is hot behind us now, and I advise youvery strongly, I advise youto ware of him. Soon he will trouble Delain no more; I promise this on my fathers name. But for now you must let me pass. There was a long moment of silence. Galen held his sword up again as if to run Peter through. Peter did not flinch. He owed the gods a death; it was a debt he had owed ever since he had come a shrieking, naked baby from his mothers belly. It was a debt every man and woman in creation owed. If he was to pay that debt now, let it be so . . . but he was the rightful King, not a rebel, not a usurper, and he would not run, or stand aside, or let his friends hurt this lad. The sword wavered. Then Galen let it fall until the tip of the blade touched the frozen cobbles. Let em pass, he muttered. Mayhap he murdered, mayhap he didntall I know is that its royal muck and Ill not step into it, lest I drown in a quicksand of Kings and princes. You had a wise mother, goshawk, Ben Staad said grimly. Yes, let im pass, a second voice said unexpectedly. By gods, Ill not strike my blade at suchfrom the look of im, it would burn off my hand when it went in. You will be remembered, Peter said. He looked around at his friends. Follow me now, he said, and be quick. I know what I must have, and I know where to oet it. At that moment Flagg burst from the base of the Needle, and such a howl of rage and fury rose in the night that the young guards quailed before it. They backed up, turned, and ran, scattering to the four pegs of the compass. Come on, Peter said. Follow me. The West Gate! 136 Flagg ran as he had never run before. He sensed the oncoming ruin of all his plans now, at what was practically the last moment. It must not happen! And he knew as well as Peter where all of this must end. He passed the cowering guards without looking around. They sighed with relief, thinking he must not have seen them . . . but Flagg did. He saw them all, and marked each; after Peter died, their heads would decorate the tower walls for a year and a day, he thought. As for the brat in charge of their patrolhe would die a thousand deaths in the dungeon first. He ran under the arch of the West Gate, and down the Main Western Gallery into the castle itself. Sleepy folk, who had come out in their nightclothes to see what all this row was about, cowered before his whitely burning face and fell aside, forking their first and last fingers at him to ward off evil . . . for now Flagg looked like what Flagg really was a demon. He vaulted over the banister of the first staircase he came to, landed on his feet (the iron on his heels flashed green fire like the eyes of lynxes), and ran on. On toward Rolands apartments. 137 The locket, Peter panted to Dennis as they ran. Do you still have the locket I threw down? Dennis clutched at his throat, and found the golden heartPeters own blood dried on the tipand nodded. Give it to me. Dennis passed it to him as they ran. Peter did not put the chain over his neck, but looped it in his fist so that the heart bounced and spun as he ran, flashing redgold in the light of the wall sconces. Soon, my friends, Peter panted. They turned a corner. Ahead Peter saw the door to his fathers apartments. It was here that he had last seen Roland. He had been a King, responsible for the lives and welfare of thousands; he had also been an old man grateful for a warming glass of wine and a few minutes of talk with his son. It was here that it would end. Once upon a time, his father had slain a dragon with an arrow called FoeHammer. Now, Peter thought, as blood pounded in his temples and his heart raced hotly in his chest, I must try to slay another dragona much greater onewith that same arrow. 138 Thomas lit the fire, donned his dead fathers robe, and drew Rolands chair close to the hearth. He felt that he would soon fall soundly asleep, and that was very good. But as he sat there, owlishly nodding, looking around at the trophies mounted on the walls with their glassy eyes sparkling eerily in the flames, it occurred to him that he wanted two more thingsthings that were almost sacred, things he would certainly never have dared touch when his father was alive. But Roland was dead, so Thomas had taken another chair to stand on, and from the wall he had taken down his fathers bow and his fathers great arrow, FoeHammer, from their places on the wall above Niners head. For a moment he stared directly into one of the dragons greenamber eyes. He had seen much through these eyes, but now, looking into them, he saw nothing but his own pallid face, like the face of a prisoner looking out of a cell. Although everything in the room had been numbingly cold (the fire would warm things up, at least around the fireplace, but it would take a while), he thought that the arrow was strangely warm. He vaguely remembered an old tale he had heard as a small childaccording to this tale, a weapon used to slay a dragon never lost the dragons heat. It seems that tale was true, Thomas thought sleepily. But there was nothing scary about the arrows heat; in fact, it seemed comforting. |
Thomas sat down with the bow clutched loosely in one hand and FoeHammer with its strange, sleeping warmth clutched in the other, never realizing that his brother was now coming in search of this very weapon, and that Flaggthe author of his birth and the Chief Warder of his lifewas hot on Peters heels. 139 Thomas hadnt stopped to consider what he would do if the door to his fathers rooms had been locked, and Peter never did, eitherin the old days it never had been, and as things turned out, the door wasnt locked now. Peter had to do no more than lift the latch. He burst in, the others hot on his heels. Frisky was barking wildly, all of her fur standing on end. Frisky understood the true nature of things better, Ill warrant. Something was coming, something with a black scent like the poison fumes that sometimes killed the coal miners of the Eastern Barony when their tunnels went too deep. Frisky would fight the owner of that scent if she had to; fight and even die. But if she could have spoken, Frisky would have told them that the black scent approaching them from behind did not belong to a man; it was a monster chasing them, some horrible It. Peter, what Ben began, but Peter ignored him. He knew what he must have. He rushed across the room on his exhausted, trembling legs, looked up at the head of Niner, and reached for the bow and the arrow that had always hung above that head. Then his hand faltered. Both were gone. Dennis, the last one in, had closed the door behind him and shot the bolt. Now a single great blow fell on that door. The stout hardwood panels, reinforced with bands of iron, boomed. Peter looked over his shoulder, eyes widening. Dennis and Naomi cringed backward. Frisky stood before her mistress, snarling. Her graygreen eyes showed the whites all around. Let me pass! Flagg roared. Let me pass the door! Peter! Ben shouted, and drew his sword. Stand away! Peter shouted back. If you value your lives stand away! All of you, stand away! They scattered back just as Flaggs fist, now glowing with blue fire, slammed down against the door again. Hinges, bolt, and iron bands all burst at the same time with the noise of an exploding cannon. Blue fire spoked through the cracks between the boards in narrow rays. Then the stout planks burst apart. Shattered chunks of wood flew in a spray. The ragged remains of the door stood for a moment longer and then fell inward with a handclap sound. Flagg stood in the corridor, his hood fallen back. His face was waxen white. His lips were strips of liver drawn back to show his teeth. His eyes flared with furnace fire. In his hand he grasped his heavy executioners axe. He stood there a moment longer and then stepped inside. He looked left and saw Dennis. He looked right, and saw Ben and Naomi, with Frisky hunched, snarling, at her feet. His eyes marked them . . . catalogued them for future reference . . . and dismissed them. He strode through the remains of the door, now looking only at Peter. You fell but you did not die, he said. You may think your God was kind. But I tell you, my own gods were saving you for me. Pray to your God now that your heart should burst apart in your chest. Fall on your knees and pray for that, because I tell you that my death will be much worse than any you can imagine. Peter stood where he was, between Flagg and his fathers chair, where Thomas sat, as yet unseen by all the others. Peter met Flaggs infernal gaze, unafraid. For a moment Flagg seemed to flinch under that firm gaze, and then his inhuman grin blazed forth. You and your friends have caused me great trouble, my prince, Flagg whispered. Great trouble. I should have ended your miserable life long ago. But now all troubles will end. I know you, Peter replied. Although he was unarmed, his voice was steady and unafraid. I think my father knew you, too, although he was weak. Now I assume my kingship, and I command you, demon! Peter drew himself up to his full height. The flames in the fireplace reflected from his eyes, making them blaze. In that moment, Peter was every inch Delains King. Get you gone from here. Leave Delain behind, now and forever. You are cast out. GET YOU GONE! Peter thundered this last in a voice which was greater than his own; he thundered in a voice that was many voicesall the Kings and Queens there had ever been in Delain, stretching back to the time when the castle had been little more than a collection of mud huts and people had drawn together in terror around their fires during the darks of winter as the wolves howled and the trolls gobbled and screamed in the Great Forests of Yestertime. Flagg seemed to flinch again . . . almost to cringe. Then he came forwardslowly, very slowly. His huge axe swung in his left hand. You may command in the next world, he whispered. By escaping, youve played into my hands. If Id thought of itand in time I should haveI would have engineered a trumped up escape myself! Oh, Peter, your head will roll into the fire and youll smell your hair burning before your brain knows youre dead. Youll burn as your father burned . . . and theyll give me a medal for it in the Plaza! For did you not murder your own father for the crown? You murdered him, Peter said. Flagg laughed. I? I? Youve gone insane in the Needle, my boy. Flagg sobered. His eyes glittered. But supposejust for an instantsuppose I did? Who would believe it? Peter still held the chain of the locket looped over his right hand. Now he held that hand out and the locket hung below it, swinging hypnotical, raying flashes of ruddy light on the wall. At the sight of it, Flaggs eyes widened and Peter thought He recognizes it! By all the Gods, he recognizes it! You killed my father, and it wasnt the first time youd arranged things in the same way. You had forgotten, hadnt you? I see it in your eyes. When Leven Valera stood in your way during the evil days of Alan II, his wife was found poisoned. Circumstances made Valeras guilt seem without question . . . as they made my guilt seem without question. Where did you find that, you little bastard? Flagg whispered, and Naomi gasped. Yes, you forgot, Peter repeated. I think that, sooner or later, things like you always begin to repeat themselves, because things like you know only a very few simple tricks. After a while, someone always sees through them. I think that is all that saves us, ever. The locket hung and swung in the firelight. Who would care now? Peter asked. Who would believe? Many. If they believed nothing else, they would believe you are as old as their hearts tell them you are, monster. Give it to me! You killed Eleanor Valera, and you killed my father. Yes, I brought him the wine, Flagg said, his eyes blazing, and I laughed when his guts burned, and I laughed harder when you were taken up the stairs to the top of the Needle. But those who hear me say so in this room will all soon be dead, and no one saw me bring wine to these rooms! They only saw you! And then, from behind Peter, a new voice spoke. It was not strong, that voice; it was so low it could scarcely be heard, and it trembled. But it struck all of themFlagg includeddumb with wonder. There was one other who saw, Peters brother, Thomas, said from the shadowed depths of his fathers chair. I saw you, magician. 140 Peter drew aside and made a halfturn, the hand with the locket hanging from it still outstretched. Thomas! he tried to say, but he could not speak, so struck was he by wonder and horror at the changes in his brother. He had grown fat and somehow old. He had always looked more like Roland than Peter had, and now the resemblance was so great it was eerie. Thomas! he tried to say again, and realized why the bow and arrow were no longer in their places above the head of Niner. The bow was in Thomass lap, and the arrow was nocked in the gut string. It was then that Flagg shrieked and threw himself forward, raising the great executioners axe over his head. 141 It was not a shriek of rage but of terror. Flaggs white face was drawn; his hair stood on end. His mouth trembled loosely. Peter had been surprised by the resemblance but knew his brother; Flagg was fooled completely by the flickering fire and the deep shadows cast by the wings of the chair in which Thomas sat. He forgot Peter. It was the figure in the chair he charged with the axe. He had killed the old man once by poison, and yet here he was again, sitting in his smelly meadsoaked robe, sitting with his bow and arrow in his hands, looking at Flagg with haggard, accusing eyes. Ghost! Flagg shrieked. Ghost or demon from hell, I care not! I killed you once! I can kill you again! Aiiiiyyyyyyyyeeeeee! Thomas had always excelled at archery. Although he rarely hunted, he had gone often to the archery ranges during the years of Peters imprisonment, and, drunk or sober, he had his fathers eye. He had a fine yew bow, but he had never drawn one like this. It was light and limber, and yet he felt an amazing strength in its lancewood bolt. It was a huge but graceful weapon, eight feet from end to end, and he did not have room to draw fully while sitting down; yet he pulled its ninetypound draw with no strain at all. FoeHammer was perhaps the greatest arrow ever made, its bolt of sandalwood, its three feathers honed from the wing of an Anduan peregrine, its tip of flashed steel. It grew hot at the draw; he felt its heat bake his face like an open furnace. You told me only lies, magician, Thomas said softly. He released. The arrow flew from the bow. As it crossed the room, it passed directly through the center of Leven Valeras locket, which still dangled from the stunned Peters outstretched fist. The gold chain parted with a tiny chink! sound. As I have told you, ever since that night in the north forests when he and the troop he had commanded had camped following their fruitless expedition in search of the exiles, Flagg had been plagued by a dream he couldnt remember. He always awoke from it with his hand pressed to his left eye, as if he had been wounded there. The eye would burn for minutes after he awoke, although he could find nothing wrong with it. Now the arrow of Roland, bearing the heartshaped locket of Valera on its tip, flew across Rolands sitting room and plunged into that eye. Flagg screamed. The twobladed axe dropped from his hands, and the haft of that bloodsoaked weapon shattered apart once and for all when it struck the floor. He staggered backward, one eye glaring at Thomas. The other had been replaced by a golden heart with Peters blood drying at the tip. From around the edges of that heart, some stinking black fluidit was most assuredly not blooddribbled out. Flagg shrieked again, dropped to his knees and suddenly he was gone. Peters eyes widened. Ben Staad cried out. For a moment Flaggs clothes held his shape; for a moment the arrow hung in empty air with the pierced heart dangling from it. Then the clothes crumpled and FoeHammer clattered to the cobbles. Its steel tip was smoking. So it had smoked, long ago, when Roland pulled it from the dragons throat. The heart glowed a dull red for a moment, and forever after its shape was branded into the stones where it fell when the magician disappeared. Peter turned to his brother. Thomass unearthly calm broke apart. No longer did he look like Roland; he looked like a scared and horribly tired little boy. Peter, Im sorry, he said, and he began to cry. I am sorrier than you will ever know. Youll kill me now, I guess, and I deserve to be killedyes, I know I dobut before you do, Ill tell you something Ive paid. Yes, I have. Paid and paid and paid. Now kill me, if such is your pleasure. Thomas raised his throat and closed his eyes. Peter walked toward him. The others held their breaths, their eyes wide and round. Gently, then, Peter pulled his brother from his fathers chair and embraced him. Peter held his brother until the storm of his weeping had passed, and told him that he loved him and would always love him; then both wept, there below the dragons head with their fathers bow at their feet; and at some point, the others stole from the room and left the two brothers alone. 142 Did they all live happily ever after? They did not. No one ever does, in spite of what the stories may say. They had their good days, as you do, and they had their bad days, and you know about those. They had their victories, as you do, and they had their defeats, and you know about those, too. There were times when they felt ashamed of themselves, knowing that they had not done their best, and there were times when they knew they had stood where their God had meant them to stand. All Im trying to say is that they lived as well as they could, each and every one of them; some lived longer than others, but all lived well, and bravely, and I love them all, and am not ashamed of my love. Thomas and Peter went to Delains new JudgeGeneral together, and Peter was taken back into custody. His second stint as a prisoner of the Kingdom was much shorter than the firstonly two hours. It took Thomas fifteen minutes to tell his tale, and the JudgeGeneral, who had been appointed with Flaggs approval and who was a timid little creature, took another hour and threequarters to verify that the terrible magician was really gone. Then all charges were overturned. That evening all of themPeter, Thomas, Ben, Naomi, Dennis, and even Friskymet in Peters old rooms. Peter poured wine all around, even giving Frisky some in a little dish. Only Thomas declined the vintage. Peter wanted Thomas to stay with him, but Thomas insistedrightly, I thinkthat if he stayed, the citizens would tear him apart for what he had allowed to happen. You were only a child, Peter said, controlled by a powerful creature who terrified you. With a sad grin, Thomas replied That is partly true, but people would not remember that, Pete. Theyd remember Tommy TaxBringer, and come for me. Theyd tear through stone to get to me, I think. Flaggs gone, but Im here. My head is a silly thing, but Ive decided Id like to keep it on my shoulders a while longer. He paused, seemed to debate, and then went on. And Im best away. My hate and jealousy were like a fever. Its now gone, but after a few years of being in your shadow as you ruled, I might relapse. Ive come to know myself a little bit, you see. Yesa little bit. No; I must leave, Peter, and tonight. The sooner the better. But . . . where will you go? On a quest, Thomas said simply. To the south, I think. You may see me again, but you may not. Ill go south on a quest. . . . I have many things on my conscience, and much to atone for. What quest? Ben asked. To find Flagg, Thomas replied. Hes out there, somewhere. In this world or in some other, hes out there. I know it; I feel his poison in the wind. He got away from us at the last second. You all know it, and I do, too. I would find him and kill him. I would avenge our father and make up for my own great sin. And I would go into the south first, for I sense him there. Peter said, But wholl go with you? I canttheres too much to do here. But I wont just allow you to go alone! He looked very concerned, and if you had seen a map of those days, you would have understood his expression, for the south was nothing but a great white space on the maps. Surprising all of them, Dennis said I would go, my Lord King. Both brothers looked toward him, surprised. Ben and Naomi also turned, and Frisky looked up from her wine, which she was lapping with cheerful enthusiasm (she liked the smell, which was a cool, velvety purple; not as good as the taste, but almost). Dennis blushed mightily, but he didnt sit down. You were always a good master, Thomas, andbeggin your pardon, King Petersomething inside me says youre my master still. And since I was the one to find that mouse and send you to the Needle, my King Bosh! Peter said. Thats all forgotten. Not by me, it aint, Dennis said stubbornly. You could say I was young, too, and didnt know no better, but maybe Ive my own mistakes to atone for. He looked at Thomas, shyly. I would come with you, Lord Thomas, if you would have me; I would be at your side in your quest. On the verge of tears, Thomas said I will have you and welcome, good old Dennis. I only hope you can cook better than can. They left that very night, under cover of darknesstwo figures on foot, their packs heavy with supplies, wending their way into the night. They looked back once and waved. All three of them waved back. Peter was weeping as if his heart would break; indeed, he thought it might. Ill never see him again, Peter thought. Ah, wellperhaps he did, and perhaps he didnt; but I rather think he did, you know. All I can tell you is that Ben and Naomi were eventually married, that Peter ruled long and well, and that Thomas and Dennis had many and strange adventures, and that they did see Flagg again, and confronted him. But now the hour is late, and all of that is another tale, for another day. |
By Stephen King and published by Hodder Stoughton FICTION Carrie Salems Lot The Shining Night Shift The Stand The Dead Zone Firestarter Cujo Different Seasons Cycle of the Werewolf Christine The Talisman (with Peter Straub) Pet Sematary It Skeleton Crew The Eyes of the Dragon Misery The Tommyknockers The Dark Half Four Past Midnight Needful Things Geralds Game Dolores Claiborne Nightmares and Dreamscapes Insomnia Rose Madder Desperation Bag of Bones The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon Hearts in Atlantis Dreamcatcher Everythings Eventual From a Buick 8 Cell Liseys Story The Dark Tower I The Gunslinger The Dark Tower II The Drawing of the Three The Dark Tower III The Waste Lands The Dark Tower IV Wizard and Glass The Dark Tower V Wolves of the Calla The Dark Tower VI Song of Susannah The Dark Tower VII The Dark Tower Duma key Just After Sunset Under the Dome Stephen King Goes to the Movies By Stephen King as Richard Bachman Thinner The Running Man The Bachman Books The Regulators Blaze NONFICTION Danse Macabre On Writing (A Memoir of the Craft) Insomnia Stephen King www.hodder.co.uk Grateful acknowledgement is made for permission to reprint excerpts from the following copyrighted material White Rabbit lyrics and music by Grace Slick. 1967 Irving Music, Inc. (BMI). All rights reserved. International copyright secured. The Pursuit from Cemetery Nights by Stephen Dobyns. Copyright Stephen Dobyns, 1987. By permission of the author and Viking Penguin, a division of Penguin Books USA Inc. You Cant Sit Down by Delecta Clark, Cornell Muldrow, and Kal Mann. 1960 (renewed), 1968 Conrad Music, a division of Arc Music Corp. All rights reserved. Used by permission. The Lord of the Rings by J. R. R. Tolkien, Copyright 1965 by J. R. R. Tolkien renewed 1993 by Christopher R. Tolkien, John F. R. Tolkien, and Priscilla M. A. R. Tolkien. Reprinted by permission of Houghton Mifflin Co. and HarperCollins Publishers Limited. All rights reserved. Your Baby, words and music by P. F. Sloan and Steve Barri. Copyright 1965 by MCA Music Publishing, a Division of MCA Inc. All rights reserved. International copyright secured. Used by permission. Lantern by Michael McDernott 1993 EMI Blackwood Music, Inc., and Wanted Mann Music. All rights reserved for Wanted Man Music controlled and administered by EMI Blackwood Music, Inc. All rights reserved. International copyright secured. Used by permission Copyright 1994 by Stephen King First published in Great Britain in 1994 by Hodder and Stoughton An Hachette Livre UK company The right of Stephen King to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser. All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data King, Stephen Insomnia I. Title 813.54[F] Epub ISBN 978 1 84894 072 7 Book ISBN 978 0 340 95279 5 Hodder and Stoughton An Hachette Livre UK company 338 Euston Road London NW1 3BH www.hodder.co.uk CONTENTS Insomnia Dedication Prologue Part 1 Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Chapter 9 Chapter 10 Part 2 Chapter 11 Chapter 12 Chapter 13 Chapter 14 Chapter 15 Chapter 16 Chapter 17 Chapter 18 Chapter 19 Part 3 Chapter 20 Chapter 21 Chapter 22 Chapter 23 Chapter 24 Chapter 25 Chapter 26 Chapter 27 Chapter 28 Chapter 29 Chapter 30 Epilogue About the Author Also by Stephen King Copyright For Tabby . . . and for Al Kooper, who knows the playingfield. No fault of mine. PROLOGUE WINDING THE DEATHWATCH (I) Old age is an island surrounded by death. Juan Montalvo On Beauty 1 No one least of all Dr Litchfield came right out and told Ralph Roberts that his wife was going to die, but there came a time when Ralph understood without needing to be told. The months between March and June were a jangling, screaming time inside his head a time of conferences with doctors, of evening runs to the hospital with Carolyn, of trips to other hospitals in other states for special tests (Ralph spent much of his travel time on these trips thanking God for Carolyns Blue CrossMajor Medical coverage), of personal research in the Derry Public Library, at first looking for answers the specialists might have overlooked, later on just looking for hope and grasping at straws. Those four months were like being dragged drunk through some malign carnival where the people on the rides were really screaming, the people lost in the mirror maze were really lost, and the denizens of Freak Alley looked at you with false smiles on their lips and terror in their eyes. Ralph began to see these things by the middle of May, and as June set in, he began to understand that the pitchmen along the medical midway had only quack remedies to sell, and the cheery quickstep of the calliope could no longer quite hide the fact that the tune spilling out of the loudspeakers was The Funeral March. It was a carnival, all right; the carnival of lost souls. Ralph continued to deny these terrible images and the even more terrible idea lurking behind them all through the early summer of 1992, but as June gave way to July, this finally became impossible. The worst midsummer heatwave since 1971 rolled over central Maine, and Derry simmered in a bath of hazy sun, humidity, and daily temperatures in the midnineties. The city hardly a bustling metropolis at the best of times fell into a complete stupor, and it was in this hot silence that Ralph Roberts first heard the ticking of the deathwatch and understood that in the passage from Junes cool damp greens to the baked stillness of July, Carolyns slim chances had become no chances at all. She was going to die. Not this summer, probably the doctors claimed to have quite a few tricks up their sleeves yet, and Ralph was sure they did but this fall or this winter. His longtime companion, the only woman he had ever loved, was going to die. He tried to deny the idea, scolding himself for being a morbid old fool, but in the gasping silences of those long hot days, Ralph heard that ticking everywhere it even seemed to be in the walls. Yet it was loudest from within Carolyn herself, and when she turned her calm white face toward him perhaps to ask him to turn on the radio so she could listen while she shelled some beans for their supper, or to ask him if he would go across to the Red Apple and get her an icecream on a stick he would see that she heard it, too. He would see it in her dark eyes, at first only when she was straight, but later even when her eyes were hazed by the pain medication she took. By then the ticking had grown very loud, and when Ralph lay in bed beside her on those hot summer nights when even a single sheet seemed to weigh ten pounds and he believed every dog in Derry was barking at the moon, he listened to it, to the deathwatch ticking inside Carolyn, and it seemed to him that his heart would break with sorrow and terror. How much would she be required to suffer before the end came? How much would he be required to suffer? And how could he possibly live without her? It was during this strange, fraught period that Ralph began to go for increasingly long walks through the hot summer afternoons and slow, twilit evenings, returning on many occasions too exhausted to eat. He kept expecting Carolyn to scold him for these outings, to say, Why dont you stop it, you stupid old man? Youll kill yourself if you keep walking in this heat! But she never did, and he gradually realized she didnt even know. That he went out, yes she knew that. But not all the miles he went, or that when he came home he was often trembling with exhaustion and near sunstroke. Once upon a time it had seemed to Ralph she saw everything, even a change of half an inch in where he parted his hair. No more; the tumor in her brain had stolen her powers of observation, as it would soon steal her life. So he walked, relishing the heat in spite of the way it sometimes made his head swim and his ears ring, relishing it mostly because of the way it made his ears ring; sometimes there were whole hours when they rang so loudly and his head pounded so fiercely that he couldnt hear the tick of Carolyns deathwatch. He walked over much of Derry that hot July, a narrowshouldered old man with thinning white hair and big hands that still looked capable of hard work. He walked from Witcham Street to the Barrens, from Kansas Street to Neibolt Street, from Main Street to the Kissing Bridge, but his feet took him most frequently west along Harris Avenue, where the still beautiful and much beloved Carolyn Roberts was now spending her last year in a haze of headaches and morphine, to the Harris Avenue Extension and Derry County Airport. He would walk out the Extension which was treeless and completely exposed to the pitiless sun until he felt his legs threatening to cave in beneath him, and then double back. He often paused to catch his second wind in a shady picnic area close to the airports service entrance. At night this place was a teenage drinking and makeout spot, alive with the sounds of rap coming from boombox radios, but during the days it was the moreorless exclusive domain of a group Ralphs friend Bill McGovern called the Harris Avenue Old Crocks. The Old Crocks gathered to play chess, to play gin, or just to shoot the shit. Ralph had known many of them for years (had, in fact, gone to grammar school with Stan Eberly), and was comfortable with them . . . as long as they didnt get too nosy. Most didnt. They were oldschool Yankees, for the most part, raised to believe that what a man doesnt choose to talk about is no ones business but his own. It was on one of these walks that he first became aware that something had gone very wrong with Ed Deepneau, his neighbor from up the street. 2 Ralph had walked much farther out the Harris Avenue Extension than usual that day, possibly because thunderheads had blotted out the sun and a cool, if still sporadic, breeze had begun to blow. He had fallen into a kind of trance, not thinking of anything, not watching anything but the dusty toes of his sneakers, when the four fortyfive United Airlines flight from Boston swooped low overhead, startling him back to where he was with the teethrattling whine of its jet engines. He watched it cross above the old GSWM railroad tracks and the Cyclone fence that marked the edge of the airport, watched it settle toward the runway, marked the blue puffs of smoke as its wheels touched down. Then he glanced at his watch, saw how late it was getting, and looked up with wide eyes at the orange roof of the Howard Johnsons just up the road. He had been in a trance, all right; he had walked more than five miles without the slightest sense of time passing. Carolyns time, a voice deep inside his head muttered. Yes, yes; Carolyns time. She would be back in the apartment, counting the minutes until she could have another Darvon Complex, and he was out on the far side of the airport . . . halfway to Newport, in fact. Ralph looked up at the sky and for the first time really saw the bruisepurple thunderheads which were stacking up over the airport. They did not mean rain, not for sure, not yet, but if it did rain, he was almost surely going to be caught in it; there was nowhere to shelter between here and the little picnic area back by Runway 3, and there was nothing there but a ratty little gazebo that always smelled faintly of beer. He took another look at the orange roof, then reached into his righthand pocket and felt the little sheaf of bills held by the silver moneyclip Carolyn had given him for his sixtyfifth. There was nothing to prevent him walking up to HoJos and calling a cab . . . except maybe for the thought of how the driver might look at him. Stupid old man, the eyes in the rearview mirror might say. Stupid old man, walked a lot further than you should on a hot day. If youd been swimming, you woulda drownded. Paranoid, Ralph, the voice in his head told him, and now its clucky, slightly patronizing tone reminded him of Bill McGovern. Well, maybe it was and maybe it wasnt. Either way, he thought he would chance the rain and walk back. What if it doesnt just rain? Last summer it hailed so hard that one time in August it broke windows all over the west side. Let it hail, then, he said. I dont bruise that easy. Ralph began to walk slowly back toward town along the shoulder of the Extension, his old hightops raising small, parched puffs of dust as he went. He could hear the first rumbles of thunder in the west, where the clouds were stacking up. The sun, although blotted out, was refusing to quit without a fight; it edged the thunderheads with bands of brilliant gold and shone through occasional rifts in the clouds like the fragmented beam of some huge movieprojector. Ralph found himself feeling glad he had decided to walk, in spite of the ache in his legs and the steady nagging pain in the small of his back. One thing, at least, he thought. Ill sleep tonight. Ill sleep like a damn rock. The verge of the airport acres of dead brown grass with the rusty railroad tracks sunk in them like the remains of some old wreck was now on his left. Far in the distance beyond the Cyclone fence he could see the United 747, now the size of a childs toy plane, taxiing toward the small terminal which United and Delta shared. Ralphs gaze was caught by another vehicle, this one a car, leaving the General Aviation terminal, which stood at this end of the airport. It was heading across the tarmac toward the small service entrance which gave on the Harris Avenue Extension. Ralph had watched a lot of vehicles come and go through that entrance just lately; it was only seventy yards or so from the picnic area where the Harris Avenue Old Crocks gathered. As the car approached the gate, Ralph recognized it as Ed and Helen Deepneaus Datsun . . . and it was really moving. Ralph stopped on the shoulder, unaware that his hands had curled into anxious fists as the small brown car bore down on the closed gate. You needed a keycard to open the gate from the outside; from the inside an electriceye beam did the job. But the beam was set close to the gate, very close, and at the speed the Datsun was going . . . At the last moment (or so it seemed to Ralph), the small brown car scrunched to a stop, the tires sending up puffs of blue smoke that made Ralph think of the 747 touching down, and the gate began to trundle slowly open on its track. Ralphs fisted hands relaxed. An arm emerged from the drivers side window of the Datsun and began to wave up and down, apparently haranguing the gate, urging it to hurry it up. There was something so absurd about this that Ralph began to smile. The smile died before it had exposed even a gleam of teeth, however. The wind was still freshening from the west, where the thunderheads were, and it carried the screaming voice of the Datsuns driver. You son of a bitch fucker! You bastard! Eat my cock! Hurry up! Hurry up and lick shit, you fucking asshole cuntlapper! Fucking booger! Ratdick ringmeat! Suckhole! That cant be Ed Deepneau, Ralph murmured. He began to walk again without realizing it. Cant be. Ed was a research chemist at the Hawking Laboratories research facility in Fresh Harbor, one of the kindest, most civil young men Ralph had ever met. Both he and Carolyn were very fond of Eds wife, Helen, and their new baby, Natalie, as well. A visit from Natalie was one of the few things with the power to lift Carolyn out of her own life these days, and, sensing this, Helen brought her over frequently. Ed never complained. There were men, he knew, who wouldnt have cared to have the missus running to the old folks down the street every time the baby did some new and entrancing thing, especially when the grannyfigure in the picture was ill. Ralph had an idea that Ed wouldnt be able to tell someone to go to hell without suffering a sleepless night in consequence, but You fucking whoremaster! Move your sour shitcaked ass, you hear me? Buttfucker! Cuntrammer! But it sure sounded like Ed. Even from two or three hundred yards away, it certainly sounded like him. Now the driver of the Datsun was revving his engine like a kid in a musclecar waiting for the light to turn green. Clouds of exhaust smoke farted up from the tailpipe. As soon as the gate had retracted enough to allow the Datsun passage, the car leaped forward, squirting through the gap with its engine roaring, and when it did, Ralph got a clear look at the driver. He was close enough now for there to be no doubt it was Ed, all right. The Datsun bounced along the short unpaved stretch of lane between the gate and the Harris Street Extension. A horn blared suddenly, and Ralph saw a blue Ford Ranger, heading west on the Extension, swerve to avoid the oncoming Datsun. The driver of the pickup saw the danger too late, and Ed apparently never saw it at all (it was only later that Ralph came to consider Ed might have rammed the Ranger on purpose). There was a brief scream of tires followed by the hollow bang of the Datsuns fender driving into the Fords sidewall. The pickup was driven halfway across the yellow line. The Datsuns hood crumpled, came unlatched, and popped up a little; headlight glass tinkled into the street. A moment later both vehicles were dead in the middle of the road, tangled together like some weird sculpture. Ralph stood where he was for the time being, watching as oil spread beneath the Datsuns front end. He had seen several road accidents in his almostseventy years, most of them minor, one or two serious, and he was always stunned by how quickly they happened and how little drama there was. It wasnt like in the movies, where the camera could slow things down, or on a videotape, where you could watch the car go off the cliff again and again if you so chose; there was usually just a series of converging blurs, followed by that quick and toneless combination of sounds the cry of the tires, the hollow bang of metal crimping metal, the tinkle of glass. Then, voil tout finis. There was even a kind of protocol for this sort of thing How One Should Behave When Involved in a LowSpeed Collision. Of course there was, Ralph mused. There were probably a dozen twobit collisions in Derry every day, and maybe twice that number in the wintertime, when there was snow and the roads got slippery. You got out, you met your opposite number at the point where the two vehicles had come together (and where, quite often, they were still entwined), you looked, you shook your heads. Sometimes often, actually this phase of the encounter was marked with angry words fault was assigned (often rashly), driving skills impugned, legal action threatened. Ralph supposed what the drivers were really trying to say without coming right out and saying it was, Listen, fool, you scared the living hell out of me! The final step in this unhappy little dance was the Exchange of the Sacred Insurance Screeds, and it was at this point that the drivers usually began to get control of their galloping emotions . . . always assuming that no one had been hurt, as appeared to be the case here. Sometimes the drivers involved even finished up by shaking hands. Ralph prepared to watch all this from his vantage point less than a hundred and fifty yards away, but as soon as the drivers door of the Datsun opened he understood that things were going to go differently here that the accident was maybe not over but still happening. It certainly did not seem that anyone was going to shake at the end of these festivities. The door did not swing open; it flew open. Ed Deepneau leaped out, then simply stood stockstill beside his car, his slim shoulders squared against a background of deepening clouds. He was wearing faded jeans and a teeshirt, and Ralph realized he had never seen Ed in a shirt that didnt button up the front. And there was something around his neck a long white something. A scarf? It looked like a scarf, but why would anyone be wearing a scarf on a day as hot as this one had been? Ed stood beside his wounded car for a moment, seeming to look in every direction but the right one. The fierce little pokes of his narrow head reminded Ralph of the way roosters studied their barnyard turf, looking for invaders and interlopers. Something about that similarity made Ralph feel uneasy. He had never seen Ed look that way before, and he supposed that was part of it, but it wasnt all of it. The truth of the matter was simply this he had never seen anyone look exactly like that. Thunder rumbled in the west, louder now. And closer. The man getting out of the Ranger would have made two of Ed Deepneau, possibly three. His vast, deep belly hung over the rolled waistband of his green chino workpants; there were sweatstains the size of dinnerplates under the arms of his openthroated white shirt. He tipped back the bill of the West Side Gardeners gimmecap he was wearing to get a better look at the man who had broadsided him. His heavyjowled face was dead pale except for bright patches of color like rouge high on his cheekbones, and Ralph thought Theres a man whos a prime candidate for a heart attack. If I was closer I bet Id be able to see the creases in his earlobes. Hey! the heavyset guy yelled at Ed. The voice coming out of that broad chest and deep gut was absurdly thin, almost reedy. Whered you get your license? Fuckin Sears n Roebuck? Eds wandering, jabbing head swung immediately toward the sound of the big mans voice seemed almost to home in, like a jet guided by radar and Ralph got his first good look at Eds eyes. He felt a bolt of alarm light up in his chest and suddenly began to run toward the accident. Ed, meanwhile, had started toward the man in the sweatsoaked white shirt and gimmecap. He was walking in a stifflegged, highshouldered strut that was nothing at all like his usual easygoing amble. Ed! Ralph shouted, but the freshening breeze cold now with the promise of rain seemed to snatch the words away before they could even get out of his mouth. Certainly Ed never turned. Ralph made himself run faster, the ache in his legs and the throbbing in the small of his back forgotten. It was murder he had seen in Ed Deepneaus wide, unblinking eyes. He had absolutely no previous experience upon which to base such an assessment, but he didnt think you could mistake such a naked glare; it was the look fighting cocks must wear when they launch themselves at each other, spurs up and slashing. Ed! Hey, Ed, hold up! Its Ralph! Not so much as a glance around, although Ralph was now so close that Ed must have heard, wind or no wind. Certainly the heavyset man glanced around, and Ralph could see both fear and uncertainty in his look. Then Heavyset turned back to Ed and raised his hands placatingly. Look, he said. We can talk That was as far as he got. Ed took another quick step forward, reached up with one slim hand it was very white in the rapidly darkening day and slapped Heavyset across his far from inconsiderable jowls. The sound was like the report of a kids air rifle. How many have you killed? Ed asked. Heavyset pressed back against the side of his pickup, his mouth open, his eyes wide. Eds queer, stiff strut never faltered. He walked into the other man and stood belly to belly with him, seemingly oblivious of the fact that the pickups driver was four inches taller and outweighed him by a hundred pounds or more. Ed reached up and slapped him again. Come on! Fess up, brave boy how many have you killed? His voice rose to a shriek that was lost in the coming storms first really authoritative clap of thunder. Heavyset pushed him away a gesture not of aggression but of simple fright and Ed went reeling backward against the crumpled nose of his Datsun. He bounced back at once, fists clenched, gathering himself to leap at Heavyset, who was cringing against the side of his truck with his gimmecap now askew and his shirt untucked in the back and at the sides. A memory flashed across Ralphs mind a Three Stooges short hed seen years ago, Larry, Curly, and Moe playing painters without a clue and he felt a sudden surge of sympathy for Heavyset, who looked absurd as well as scared to death. Ed Deepneau did not look absurd. With his yankedback lips and wide, unblinking eyes, Ed looked more like a fighting cock than ever. I know what youve been doing, he whispered to Heavyset. What kind of comedy did you think this was? Did you think you and your butcher friends could get away with it forev At that moment Ralph arrived, puffing and gasping like an old carthorse, and put an arm around Eds shoulders. The heat beneath the thin teeshirt was unnerving; it was like putting an arm around an oven, and when Ed turned to look at him, Ralph had the momentary (but unforgettable) impression that that was exactly what he was looking into. He had never seen such utter, unreasoning fury in a pair of human eyes; had never even suspected such fury might exist. Ralphs immediate impulse was to recoil, but he suppressed it and stood firm. He had an idea that if he pulled back, Ed would fall on him like a rogue dog, biting and clawing. It was absurd, of course; Ed was a research chemist, Ed was a member of the Book of the Month Club (the kind who took the twentypound histories of the Crimean War they always seemed to offer as alternates to the main selection), Ed was Helens husband and Natalies dad. Hell, Ed was a friend. . . . except this wasnt that Ed, and Ralph knew it. Instead of pulling back, Ralph leaned forward, grasped Eds shoulders (so hot under the teeshirt, so incredibly, throbbingly hot), and moved his face until it blocked Heavyset from Eds creepy fixed gaze. Ed, quit it! Ralph said. He used the loud but steadily firm voice he assumed one used with people who were having hysterics. Youre all right! Just quit it! For a moment Eds fixed gaze didnt waver, and then his eyes moved over Ralphs face. It wasnt much, but Ralph felt a small surge of relief just the same. Whats the matter with him? Heavyset asked from behind Ralph. He crazy, do you think? Hes fine, Im sure, Ralph said, although he was sure of no such thing. He spoke out of the corner of his mouth, and didnt take his eyes from Ed. He didnt dare take his eyes from Ed that contact felt like the only hold he had over the man, and tenuous at best. Just shaken up from the crash. He needs a few seconds to calm d Ask him what hes got under that tarp! Ed yelled suddenly, and pointed over Ralphs shoulder. Lightning flashed, and for a moment the pitted scars of Eds adolescent acne were thrown into sharp relief, like some strange organic treasure map. Thunder rolled. Hey, hey, Susan Day! he chanted in a high, childlike voice that made Ralphs forearms break out in goosebumps. How many kids did you kill today? He aint shook up, Heavyset said. Hes crazy. And when the cops get here, Im gonna see he gets tooken in. Ralph glanced around and saw a blue tarpaulin stretched across the bed of the pickup. It had been tied down with bright yellow hanks of rope. Round shapes bulked beneath it. Ralph? a timid voice asked. He glanced to his left and saw Dorrance Marstellar at ninetysomething easily the oldest of the Harris Avenue Old Crocks standing just beyond Heavysets pickup truck. There was a paperback book in his waxy, liverspotted hands, and Dorrance was bending it anxiously back and forth, giving the spine a real workout. Ralph supposed it was a book of poetry, which was all he had ever seen old Dorrance read. Or maybe he didnt really read at all; maybe he just liked to hold the books and look at the artfully stacked words. Ralph, whats wrong? Whats happening? More lightning flashed overhead, a purplewhite snarl of electricity. Dorrance looked up at it as if unsure of where he was, who he was, or what he was seeing. Ralph groaned inside. Dorrance he began, and then Ed lunged beneath him, like some wild animal which has only lain quiet to regain its strength. Ralph staggered, then pushed Ed back against the crumpled hood of his Datsun. He felt panicky unsure of what to do next or how to do it. There were too many things going on at once. He could feel the muscles in Eds arms humming fiercely just below his grip; it was almost as if the man had somehow swallowed a bolt of the lightning now loose in the sky. Ralph? Dorrance asked in that same calm but worried voice. I wouldnt touch him anymore, if I were you. I cant see your hands. Oh, good. Another lunatic to deal with. Just what he needed. Ralph glanced down at his hands, then looked at the old man. What are you talking about, Dorrance? Your hands, Dorrance said patiently. I cant see your This is no place for you, Dor why dont you get lost? The old man brightened a little at that. Yes! he said in the tone of one who has just stumbled over a great truth. Thats just what I oughtta do! He began to back up, and when the thunder cracked again, he cringed and put his book on top of his head. Ralph was able to read the bright red letters of the title Buckdancers Choice. Its what you ought to do, too, Ralph. You dont want to mess in with longtime business. Its a good way to get hurt. What are you But before Ralph could finish, Dorrance turned his back and went lumbering off in the direction of the picnic area with his fringe of white hair as gossamer as the hair on a new babys head rippling in the breeze of the oncoming storm. One problem solved, but Ralphs relief was shortlived. Ed had been temporarily distracted by Dorrance, but now he was looking daggers at Heavyset again. Cuntlicker! he spat. Fucked your mother and licked her cunt! Heavysets enormous brow drew down. What? Eds eyes shifted back to Ralph, whom he now seemed to recognize. Ask him whats under that tarp! he cried. Better yet, get the murdering cocksucker to show you! Ralph looked at the heavyset man. What have you got under there? Whats it to you? Heavyset asked, perhaps trying to sound truculent. He sampled the look in Ed Deepneaus eyes and took two more sidling steps away. Nothing to me, something to him, Ralph said, lifting his chin in Eds direction. Just help me cool him out, okay? You know him? Murderer! Ed repeated, and this time he lunged hard enough under Ralphs hands to drive him back a step. Yet something was happening, wasnt it? Ralph thought the scary, vacant look was seeping out of Eds eyes. There seemed to be a little more Ed in there than there had been before . . . or perhaps that was only wishful thinking. Murderer, baby murderer! Jesus, what a loony tune, Heavyset said, but he went to the rear of the truckbed, yanked one of the ropes free, and peeled back a corner of the tarpaulin. Beneath it were four pressboard barrels, each marked WEEDGO. Organic fertilizer, Heavyset said, his eyes flicking from Ed to Ralph and then back to Ed again. He touched the bill of his West Side Gardeners cap. I spent the day workin on a set of new flowerbeds outside the Derry Psych Wing . . . where you could stand a short vacation, friend. Fertilizer? Ed asked. It was himself he seemed to be speaking to. His left hand rose slowly to his temple and began to rub there. Fertilizer? He sounded like a man questioning some simple yet staggering scientific development. Fertilizer, Heavyset agreed. He glanced back at Ralph and said, This guy is sick in the head. You know it? Hes confused, thats all, Ralph answered uneasily. He leaned over the side of the truck and rapped a barreltop. Then he turned back to Ed. |
Barrels of fertilizer, he said. Okay? No response. Eds right hand rose and began to rub at his other temple. He looked like a man sinking into a terrible migraine. Okay? Ralph repeated gently. Ed closed his eyes for a moment, and when they opened again, Ralph observed a sheen in them he thought was probably tears. Eds tongue slipped out and dabbed delicately first at one corner of his mouth and then the other. He took the end of his silk scarf and wiped his forehead, and as he did, Ralph saw there were Chinese figures embroidered on it in red, just above the fringe. I guess maybe he began, and then broke off. His eyes widened again in that look Ralph didnt like. Babies! he rasped. You hear me? Babies! Ralph shoved him back against his car for the third or fourth time hed lost count. What are you talking about, Ed? An idea suddenly occurred to him. Is it Natalie? Are you worried about Natalie? A small, crafty smile touched Eds lips. He looked past Ralph at the heavyset man. Fertilizer, huh? Well, if thats all it is, you wont mind opening one of them, will you? Heavyset looked at Ralph uneasily. Man needs a doctor, he said. Maybe he does. But he was calming down, I thought . . . could you open one of those barrels? It might make him feel better. Yeah, sure, what the heck. In for a penny, in for a pound. There was another flash of lightning, another heavy blast of thunder one that seemed to go rolling all the way across the sky this time and a cold spackle of rain struck the back of Ralphs sweaty neck. He glanced to his left and saw Dorrance Marstellar standing at the entrance to the picnic area, book in hand, watching the three of them anxiously. Its gonna rain a pretty bitch, looks like, Heavyset said, and I cant let this stuff get wet. It starts a chemical reaction. So look fast. He felt around between one of the barrels and the sidewall of his truck for a moment, then came up with a crowbar. I must be as nutty as he is, doin this, he said to Ralph. I mean, I was just goin along home, mindin my business. He hit me. Go on, Ralph said. Itll only take a second. Yeah, Heavyset replied sourly, turning and setting the flat end of the crowbar under the lid of the nearest barrel, but the memories will last a lifetime. Another thunderclap rocked the day just then, and Heavyset did not hear what Ed Deepneau said next. Ralph did, however, and it chilled the pit of his stomach. Those barrels are full of dead babies, Ed said. Youll see. Heavyset popped the lid on the end barrel, and such was the conviction in Eds voice that Ralph almost expected to see tangles of arms and legs and bundles of small hairless heads. Instead, he saw a mixture of fine blue crystals and brown stuff. The smell which rose from the barrel was rich and peaty, with a thin chemical undertone. See? Satisfied? Heavyset asked, speaking directly to Ed again. I aint Ray Joubert or that guy Dahmer after all. How bout that! The look of confusion was back on Eds face, and when the thunder cracked overhead again, he cringed a little. He leaned over, reached a hand toward the barrel, then looked a question at Heavyset. The big man nodded to him, almost sympathetically, Ralph thought. Sure, touch it, fine by me. But if it rains while youre holdin a fistful, youll dance like John Travolta. It burns. Ed reached into the barrel, grabbed some of the mix, and let it run through his fingers. He shot Ralph a perplexed look (there was an element of embarrassment in that look as well, Ralph thought), and then sank his arm into the barrel all the way to the elbow. Hey! Heavyset cried, startled. That aint a box of Cracker Jack! For a moment the crafty grin resurfaced on Eds face a look that said I know a trick worth two of that and then it subsided into puzzlement again as he found nothing further down but more fertilizer. When he drew his arm out of the barrel, it was dusty and aromatic with the mix. Another flash of lightning exploded above the airport. The thunder which followed was almost deafening. Get that off your skin before it rains, Im warning you, Heavyset said. He reached through the Rangers open passenger window and produced a McDonalds takeout sack. He rummaged in it, came out with a couple of napkins, and handed them to Ed, who began to wipe the fertilizer dust from his forearm like a man in a dream. While he did this, Heavyset replaced the lid on the barrel, tamping it into place with one large, freckled fist and taking quick glances up at the darkening sky. When Ed touched the shoulder of his white shirt, the man stiffened and pulled away, looking at Ed warily. I think I owe you an apology, Ed said, and to Ralph his voice sounded completely clear and sane for the first time. Youre damn tooting, Heavyset said, but he sounded relieved. He stretched the plasticcoated tarpaulin back into place and tied it in a series of quick, efficient gestures. Watching him, Ralph was struck by what a sly thief time was. Once he could have tied that same sheetbend with that same dextrous ease. Today he could still tie it, but it would take him at least two minutes and maybe three of his best cursewords. Heavyset patted the tarp and then turned to them, folding his arms across the substantial expanse of his chest. Did you see the accident? he asked Ralph. No, Ralph said at once. He had no idea why he was lying, but the decision to do it was instantaneous. I was watching the plane land. The United. To his complete surprise, the flushed patches on Heavysets cheeks began to spread. You were watching it, too! Ralph thought suddenly. And not just watching it land, either, or you wouldnt be blushing like that . . . you were watching it taxi! This thought was followed by a complete revelation Heavyset thought the accident had been his fault, or that the cop or cops who showed up to investigate might read it that way. He had been watching the plane and hadnt seen Eds reckless charge through the service gate and out to the Extension. Look, Im really sorry, Ed was saying earnestly, but he actually looked more than sorry; he looked dismayed. Ralph suddenly found himself wondering how much he trusted that expression, and if he really had even the slightest idea of (Hey, hey, Susan Day) what had just happened here . . . and who the hell was Susan Day, anyhow? I bumped my head on the steering wheel, Ed was saying,and I guess it . . . you know, it rattled my cage pretty good. Yeah, I guess it did, Heavyset said. He scratched his head, looked up at the dark and convoluted sky, then looked back at Ed again. Want to make you a deal, friend. Oh? What deal is that? Lets just exchange names and phone numbers instead of going through all that insurance shit. Then you go your way and I go mine. Ed looked uncertainly at Ralph, who shrugged, and then back at the man in the West Side Gardeners cap. If we get into it with the cops, Heavyset went on, Im in for a ration of shit. First thing theyre going to find out when they call it in is I had an Operating Under the Influence last winter, and Im drivin on a provisional license. Theyre apt to make problems for me even though I was on the main drag and had the rightofway. See what I mean? Yes, Ed said,I guess so, but the accident was entirely my fault. I was going much too fast The accident part is maybe not so important, Heavyset said, then looked mistrustfully around at an approaching panel truck that was pulling over onto the shoulder. He looked back at Ed again and spoke with some urgency. You lost some oil, but its stopped leakin now. I bet you could drive her home . . . if you live here in town. You live here in town? Yes, Ed said. And Id stand you good on repairs, up to fifty bucks or so. Another revelation struck Ralph; it was the only thing he could think of to explain the mans sudden change from truculence to something close to wheedling. An OUI last winter? Yes, probably. But Ralph had never heard of such a thing as a provisional license, and thought it was almost certainly bullshit. Old Mr West Side Gardeners had been driving without a license. What complicated the situation was this Ed was telling the truth the accident had been entirely his fault. If we just drive away and call it good, Heavyset was going on, I dont have to explain all over again about my OUI and you dont have to explain why you jumped out of your car and started slapping me and yelling about how I had a truckload of dead bodies. Did I actually say that? Ed asked, sounding bewildered. You know you did, Heavyset told him grimly. A voice with a wispy FrenchCanadian accent asked, Everyting okay here, fellers? Nobody urt? . . . Eyyy, Ralph! Dat you? The truck which had pulled over had Derry Dry Cleaners printed on the side, and Ralph recognized the driver as one of the Vachon brothers from Old Cape. Probably Trigger, the youngest. Thats me, Ralph said, and without knowing or asking himself why he was operating purely on instinct at this point he went to Trigger, put an arm around his shoulders, and led him back in the direction of the laundry truck. Dem guys okay? Fine, fine, Ralph said. He glanced back and saw that Ed and Heavyset were standing by the truckbed with their heads together. Another cold spatter of rain fell, drumming on the blue tarpaulin like impatient fingers. A little fenderbender, thats all. Theyre working it out. Beauty, beauty, Trigger Vachon said complacently. Howdat pretty little wife of yours, Ralph? Ralph twitched, suddenly feeling like a man who remembers at lunch that he has forgotten to turn off the stove before leaving for work. Jesus! he said, and looked at his watch, hoping for fivefifteen, fivethirty at the latest. Instead he saw it was ten minutes of six. Already twenty minutes past the time Carolyn expected him to bring her a bowl of soup and half a sandwich. She would be worried. In fact, with the lightning and the thunder booming through the empty apartment, she might be downright scared. And if it did rain, she would not be able to close the windows; she had almost no strength left in her hands. Ralph? Trigger asked. Whats wrong? Nothing, he said. Its just that I got walking and lost all track of time. Then this accident happened, and . . . could you give me a ride home, Trig? Ill pay you. No need to pay nuttin, Trigger said. Its on my way. Hop in, Ralph. You tink dose guys gonna be all right? Aint gonna take after each udder or nuttin? No, Ralph said. I dont think so. Just one second. Sure. Ralph walked over to Ed. Are you okay with this? Are you getting it worked out? Yes, Ed replied. Were going to settle it privately. Why not? A little broken glass is all it really comes down to. He sounded completely like his old self now, and the big man in the white shirt was looking at him with something that was almost respect. Ralph still felt perplexed and uneasy about what had happened here, but he decided he was going to let it go. He liked Ed Deepneau a lot, but Ed was not his business this July; Carolyn was. Carolyn and the thing which had started ticking in the walls of their bedroom and inside her late at night. Great, he told Ed. Im headed home. I make Carolyn her supper these days, and Im running way late. He started to turn away. The heavyset man stopped him with an outstretched hand. John Tandy, he said. He shook it. Ralph Roberts. Pleased to meet you. Tandy smiled. Under the circumstances, I kinda doubt that . . . but Im real glad you showed up when you did. For a few seconds there I really thought him and me was gonna tango. So did I, Ralph thought but didnt say. He looked at Ed, his troubled eye taking in the unfamiliar teeshirt clinging to Eds stalkthin midriff and the white silk scarf with the Chinesered figures embroidered on it. He didnt entirely like the look in Eds eyes when they met his; Ed was perhaps not all the way back after all. Sure youre okay? Ralph asked him. He wanted to go, wanted to get back to Carolyn, and yet he was somehow reluctant. The feeling that this situation was about nine miles from right persisted. Yes, fine, Ed said quickly, and gave him a big smile which did not reach his dark green eyes. They studied Ralph carefully, as if asking how much he had seen . . . and how much (hey hey Susan Day) he would remember later on. 3 The interior of Trigger Vachons truck smelled of clean, freshly pressed clothes, an aroma which for some reason always reminded Ralph of fresh bread. There was no passenger seat, so he stood with one hand wrapped around the doorhandle and the other gripping the edge of a Dandux laundry basket. Man, dat look like some strange goon back dere, Trigger said, glancing into his outside mirror. You dont know the half of it, Ralph replied. I know the guy drivin the riceburner Deepneau, his name is. He got a pretty little wife, send stuff out sometime. Seem like a nice fella, mos usually. He sure wasnt himself today, Ralph said. Had a bug up his ass, did he? Had a whole damn antfarm up there, I think. Trigger laughed hard at that, pounding the worn black plastic of the big steering wheel. Whole damn antfarm! Beauty! Beauty! Im savin dat one, me! Trigger wiped his streaming eyes with a handkerchief almost the size of a tablecloth. Look to me like Mr Deepneau come out dat airport service gate, him. Thats right, he did. You need a pass to use dat way, Trigger said. How Mr D get a pass, you tink? Ralph thought it over, frowning, then shook his head. I dont know. It never even occurred to me. Ill have to ask him next time I see him. You do dat, Trigger said. And ask him how dem ants doin. This stimulated a fresh throe of laughter, which in turn occasioned more flourishes of the comicopera handkerchief. As they turned off the Extension and onto Harris Avenue proper, the storm finally broke. There was no hail, but the rain came in an extravagant summer flood, so heavy at first that Trigger had to slow the panel truck to a crawl. Wow! he said respectfully. Dis remine me of the big storm back in 85, when haffa downtown fell inna damn Canal! Member dat, Ralph? Yes, Ralph said. Lets hope it doesnt happen again. Nah, Trigger said, grinning and peering past his extravagantly flapping windshield wipers, dey got the drainage system all fixed up now. Beauty! The combination of the cold rain and the warm cab caused the bottom half of the windshield to steam up. Without thinking, Ralph reached out a finger and drew a figure in the steam Whats dat? Trigger asked. I dont really know. Looks Chinese, doesnt it? It was on the scarf Ed Deepneau was wearing. Look a little familiar to me, Trigger said, glancing at it again. Then he snorted and flapped a hand. Listen to me, wouldja? Ony ting I can say in Chinese is moogoogaipan! Ralph smiled, but didnt seem to have a laugh in him. It was Carolyn. Now that he had remembered her, he couldnt stop thinking about her couldnt stop imagining the windows open, and the curtains streaming like Edward Gorey ghost arms as the rain poured in. You still live in dat twostorey across from the Red Apple? Yes. Trigger pulled in to the curb, the wheels of the truck spraying up big fans of water. The rain was still pouring down in sheets. Lightning raced across the sky; thunder cracked. You better stay right here wit me for a little bit, Trigger said. She let up in a minute or two. Ill be all right. Ralph didnt think anything could keep him in the truck a second longer, not even handcuffs. Thanks, Trig. Wait a sec! Let me give you a piece of plastic you can puddit over your head like a rainhat! No, thats okay, no problem, thanks, Ill just There seemed to be no way of finishing whatever it was he was trying to say, and now what he felt was close to panic. He shoved the trucks passenger door back on its track and jumped out, landing ankledeep in the cold water racing down the gutter. He gave Trigger a final wave without looking back, then hurried up the walk to the house he and Carolyn shared with Bill McGovern, feeling in his pocket for his latchkey as he went. When he reached the porch steps he saw he wouldnt need it the door was standing ajar. Bill, who lived downstairs, often forgot to lock it, and Ralph would rather think it had been him than think that Carolyn had wandered out to look for him and been caught in the storm. That was a possibility Ralph did not even want to consider. He hurried into the shadowy foyer, wincing as thunder banged deafeningly overhead, and crossed to the foot of the stairs. He paused there a moment, hand on the newel post of the banister, listening to rainwater drip from his soaked pants and shirt onto the hardwood floor. Then he started up, wanting to run but no longer able to find the next gear up from a fast walk. His heart was beating hard and fast in his chest, his soaked sneakers were clammy anchors dragging at his feet, and for some reason he kept seeing the way Ed Deepneaus head had moved when he got out of his Datsun those stiff, quick jabs that made him look like a rooster spoiling for a fight. The third riser creaked loudly, as it always did, and the sound provoked hurried footsteps from above. They were no relief because they werent Carolyns, he knew that at once, and when Bill McGovern leaned over the rail, his face pale and worried beneath his Panama hat, Ralph wasnt really surprised. All the way back from the Extension he had felt that something was wrong, hadnt he? Yes. But under the circumstances, that hardly qualified as precognition. When things reached a certain degree of wrongness, he was discovering, they could no longer be redeemed or turned around; they just kept going wronger and wronger. He supposed that on some level or other hed always known that. What he had never suspected was how long that wrong road could be. Ralph! Bill called down. Thank God! Carolyns having . . . well, I guess its some sort of seizure. I just dialed 911, asked them to send an ambulance. Ralph discovered he could run up the rest of the stairs, after all. 4 She was lying half in and half out of the kitchen with her hair in her face. Ralph thought there was something particularly horrible about that; it looked sloppy, and if there was one thing Carolyn refused to be, it was sloppy. He knelt beside her and brushed the hair away from her eyes and forehead. The skin beneath his fingers felt as chilly as his feet inside his soaked sneakers. I wanted to put her on the couch, but shes too heavy for me, Bill said nervously. He had taken off his Panama and was fiddling nervously with the band. My back, you know I know, Bill, its okay, Ralph said. He slid his arms under Carolyn and picked her up. She did not feel heavy to him at all, but light almost as light as a milkweed pod which is ready to burst open and disgorge its filaments into the wind. Thank God you were here. I almost wasnt, Bill replied, following Ralph into the living room and still fiddling with his hat. He made Ralph think of old Dorrance Marstellar with his book of poems. I wouldnt touch him anymore, if I were you, old Dorrance had said. I cant see your hands. I was on my way out when I heard a hell of a thud . . . it must have been her falling . . . Bill looked around the stormdarkened living room, his face somehow distraught and avid at the same time, his eyes seeming to search for something that wasnt there. Then they brightened. The door! he said. Ill bet its still open! Itll be raining in! Ill be right back, Ralph. He hurried out. Ralph barely noticed; the day had taken on the surreal aspects of a nightmare. The ticking was the worst. He could hear it in the walls, so loud now that even the thunder could not blot it out. He put Carolyn on the couch and knelt beside her. Her respiration was fast and shallow, and her breath was terrible. Ralph did not turn away from it, however. Hang in there, sweetheart, he said. He picked up one of her hands it was almost as clammy as her brow had been and kissed it gently. You just hang in there. Its fine, everythings fine. But it wasnt fine, the ticking sound meant that nothing was fine. It wasnt in the walls, either it had never been in the walls, but only in his wife. In Carolyn. It was in his dear one, she was slipping away from him, and what would he ever do without her? You just hang on, he said. Hang on, you hear me? He kissed her hand again, and held it against his cheek, and when he heard the warble of the approaching ambulance, he began to cry. 5 She came around in the ambulance as it sped across Derry (the sun was already out again, the wet streets steaming), and at first she talked such gibberish that Ralph was sure she had suffered a stroke. Then, just as she began to clear up and speak coherently, a second convulsion struck, and it took both Ralph and one of the paramedics who had answered the call to hold her down. It wasnt Dr Litchfield who came to see Ralph in the thirdfloor waiting room early that evening but Dr Jamal, the neurologist. Jamal talked to him in a low, soothing voice, telling him that Carolyn was now stabilized, that they were going to keep her overnight, just to be safe, but that she would be able to go home in the morning. There were going to be some new medications drugs that were expensive, yes, but also quite wonderful. We must not be losing the hope, Mr Roberts, Dr Jamal said. No, Ralph said, I suppose not. Will there be more of these, Dr Jamal? Dr Jamal smiled. He spoke in a quiet voice that was rendered somehow even more comforting by his soft Indian accent. And although Dr Jamal did not come right out and tell him that Carolyn was going to die, he came as close as anyone ever did during that long year in which she battled to stay alive. The new medications, Jamal said, would probably prevent any further seizures, but things had reached a stage where all predictions had to be taken with the grains of salt. The tumor was spreading in spite of everything they had tried, unfortunately. The motorcontrol problems may show up next, Dr Jamal said in his comforting voice. And I am seeing some deterioration in the eyesight, I am afraid. Can I spend the night with her? Ralph asked quietly. Shell sleep better if I do. He paused, then added So will I. Of gorse! Dr Jamal said, brightening. That is a fine idea! Yes, Ralph said heavily. I think so, too. 6 So he sat beside his sleeping wife, and he listened to the ticking that was not in the walls, and he thought Some day soon maybe this fall, maybe this winter I will be back in this room with her. It had the feel not of speculation but of prophecy, and he leaned over and put his head on the white sheet that covered his wifes breast. He didnt want to cry again, but did a little anyway. That ticking. So loud and so steady. Id like to get hold of whats making that sound, he thought. Id stamp it until it was so many pieces scattered across the floor. With God as my witness I would. He fell asleep in his chair a little after midnight, and when he woke the next morning the air was cooler than it had been in weeks, and Carolyn was wide awake, coherent, and brighteyed. She seemed, in fact, hardly to be sick at all. Ralph took her home and began the notinconsiderable job of making her last months as comfortable as possible. It was a long while before he thought of Ed Deepneau again; even after he began to see the bruises on Helen Deepneaus face, it was a long time before he thought of Ed again. As that summer became fall, and as that fall darkened down toward Carolyns final winter, Ralphs thoughts were occupied more and more by the deathwatch, which seemed to tick louder and louder even as it slowed down. But he had no trouble sleeping. That came later. PART 1 LITTLE BALD DOCTORS There is a gulf fixed between those who can sleep and those who cannot. It is one of the great divisions of the human race. Iris Murdoch Nuns and Soldiers CHAPTER ONE 1 About a month after the death of his wife, Ralph Roberts began to suffer from insomnia for the first time in his life. The problem was mild to begin with, but it grew steadily worse. Six months after the first interruptions in his heretofore unremarkable sleep cycle, Ralph had reached a state of misery he could hardly credit, let alone accept. Toward the end of the summer of 1993 he began to wonder what it would be like to spend his remaining years on earth in a stareyeyed daze of wakefulness. Of course it wouldnt come to that, he told himself, it never does. But was that true? He didnt really know, that was the devil of it, and the books on the subject Mike Hanlon steered him to down at the Derry Public Library werent much help. There were several on sleep disorders, but they seemed to contradict one another. Some called insomnia a symptom, others called it a disease, and at least one called it a myth. The problem went further than that, however; so far as Ralph could tell from the books, no one seemed exactly sure what sleep itself was, how it worked, or what it did. He knew he should quit playing amateur researcher and go to the doctor, but he found that surprisingly hard to do. He supposed he still bore Dr Litchfield a grudge. It was Litchfield, after all, who had originally diagnosed Carolyns brain tumor as tension headaches (except Ralph had an idea that Litchfield, a lifelong bachelor, might actually have believed that Carolyn was suffering from nothing but a moderate case of the vapors), and Litchfield who had made himself as scarce as medically possible once Carolyn was diagnosed. Ralph was positive that if he had asked the man about that pointblank, Litchfield would have said he had handed the case off to Jamal, the specialist . . . all quite proper and aboveboard. Yes. Except Ralph had made it his business to get a good look into Litchfields eyes on the few occasions he had seen him between Carolyns first convulsions last July and her death this March, and Ralph thought that what hed seen in those eyes was a mixture of unease and guilt. It was the look of a man trying very hard to forget he has fucked up. Ralph believed the only reason he could still look at Litchfield without wanting to knock his block off was that Dr Jamal had told him that an earlier diagnosis probably would have made no difference; by the time Carolyns headaches started, the tumor was already well entrenched, and no doubt sending out little bursts of bad cells to other areas of the brain like malignant CARE packages. In late April Dr Jamal had left to establish a practice in southern Connecticut, and Ralph missed him. He thought that he could have talked about his sleeplessness to Dr Jamal, and he had an idea that Jamal would have listened in a way Litchfield wouldnt . . . or couldnt. By late summer Ralph had read enough about insomnia to know that the type with which he was afflicted, while not rare, was a lot less common than the usual slowsleep insomnia. People unaffected by insomnia are usually in firststage sleep seven to twenty minutes after turning in. Slowsleepers, on the other hand, sometimes take as long as three hours to slip below the surface, and while normal sleepers begin to ramp down into thirdstage sleep (what some of the old books called theta sleep, Ralph had discovered) fortyfive minutes or so after drifting off, slowsleepers usually took an additional hour or two to get down there . . . and on many nights they did not get all the way down at all. They awoke unrefreshed, sometimes with unfocused memories of unpleasant, tangled dreams, more often with the mistaken impression that they had been awake all night. Following Carolyns death, Ralph began to suffer from premature waking. He continued to go to bed most nights following the conclusion of the eleven oclock news, and he continued to pop off to sleep almost at once, but instead of waking promptly at sixfiftyfive, five minutes before the clockradio alarm buzzed, he began to wake at six. At first he dismissed this as no more than the price of living with a slightly enlarged prostate and a seventyyearold set of kidneys, but he never seemed to have to go that badly when he woke up, and he found it impossible to get back to sleep even after hed emptied what had accumulated. He simply lay in the bed hed shared with Carolyn for so many years, waiting for it to be five of seven (quarter till, anyway) so he could get up. Eventually he gave up even trying to drop off again; he simply lay there with his longfingered, slightly swollen hands laced together on his chest and stared up at the shadowy ceiling with eyes that felt as big as doorknobs. Sometimes he thought of Dr Jamal down there in Westport, talking in his soft and comforting Indian accent, building up his little piece of the American dream. Sometimes he thought of places he and Carolyn had gone in the old days, and the one he kept coming back to was a hot afternoon at Sand Beach in Bar Harbor, the two of them sitting at a picnic table in their bathing suits, sitting under a big bright umbrella, eating sweet fried clams and drinking Bud from longneck bottles as they watched the sailboats scudding across the darkblue ocean. When had that been? 1964? 1967? Did it matter? Probably not. The alterations in his sleep schedule wouldnt have mattered, either, if they had ended there; Ralph would have adapted to the changes not just with ease but with gratitude. All the books he hunted through that summer seemed to confirm one bit of folk wisdom hed heard all his life people slept less as they got older. If losing an hour or so a night was the only fee he had to pay for the dubious pleasure of being seventy years young, he would pay it gladly, and consider himself well off. But it didnt end there. By the first week of May, Ralph was waking up to birdsong at 515 a.m. He tried earplugs for a few nights, although he doubted from the outset that they would work. It wasnt the newly returned birds that were waking him up, nor the occasional deliverytruck backfire out on Harris Avenue. He had always been the sort of guy who could sleep in the middle of a brass marching band, and he didnt think that had changed. What had changed was inside his head. There was a switch in there, something was turning it on a little earlier every day, and Ralph hadnt the slightest idea of how to keep it from happening. By June he was popping out of sleep like Jack out of his box at 430 a.m., 445 at the latest. And by the middle of July not quite as hot as July of 92, but bad enough, thanks very much he was snapping to at around four oclock. It was during those long hot nights, taking up too little of the bed where he and Carolyn had made love on so many hot nights (and cold ones), that he began to consider what a hell his life would become if sleep departed entirely. In daylight he was still able to scoff at the notion, but he was discovering certain dismal truths about F. Scott Fitzgeralds dark night of the soul, and the grandprize winner was this at 415 a.m., anything seems possible. Anything. During the days he was able to go on telling himself that he was simply experiencing a readjustment of his sleepcycle, that his body was responding in perfectly normal fashion to a number of big changes in his life, retirement and the loss of his wife being the two biggest. He sometimes used the word loneliness when he thought about his new life, but he shied away from The Dreaded DWord, stuffing it back into the deep closet of his subconscious whenever it happened to glimmer for a moment in his thoughts. Loneliness was okay. Depression most certainly was not. Maybe you need to get more exercise, he thought. Do some walking, like you used to last summer. After all, youve been leading a pretty sedentary life get up, eat toast, read a book, watch some TV, get a sandwich across the street in the Red Apple for lunch, potter around in the garden a little, maybe go to the library or visit with Helen and the baby if they happen to be out, eat supper, maybe sit on the porch and visit with McGovern or Lois Chasse for a while. |
Then what? Read a little more, watch a little more TV, wash up, go to bed. Sedentary. Boring. No wonder you wake up early. Except that was crap. His life sounded sedentary, yes, no doubt, but it really wasnt. The garden was a good example. What he did out there was never going to win him any prizes, but it was a hell of a long way from pottering around. Most afternoons he weeded until sweat made a dark treeshape down the back of his shirt and spread damp circles at his armpits, and he was often trembling with exhaustion by the time he let himself go back inside. Punishment probably would have been closer to the mark than pottering, but punishment for what? Waking up before dawn? Ralph didnt know and didnt care. Working in the garden filled up a large piece of the afternoon, it took his mind off things he didnt really care to think of, and that was enough to justify the aching muscles and the occasional flights of black spots in front of his eyes. He began his extended visits to the garden shortly after the Fourth of July and continued all through August, long after the early crops had been harvested and the later ones had been hopelessly stunted by the lack of rain. You ought to quit that, Bill McGovern told him one night as they sat on the porch, drinking lemonade. This was in midAugust, and Ralph had begun to wake up around threethirty each morning. Its got to be hazardous to your health. Worse, you look like a lunatic. Maybe I am a lunatic, Ralph responded shortly, and either his tone or the look in his eyes must have been convincing, because McGovern changed the subject. 2 He did begin walking again nothing like the Marathons of 92, but he managed two miles a day if it wasnt raining. His usual route took him down the perversely named UpMile Hill, to the Derry Public Library, and then on to Back Pages, a used bookstore and newsstand on the corner of Witcham and Main. Back Pages stood next to a jumbled junkatorium called Secondhand Rose, Secondhand Clothes, and as he passed this store one day during the August of his discontent, Ralph saw a new poster among the announcements of outdated bean suppers and ancient church socials, placed so it covered roughly half of a yellowing PAT BUCHANAN FOR PRESIDENT placard. The woman in the two photographs at the top of the poster was a pretty blonde in her late thirties or early forties, but the style of the photos unsmiling full face on the left, unsmiling profile on the right, plain white background in both was unsettling enough to stop Ralph in his tracks. The photos made the woman look as if she belonged on a post office wall or in a TV docudrama . . . and that, the posters printed matter made clear, was no accident. The photos were what stopped him, but it was the womans name that held him. WANTED FOR MURDER SUSAN EDWINA DAY was printed across the top in big black letters. And below the simulated mugshots, in red STAY OUT OF OUR CITY! There was a small line of print at the very bottom of the poster. Ralphs close vision had deteriorated quite a bit since Carolyns death gone to hell in a handbasket might actually have been a more accurate way of putting it and he had to lean forward until his brow was pressed against the dirty show window of Secondhand Rose, Secondhand Clothes before he could decipher it Paid for by the Maine LifeWatch Committee Far down in his mind a voice whispered Hey, hey, Susan Day! How many kids did you kill today? Susan Day, Ralph recalled, was a political activist from either New York or Washington, the sort of fastspeaking woman who regularly drove taxidrivers, barbers, and hardhat construction workers into foaming frenzies. Why that particular little jangle of doggerel had come into his mind, however, he couldnt say; it was tagged to some memory that wouldnt quite come. Maybe his tired old brains were just crossreferencing that sixties Vietnam protest chant, the one which had gone Hey, hey, LBJ! How many kids did you kill today? No, thats not it, he thought. Close, but no cigar. It was Just before his mind could cough up Ed Deepneaus name and face, a voice spoke from almost beside him. Earth to Ralph, earth to Ralph, come in, Ralphiebaby! Roused out of his thoughts, Ralph turned toward the voice. He was both shocked and amused to find he had almost been asleep on his feet. Christ, he thought, you never know how important sleep is until you miss a little. Then all the floors start to tilt and all the corners on things start to round off. It was Hamilton Davenport, the proprietor of Back Pages, who had spoken to him. He was stocking the library cart he kept in front of his shop with brightly jacketed paperbacks. His old corncob pipe to Ralph it always looked like the stack of a model steamship jutted from the corner of his mouth, sending little puffs of blue smoke into the hot, bright air. Winston Smith, his old gray tomcat, sat in the open doorway of the shop with his tail curled around his paws. He looked at Ralph with yelloweyed indifference, as if to say, You think you know old, my friend? Im here to testify you dont know dick about getting old. Sheesh, Ralph, Davenport said. I must have called your name at least three times. I guess I was woolgathering, Ralph said. He stepped past the library cart, leaned in the doorway (Winston Smith held his place with regal indifference), and grabbed the two papers he bought every day a Boston Globe and a USA Today. The Derry News came right to the house, courtesy of Pete the paperboy. Ralph sometimes told people that he was sure one of the three papers was comic relief, but he had never been able to make up his mind which one it was. I havent He broke off as Ed Deepneaus face came into his mind. It was Ed hed heard that nasty little chant from, last summer, out by the airport, and it really wasnt any wonder it had taken him a little while to retrieve the memory. Ed Deepneau was the last person in the world from whom youd expect to hear something like that. Ralphie? Davenport said. You just shut down on me. Ralph blinked. Oh, sorry. I havent been sleeping very well, thats what I started to say. Bummer . . . but there are worse problems. Just drink a glass of warm milk and listen to some quiet music half an hour before bed. Ralph had begun to discover this summer that everyone in America apparently had a pet remedy for insomnia, some bit of bedtime magic that had been handed down through the generations like the family Bible. Bachs good, also Beethoven, and William Ackerman aint bad. But the real trick Davenport raised one finger impressively to emphasize this is not to get up from your chair during that half hour. Not for anything. Dont answer the phone, dont wind up the dog and put out the alarmclock, dont decide to brush your teeth . . . nothing! Then, when you do go to bed . . . bam! Out like a light! What if youre sitting there in your favorite easychair and all at once you realize you have a call of nature? Ralph asked. These things can come on pretty suddenly when you get to be my age. Do it in your pants, Davenport said promptly, and burst out laughing. Ralph smiled, but it had a dutiful feel. His insomnia was rapidly losing whatever marginal humor value it might once have had. In your pants! Ham chortled. He slapped the library cart and wagged his head back and forth. Ralph happened to glance down at the cat. Winston Smith looked blandly back at him, and to Ralph his calm yellow gaze seemed to say, Yes, thats right, hes a fool, but hes my fool. Not bad, huh? Hamilton Davenport, master of the snappy comeback. Do it in your . . . He snorted laughter, shook his head, then took the two dollar bills Ralph was holding out. He slipped them into the pocket of his short red apron and came out with some change. That about right? You bet. Thanks, Ham. Uhhuh. And all joking aside, try the music. It really works. Mellows out your brainwaves, or something. I will. And the devil of it was, he probably would, as he had already tried Mrs Rapaports lemon and hot water recipe, and Shawna McClures advice on how to clear his mind by slowing his respiration and concentrating on the word cool (except when Shawna said it, the word came out cuhhhhooooooooooool). When you were trying to deal with a slow but relentless erosion of your good sleeptime, any folk remedy started to look good. Ralph began to turn away, then turned back. Whats with that poster next door? Ham Davenport wrinkled his nose. Dan Daltons place? I dont look in there at all, if I can help it. Screws up my appetite. Has he got something new and disgusting in the window? I guess its new its not as yellow as the rest of them, and theres a notable lack of flydirt on it. Looks like a wanted poster, only its Susan Day in the photos. Susan Day on a son of a bitch! He cast a dark and humorless look at the shop next door. What is she, President of the National Organization of Women, or something? ExPresident and cofounder of Sisters in Arms. Author of My Mothers Shadow and Lilies of the Valley that ones a study of battered women and why so many of them refuse to blow the whistle on the men that batter them. She won a Pulitzer Prize for it. Susie Days one of the three or four most politically influential women in America right now, and she can really write as well as think. That clown knows Ive got one of her petitions sitting right by my cash register. What petitions? Were trying to get her up here to speak, Davenport said. You know the righttolifers tried to firebomb WomanCare last Christmas, right? Ralph cast his mind cautiously back into the black pit hed been living in at the end of 1992 and said, Well, I remember that the cops caught some guy in the hospitals longterm parking lot with a can of gasoline, but I didnt know That was Charlie Pickering. Hes a member of Daily Bread, one of the righttolife groups that keep the pickets marching out there, Davenport said. They put him up to it, too take my word. This year theyre not bothering with gasoline, though; theyre going to try to get the City Council to change the zoning regulations and squeeze WomanCare right out of existence. They just might do it, too. You know Derry, Ralph its not exactly a hotbed of liberalism. No, Ralph said with a wan smile. Its never been that. And WomanCare is an abortion clinic, isnt it? Davenport gave him an outofpatience look and jerked his head in the direction of Secondhand Rose. Thats what assholes like him call it, he said, only they like to use the word mill instead of clinic. They ignore all the other stuff WomanCare does. To Ralph, Davenport had begun to sound a little like the TV announcer who hawked runfree pantyhose during the Sunday afternoon movie. Theyre involved in family counselling, they deal with spouse and child abuse, and they run a shelter for abused women over by the Newport town line. They have a rape crisis center at the intown building by the hospital, and a twentyfourhour hotline for women whove been raped or beaten. In short, they stand for all the things that make Marlboro Men like Dalton shit bullets. But they do perform abortions, Ralph said. Thats what the pickets are about, right? There had been signcarrying demonstrators in front of the lowslung, unobtrusive brick building that housed WomanCare for years, it seemed to Ralph. They always looked too pale to him, too intense, too skinny or too fat, too utterly sure that God was on their side. The signs they carried said things like THE UNBORN HAVE RIGHTS, TOO and LIFE, WHAT A BEAUTIFUL CHOICE and that old standby, ABORTION IS MURDER! On several occasions women using the clinic which was near Derry Home but not actually associated with it, Ralph thought had been spat upon. Yeah, they perform abortions, Ham said. You got a problem with that? Ralph thought of all the years he and Carolyn had tried to have a baby years that had produced nothing but several false alarms and a single messy fivemonths miscarriage and shrugged. Suddenly the day seemed too hot and his legs too tired. The thought of his return journey the UpMile Hill leg of it in particular hung in the back of his mind like something strung from a line of fishhooks. Christ, I dont know, he said. I just wish people didnt have to get so . . . so shrill. Davenport grunted, walked over to his neighbors display window, and peered at the bogus wanted poster. While he was looking at it, a tall, pallid man with a goatee the absolute antithesis of the Marlboro Man, Ralph would have said materialized from the gloomy depths of Secondhand Rose like a vaudeville spook that has gotten a bit mouldy around the edges. He saw what Davenport was looking at, and a tiny disdainful smile dimpled the corners of his mouth. Ralph thought it was the kind of smile that could cost a man a couple of teeth, or a broken nose. Especially on a doghot day like this one. Davenport pointed to the poster and shook his head violently. Daltons smile deepened. He flapped his hands at Davenport Who gives a shit what you think? the gesture said and then disappeared back into the depths of his store. Davenport returned to Ralph, bright spots of color burning in his cheeks. That mans picture should be next to the word prick in the dictionary, he said. Exactly what he thinks about you, I imagine, Ralph thought, but of course did not say. Davenport stood in front of the library cart full of paperbacks, hands stuffed into his pockets beneath his red change apron, brooding at the poster of (hey hey) Susan Day. Well, Ralph said, I suppose I better Davenport shook himself out of his brown study. Dont go yet, he said. Sign my petition first, will you? Put a little shine back on my morning. Ralph shifted his feet uncomfortably. I usually dont get involved in confrontational stuff like Come on, Ralph, Davenport said in a letsbereasonable voice. Were not talking confrontation here; were talking about making sure that the fruits and nuts like the ones who run Daily Bread and political Neanderthals like Dalton dont shut down a really useful womens resource center. Its not like Im asking you to endorse testing chemical warfare weapons on dolphins. No, Ralph said. I suppose not. Were hoping to send five thousand signatures to Susan Day by the first of September. Probably wont do any good Derrys really not much more than a wide place in the road, and shes probably booked into the next century anyhow but it cant hurt to try. Ralph thought about telling Ham that the only petition he wanted to sign was one asking the gods of sleep to give him back the three hours or so of good rest a night they had stolen away, but then he took another look at the mans face and decided against it. Carolyn would have signed his damned petition, he thought. She was no fan of abortion, but she was also no fan of men coming home after the bars close and mistaking their wives and kids for soccer balls. True enough, but that wouldnt have been her main reason for signing; she would have done it on the offchance that she might get to hear an authentic firebrand like Susan Day up close and in person. She would have done it out of the ingrained curiosity which had perhaps been her dominating characteristic something so strong not even the brain tumor had been able to kill it. Two days before she died she had pulled the movie ticket hed been using as a bookmark out of the paperback novel hed left on her bedside table because she had wanted to know what hed been to see. It had been A Few Good Men, as a matter of fact, and he was both surprised and dismayed to discover how much it hurt to remember that. Even now it hurt like hell. Sure, he told Ham. Ill be happy to sign it. My man! Davenport exclaimed, and clapped him on the shoulder. The broody look was replaced by a grin, but Ralph didnt think the change much of an improvement. The grin was hard and not especially charming. Step into my den of iniquity! Ralph followed him into the tobaccosmelling shop, which did not seem particularly iniquitous at ninethirty in the morning. Winston Smith fled before them, pausing just once to look back with his ancient yellow eyes. Hes a fool and youre another, that parting stare might have said. Under the circumstances, it wasnt a conclusion Ralph felt much inclined to dispute. He tucked his newspapers under his arm, leaned over the ruled sheet on the counter beside the cash register, and signed the petition asking Susan Day to come to Derry and speak in defense of WomanCare. 3 He did better climbing UpMile Hill than he had expected, and crossed the Xshaped intersection of Witcham and Jackson thinking, There, that wasnt so bad, was He suddenly realized that his ears were ringing and his legs had begun to tremble beneath him. He stopped on the far side of Witcham and placed one hand against his shirt. He could feel his heart beating just beneath it, pumping away with a ragged fierceness that was scary. He heard a papery rustle and saw an advertising supplement slip out of the Boston Globe and go seesawing down into the gutter. He started to bend over and get it, then stopped. Not a good idea, Ralph if you bend over, youre more than likely going to fall over. I suggest you leave that one for the sweeper. Yeah, okay, good idea, he muttered, and straightened up. Black dots surged across his vision like a surreal flock of crows, and for a moment Ralph was almost positive he was going to wind up lying on top of the ad supplement no matter what he did or didnt do. Ralph? You all right? He looked up cautiously and saw Lois Chasse, who lived on the other side of Harris Avenue and half a block down from the house he shared with Bill McGovern. She was sitting on one of the benches just outside Strawford Park, probably waiting for the Canal Street bus to come along and take her downtown. Sure, fine, he said, and made his legs move. He felt as if he were walking through syrup, but he thought he got over to the bench without looking too bad. He could not, however, suppress a grateful little gasp as he sat down next to her. Lois Chasse had large dark eyes the kind that had been called Spanish eyes when Ralph was a kid and he bet they had danced through the minds of dozens of boys during Loiss high school years. They were still her best feature, but Ralph didnt much care for the worry he saw in them now. It was . . . what? A little too neighborly for comfort was the first thought to occur to him, but he wasnt sure it was the right thought. Fine, Lois echoed. You betcha. He took his handkerchief from his back pocket, checked to make sure it was clean, and then wiped his brow with it. I hope you dont mind me saying it, Ralph, but you dont look fine. Ralph did mind her saying it, but didnt know how to say so. Youre pale, youre sweating, and youre a litterbug. Ralph looked at her, startled. Something fell out of your paper. I think it was an ad circular. Did it? You know perfectly well it did. Excuse me a second. She got up, crossed the sidewalk, bent (Ralph noticed that, while her hips were fairly broad, her legs were still admirably trim for a woman who had to be sixtyeight), and picked up the circular. She came back to the bench with it and sat down. There,she said. Now youre not a litterbug anymore. He smiled in spite of himself. Thank you. Dont mention it. I can use the Maxwell House coupon, also the Hamburger Helper and the Diet Coke. Ive gotten so fat since Mr Chasse died. Youre not fat, Lois. Thank you, Ralph, youre a perfect gentleman, but lets not change the subject. You had a dizzy spell, didnt you? In fact, you almost passed out. I was just catching my breath, he said stiffly, and turned to watch a bunch of kids playing scrub baseball just inside the park. They were going at it hard, laughing and grabassing around. Ralph envied the efficiency of their airconditioning systems. Catching your breath, were you? Yes. Just catching your breath. Lois, youre starting to sound like a broken record. Well, the broken records going to tell you something, okay? Youre nuts to be trying UpMile Hill in this heat. If you want to walk, why not go out the Extension, where its flat, like you used to? Because it makes me think of Carolyn, he said, not liking the stiff, almost rude way that sounded but unable to help it. Oh shit,she said, and touched his hand briefly. Sorry. Its okay. No, its not. I should have known better. But the way you looked just now, thats not okay, either. Youre not twenty anymore, Ralph. Not even forty. I dont mean youre not in good shape anyone can see youre in great shape for a guy your age but you ought to take better care of yourself. Carolyn would want you to take care of yourself. I know, he said, but Im really all right, he meant to finish, and then he looked up from his hands, looked into her dark eyes again, and what he saw there made it impossible to finish for a moment. There was a weary sadness in her eyes . . . or was it loneliness? Maybe both. In any case, those were not the only things he saw in them. He also saw himself. Youre being silly, the eyes looking into his said. Maybe we both are. Youre seventy and a widower, Ralph. Im sixtyeight and a widow. How long are we going to sit on your porch in the evenings with Bill McGovern as the worlds oldest chaperone? Not too long, I hope, because neither of us is exactly fresh off the showroom lot. Ralph? Lois asked, suddenly concerned. Are you okay? Yes, he said, looking down at his hands again. Yes, sure. You had a look on your face like . . . well, I dont know. Ralph wondered if maybe the combination of the heat and the walk up UpMile Hill had scrambled his brains a little. Because this was Lois, after all, whom McGovern always referred to (with a small, satiric lift of his left eyebrow) as Our Lois. And okay, yes, she was still in good shape trim legs, nice bust, and those remarkable eyes and maybe he wouldnt mind taking her to bed, and maybe she wouldnt mind being taken. But what would there be after that? If she happened to see a ticketstub poking out of the book he was reading, would she pull it out, too curious about what movie hed been to see to think about how she was losing his place? Ralph thought not. Loiss eyes were remarkable, and he had found his own eyes wandering down the V of her blouse more than once as the three of them sat on the front porch, drinking iced tea in the cool of the evening, but he had an idea that your little head could get your big head in trouble even at seventy. Getting old was no excuse to get careless. He got to his feet, aware of Lois looking at him and making an extra effort not to stoop. Thanks for your concern, he said. Want to walk an old feller up the street? Thanks, but Im going downtown. Theyve got some beautiful rosecolored yarn in at The Sewing Circle, and Im thinking afghan. Meanwhile, Ill just wait for the bus and gloat over my coupons. Ralph grinned. You do that. He glanced over at the kids on the scrub ballfield. As he watched, a boy with an extravagant mop of red hair broke from third, threw himself down in a headfirst slide . . . and fetched up against one of the catchers shinguards with an audible thonk. Ralph winced, envisioning ambulances with flashing lights and screaming sirens, but the carrottop bounced to his feet laughing. Missed the tag, you hoser! he shouted. The hell I did! the catcher responded indignantly, but then he began to laugh, too. Ever wish you were that age again, Ralph? Lois asked. He thought it over. Sometimes, he said. Mostly it just looks too strenuous. Come on over tonight, Lois sit with us awhile. I might just do that, she said, and Ralph started up Harris Avenue, feeling the weight of her remarkable eyes on him and trying hard to keep his back straight. He thought he managed fairly well, but it was hard work. He had never felt so tired in his life. CHAPTER TWO 1 Ralph made the appointment to see Dr Litchfield less than an hour after his conversation with Lois on the park bench; the receptionist with the cool, sexy voice told him she could fit him in next Tuesday morning at ten, if that was okay, and Ralph told her that was fine as paint. Then he hung up, went into the living room, sat in the wingchair that overlooked Harris Avenue, and thought about how Dr Litchfield had initially treated his wifes brain tumor with Tylenol3 and pamphlets explaining various relaxation techniques. From there he moved on to the look hed seen in Litchfields eyes after the magnetic resonance imaging tests had confirmed the CAT scans bad news . . . that look of guilt and unease. Across the street, a bunch of kids who would soon be back in school came out of the Red Apple armed with candy bars and Slurpies. As Ralph watched them mount their bikes and tear away into the bright eleven oclock heat, he thought what he always did when the memory of Dr Litchfields eyes surfaced that it was most likely a false memory. The thing is, old buddy, you wanted Litchfield to look uneasy . . . but even more than that, you wanted him to look guilty. Quite possibly true, quite possibly Carl Litchfield was a peach of a guy and a helluva doctor, but Ralph still found himself calling Litchfields office again half an hour later. He told the receptionist with the sexy voice that hed just rechecked his calendar and discovered next Tuesday at ten wasnt so fine after all. Hed made an appointment with the podiatrist for that day and forgotten all about it. My memorys not what it used to be, Ralph told her. The receptionist suggested next Thursday at two. Ralph countered by promising to call back. Liar, liar, pants on fire, he thought as he hung up the phone, walked slowly back to the wingchair, and lowered himself into it. Youre done with him, arent you? He supposed he was. Not that Dr Litchfield was apt to lose any sleep over it; if he thought about Ralph at all, it would be as one less old geezer to fart in his face during the prostate exam. All right, so what are you going to do about the insomnia, Ralph? Sit quiet for half an hour before bedtime and listen to classical music, he said out loud. Buy some Depends for those troublesome calls of nature. He startled himself by laughing at the image. The laughter had a hysterical edge he didnt much care for it was damned creepy, as a matter of fact but it was still a little while before he could make himself stop. Yet he supposed he would try Hamilton Davenports suggestion (although he would skip the diapers, thank you), as he had tried most of the folk remedies wellmeaning people had passed on to him. This made him think of his first bona fide folk remedy, and that raised another grin. It had been McGoverns idea. He had been sitting on the porch one evening when Ralph came back from the Red Apple with some noodles and spaghetti sauce, had taken one look at his upstairs neighbor and made a tsktsk sound, shaking his head dolefully. Whats that supposed to mean? Ralph asked, taking the seat next to him. A little farther down the street, a little girl in jeans and an oversized white teeshirt had been skipping rope and chanting in the growing gloom. It means youre looking folded, spindled, and mutilated, McGovern said. He used one thumb to tilt the Panama back on his head and looked more closely at Ralph. Still not sleeping? Still not sleeping, Ralph agreed. McGovern was quiet for a few seconds. When he spoke again, he did so in a tone of absolute almost apocalyptic, in fact finality. Whiskey is the answer, he said. I beg your pardon? To your insomnia, Ralph. I dont mean you should take a bath in it theres no need of that. Just mix a tablespoon of honey with half a shot of whiskey and hook it down fifteen or twenty minutes before you hit the hay. You think? Ralph had asked hopefully. All I can say is it worked for me, and I had some real problems sleeping around the time I turned forty. Looking back on it, I guess that was my midlife crisis six months of insomnia and a yearlong depression over my bald spot. Although the books hed been consulting all said that booze was a vastly overrated cure for sleeplessness that it often made the problem worse instead of better, in fact Ralph had tried it just the same. He had never been much of a drinker, so he began by adjusting McGoverns recommended halfshot dosage down to a quarter of a shot, but after a week of no relief he had upped the ante to a full shot . . . then to two. He woke up one morning at fourtwentytwo with a nasty little headache to accompany the dull brown taste of Early Times on the roof of his mouth, and realized he was suffering his first hangover in fifteen years. Lifes too short for this shit, he had announced to his empty apartment, and that had been the end of the great whiskey experiment. 2 Okay, Ralph thought now as he watched the desultory midmorning flow of customers in and out of the Red Apple across the street. Heres the situation McGovern says you look like shit, you almost fainted at Lois Chasses feet this morning, and you just cancelled the appointment you made with Ye Olde Family Physician. So what next? Just let it go? Accept the situation and let it go? The idea had a certain Oriental charm fate, karma, and all that but he was going to need more than charm to get him through the long hours of early morning. The books said there were people in the world, quite a lot of them, who managed very well on no more than three or four hours of sleep a night. There were even some who got along on only two. They were an extremely small minority, but they did exist. Ralph Roberts, however, was not among their number. How he looked wasnt very important to him he had a feeling that his matineeidol days were well behind him but how he felt was, and it was no longer just a matter of not feeling good; he felt horrible. The insomnia had begun to pervade every aspect of his life, the way the smell of frying garlic on the fifth floor will eventually pervade an entire apartment building. The color had started to drain out of things; the world had begun to take on the dull, grainy quality of a newspaper photograph. Simple decisions whether to heat up a frozen dinner for his evening meal or grab a sandwich at the Red Apple and go up to the picnic area by Runway 3, for example had become difficult, almost agonizing. In the last couple of weeks he had found himself coming back to the apartment from Daves Video Stop emptyhanded more and more often, not because there was nothing at Daves he wanted to watch but because there was too much he couldnt decide if he wanted one of the Dirty Harry movies or a Billy Crystal comedy or maybe a few old Star Trek episodes. After a couple of these unsuccessful trips, he had plopped himself down in this very wingchair, almost crying with frustration . . . and, he supposed, fear. That creeping sensory numbness and the erosion of his decisionmaking capabilities were not the only problems he had come to associate with the insomnia; his shortterm memory had also begun to slip. It had been his practice to go to the movies at least once and sometimes twice a week ever since his retirement from the printshop where he had finished his working life as the bookkeeper and general supervisor. He had taken Carolyn until last year, when she had gotten too sick to enjoy going out anywhere. After her death he had mostly gone alone, although Helen Deepneau had accompanied him once or twice when Ed was home to mind the baby (Ed himself almost never went, claiming he got headaches at the movies). Ralph had gotten so used to calling the cinema centers answering machine to check showtimes that he had the number by heart. As the summer went on, however, he found himself having to look it up in the Yellow Pages more and more often he could no longer be sure if the last four digits were 1317 or 1713. Its 1713, he said now. I know it is. But did he know it? Did he really? Call Litchfield back. Go on, Ralph stop sifting through the wreckage. Do something constructive. |
And if Litchfield really sticks in your craw, call somebody else. The phone books as full of doctors as it ever was. Probably true, but seventy was maybe a little old to be picking a new sawbones by the eeniemeenieminiemoe method. And he wasnt going to call Litchfield back. Period. Okay, so whats next, you stubborn old goat? A few more folk remedies? I hope not, because at the rate youre going youll be down to eye of newt and tongue of toad in no time. The answer that came was like a cool breeze on a hot day . . . and it was an absurdly simple answer. All his bookresearch this summer had been aimed at understanding the problem rather than finding a solution. When it came to answers, he had relied almost solely on backfence remedies like whiskey and honey, even when the books had already assured him they probably wouldnt work or would only work for a while. Although the books did offer some presumably reliable methods for coping with insomnia, the only one Ralph had actually tried was the simplest and most obvious going to bed earlier in the evening. That solution hadnt worked he had simply lain awake until eleventhirty or so, then dropped off to wake at his new, earlier time but something else might. It was worth a try, anyway. 3 Instead of spending the afternoon in his usual frenzy of backyard pottering, Ralph went down to the library and skimmed through some of the books he had already looked at. The general consensus seemed to be that if going to bed earlier didnt work, going later might. Ralph went home (mindful of his previous adventures, he took the bus) filled with cautious hope. It might work. If it didnt, he always had Bach, Beethoven and William Ackerman to fall back on. His first attempt at this technique, which one of the texts called delayed sleep, was comic. He awoke at his nowusual time (345 by the digital clock on the livingroom mantel) with a sore back, an aching neck, no immediate idea of how he had gotten into the wingchair by the window, or why the TV was on, broadcasting nothing but snow and a soft, surflike roar of static. It was only as he allowed his head to roll cautiously back, supporting the nape of his neck with a cupped palm, that he realized what had happened. He had intended to sit up until at least three oclock and possibly four. He would then stroll off to bed and sleep the sleep of the just. That had been the plan, anyway. Instead, The Incredible Insomniac of Harris Avenue had dropped off during Jay Lenos opening monologue, like a kid whos trying to stay up all night long just to see what its like. And then, of course, he had finished the adventure by waking up in the damned chair. The problem was the same, Joe Friday might have said; only the location had changed. Ralph strolled off to bed anyway, hoping against hope, but the urge (if not the need) to sleep had passed. After an hour of lying awake, he had gone back to the wingchair again, this time with a pillow propped behind his stiff neck and a rueful grin on his face. 4 There was nothing funny about his second try, which took place the following night. Sleepiness began to steal over him at its usual time eleventwenty, just as Pete Cherney was giving the following days weather forecast. This time Ralph fought it successfully, making it all the way through Whoopi (although he almost nodded off during Whoopis conversation with Roseanne Arnold, that evenings guest) and the latenight movie that came on after that. It was an old Audie Murphy flick in which Audie appeared to be winning the war in the Pacific pretty much singlehanded. It sometimes seemed to Ralph that there was an unspoken rule among local TV broadcasters which stated that movies telecast in the small hours of the morning could only star Audie Murphy or James Brolin. After the last Japanese pillbox had been blown up, Channel 2 signed off. Ralph dialed around, looking for another movie, and found nothing but snow. He supposed he could have watched movies all night if he had the cable, like Bill downstairs or Lois down the street; he remembered having put that on his list of things to do in the new year. But then Carolyn had died and cable TV with or without Home Box Office had no longer seemed very important. He found a copy of Sports Illustrated and began to slog through an article on womens tennis hed missed the first time through, glancing up at the clock every now and then as the hands began to close in on 300 a.m. He had become all but convinced that this was going to work. His eyelids were so heavy they felt as if they had been dipped in concrete, and although he was reading the tennis article carefully, word for word, he had no idea of what the writer was driving at. Whole sentences zipped across his brain without sticking, like cosmic rays. Im going to sleep tonight I really think I am. For the first time in months the sun is going to have to come up without my help, and that isnt just good, friends and neighbors; that is great. Then, shortly after three oclock, that pleasant drowsiness began to disappear. It did not go with a champagnecork pop but rather seemed to ooze away, like sand through a fine sieve or water down a partially clogged drain. When Ralph realized what was happening, it wasnt panic he felt, but sick dismay. It was a feeling he had come to recognize as the true opposite of hope, and when he slipperscuffed his way into the bedroom at quarter past three, he couldnt remember a depression as deep as the one which now enveloped him. He felt as if he were suffocating in it. Please, God, just forty winks, he muttered as he turned off the light, but he strongly suspected that this was one prayer which was not going to be answered. It wasnt. Although he had been awake for twentyfour hours by then, every trace of sleepiness had left his mind and body by quarter of four. He was tired, yes more deeply and fundamentally tired than he had ever been in his life but being tired and being sleepy, he had discovered, were sometimes poles apart. Sleep, that undiscriminating friend, humankinds best and most reliable nurse since the dawn of time, had abandoned him again. By four oclock Ralphs bed had become hateful to him, as it always did when he realized he could put it to no good use. He swung his feet back onto the floor, scratching the mat of hair almost entirely gray now which curled through his mostly unbuttoned pajama top. He slid on his slippers again and scuffed back to the living room, where he dropped into the wingback chair and looked down at Harris Avenue. It was laid out like a stage set where the only actor currently on view wasnt even human it was a stray dog moving slowly down Harris Avenue in the direction of Strawford Park and UpMile Hill. It held its right rear leg up as much as possible, limping along as best it could on the other three. Hi there, Rosalie, Ralph muttered, and rubbed a hand across his eyes. It was a Thursday morning, garbagepickup day on Harris Avenue, so he wasnt surprised to see Rosalie, whod been a wandering, hereandthere fixture in the neighborhood for the last year or so. She made her way down the street in leisurely fashion, investigating the rows and clusters of cans with the discrimination of a jaded fleamarket shopper. Now Rosalie who was limping worse than ever this morning, and looked as tired as Ralph felt found what looked like a goodsized beef bone and trotted away with it in her mouth. Ralph watched her out of sight, then simply sat with his hands folded in his lap, gazing out on the silent neighborhood, where the orange hiintensity lamps added to the illusion that Harris Avenue was nothing but a stage set standing deserted after the evening performance had ended and the actors had gone home; they shone down like spotlights in a perfect diminishing perspective that was surreal and hallucinatory. Ralph Roberts sat in the wingchair where he had spent so many earlymorning hours lately and waited for light and movement to invest the lifeless world below him. Finally the first human actor Pete the paperboy entered stage right, riding his Raleigh. He biked his way up the street, tossing rolled newspapers from the bag slung over his shoulder and hitting the porches he aimed at with a fair degree of accuracy. Ralph watched him awhile, then heaved a sigh which felt as if it had come all the way from the basement, and got up to make tea. I dont remember ever reading about this shit in my horoscope,he said hollowly, and then turned on the kitchen tap and began to fill the kettle. 5 That long Thursday morning and even longer Thursday afternoon taught Ralph Roberts a valuable lesson not to sneer at three or four hours sleep a night simply because he had spent his entire life under the mistaken impression that he had a right to at least six and usually seven. It also served as a hideous preview if things didnt improve, he could look forward to feeling like this most of the time. Hell, all of the time. He went into the bedroom at ten oclock and again at one, hoping for a little nap even a catnap would do, and half an hour would be a lifesaver but he could not so much as drowse. He was miserably tired but not in the least bit sleepy. Around three oclock he decided to make himself a Lipton CupASoup. He filled the teakettle with fresh water, put it on to boil, and opened the cupboard over the counter where he kept condiments, spices, and various envelopes containing foods which only astronauts and old men actually seem to eat powders to which the consumer need only add hot water. He pushed cans and bottles around in aimless fashion and then simply stared into the cupboard for awhile, as if expecting the box of soup packets to magically appear in the space he had made. When they didnt, he repeated the process, only this time moving things back to their original positions before staring in again with the look of distant perplexity which was becoming (Ralph, mercifully, did not know this) his dominant expression. When the teakettle shrieked, he put it on one of the rear burners and went back to staring into the cupboard. It dawned on him very, very slowly that he must have drunk his last packet of CupASoup yesterday or the day before, although he could not for the life of him remember doing so. Thats a surprise? he asked the boxes and bottles in the open cupboard. Im so tired I cant remember my own name. Yes, I can, he thought. Its Leon Redbone. So there! It wasnt much of a joke, but he felt a small smile it felt as light as a feather touch his lips. He stepped into the bathroom, combed his hair, and then went downstairs. Heres Audie Murphy, heading out into enemy territory in search of supplies, he thought. Primary target one box of Lipton Chicken and Rice CupASoup packets. If locating and securing this target should prove impossible, Ill divert to my secondary Noodles n Beef. I know this is a risky mission, but but I work best alone, he finished as he came out on the porch. Old Mrs Perrine happened to be passing, and she favored Ralph with a sharp look but said nothing. He waited for her to get a little way up the sidewalk he did not feel capable of conversation with anyone this afternoon, least of all Mrs Perrine, who at eightytwo could still have found stimulating and useful work among the Marines at Parris Island. He pretended to be examining the spiderplant which hung from the hook under the porch eave until she had reached what he deemed a safe distance, then crossed Harris Avenue to the Red Apple. Which was where the days real troubles began. 6 He entered the convenience store once again mulling over the spectacular failure of the delayedsleep experiment and wondering if the advice in the library texts was no more than an uptown version of the folk remedies his acquaintances seemed so eager to press upon him. It was an unpleasant idea, but he thought his mind (or the force below his mind which was actually in charge of this slow torture) had sent him a message which was even more unpleasant You have a sleepwindow, Ralph. Its not as big as it once was, and it seems to be getting smaller with every passing week, but you better be grateful for what youve got, because a small window is better than no window at all. You see that now, dont you? Yes, Ralph mumbled as he walked down the center aisle to the bright red CupASoup boxes. I see that very well. Sue, the afternoon countergirl, laughed cheerfully. You must have money in the bank, Ralph, she said. Beg pardon? Ralph didnt turn; he was inventorying the red boxes. Here was onion . . . split pea . . . the beefandnoodles combo . . . but where the hell was the Chicken and Rice? My mom always said people who talk to themselves have Oh my God! For a moment Ralph thought she had simply made a statement a little too complex for his tired mind to immediately grasp, something about how people who talked to themselves had found God, and then she screamed. He had hunkered down to check the boxes on the bottom shelf, and the scream shot him to his feet so hard and fast that his knees popped. He wheeled toward the front of the store, bumping the top shelf of the soup display with his elbow and knocking half a dozen red boxes into the aisle. Sue? Whats wrong? Sue paid no attention. She was looking out through the door with her fisted hands pressed against her lips and her brown eyes huge above them. God, look at the blood! she cried in a choked voice. Ralph turned further, knocking a few more Lipton boxes into the aisle, and looked through the Red Apples dirty show window. What he saw drew a gasp from him, and it took him a space of seconds five, maybe to realize that the bloody, beaten woman staggering toward the Red Apple was Helen Deepneau. Ralph had always thought Helen the prettiest woman on the west side of town, but there was nothing pretty about her today. One of her eyes was puffed shut; there was a gash at her left temple that was soon going to be lost in the gaudy swelling of a fresh bruise; her puffy lips and her cheeks were covered with blood. The blood had come from her nose, which was still leaking. She wove through the Red Apples little parking lot toward the door like a drunk, her one good eye seeming to see nothing; it simply stared. More frightening than the way she looked was the way she was handling Natalie. She had the squalling, frightened baby slung casually on one hip, carrying her as she might have carried her books to high school ten or twelve years before. Oh Jesus, shes gonna drop the kid! Sue screamed, but although she was ten steps closer to the door than he was, she made no move simply stood where she was with her hands pressed to her mouth and her eyes gobbling up her face. Ralph didnt feel tired anymore. He sprinted up the aisle, tore open the door, and ran outside. He was just in time to catch Helen by the shoulders as she banged a hip against the ice cabinet mercifully not the hip with Natalie on it and went veering off in a new direction. Helen! he yelled. Jesus, Helen, what happened? Hun? she asked, her voice dully curious, totally unlike the voice of the lively young woman who sometimes accompanied him to the movies and moaned over Mel Gibson. Her good eye rolled toward him and he saw that same dull curiosity in it, a look that said she didnt know who she was, let alone where she was, or what had happened, or when. Hun? Ral? Wha? The baby slipped. Ralph let go of Helen, grabbed for Natalie, and managed to snag one of her jumper straps. Nat screamed, waved her hands, and stared at him with huge darkblue eyes. He got his other hand between Nats legs an instant before the strap he was holding tore free. For a moment the howling baby balanced on his hand like a gymnast on a balance beam, and Ralph could feel the damp bulge of her diapers through the overall she was wearing. Then he slipped his other hand around her back and hoisted her up against his chest. His heart was pounding hard, and even with the baby safe in his arms he kept seeing her slip away, kept seeing her head with its cap of fine hair slamming against the buttlittered pavement with a sickening crack. Hum? Ar? Ral? Helen asked. She saw Natalie in Ralphs arms, and some of the dullness went out of her good eye. She raised her hands toward the child, and in Ralphs arms, Natalie mimicked the gesture with her own chubby hands. Then Helen staggered, struck the side of the building, and reeled backward a step. One foot tangled in the other (Ralph saw splatters of blood on her small white sneakers, and it was amazing how bright everything was all of a sudden; the color had come back into the world, at least temporarily), and she would have fallen if Sue hadnt picked that moment to finally venture out. Instead of going down, Helen landed against the opening door and just leaned there, like a drunk against a lamppost. Ral? The expression in her eyes was a little sharper now, and Ralph saw it wasnt so much curiosity as incredulity. She drew in a deep breath and made an effort to force intelligible words past her swelled lips. Gih. Gih me my bayee. Baybe. Gih me . . . Nahlie. Not just yet, Helen, Ralph said. Youre not too steady on your feet right now. Sue was still on the other side of the door, holding it so Helen wouldnt fall. The girls cheeks and forehead were ashy pale, her eyes filled with tears. Get out here, Ralph told her. Hold her up. I cant! she blubbered. Shes all bluhbluhbloody! Oh for Gods sake, quit it! Its Helen! Helen Deepneau from up the street! And although Sue must have known that, actually hearing the name seemed to turn the trick. She slipped around the open door, and when Helen staggered backward again, Sue curled an arm around her shoulders and braced her firmly. That expression of incredulous surprise remained on Helens face. Ralph found it harder and harder to look at. It made him feel sick to his stomach. Ralph? What happened? Was it an accident? He turned his head and saw Bill McGovern standing at the edge of the parking lot. He was wearing one of his natty blue shirts with the irons creases still in the sleeves and holding one of his longfingered, oddly delicate hands up to shade his eyes. He looked strange, somehow naked that way, but Ralph had no time to think about why; too much was happening. It was no accident, he said. Shes been beaten up. Here, take the kid. He held Natalie out to McGovern, who at first shrank back and then took the baby. Natalie immediately began to shriek again. McGovern, looking like someone who has just been handed an overfilled airsick bag, held her out at arms length with her feet dangling. Behind him a small crowd was beginning to gather, many of them teenage kids in baseball uniforms on their way home from an afternoon game at the field around the corner. They were staring at Helens puffed and bloody face with an unpleasant avidity, and Ralph found himself thinking of the Bible story about the time Noah had gotten drunk the good sons who had looked away from the naked old man lying in his tent, the bad one who had looked . . . Gently, he replaced Sues arm with his own. Helens good eye rolled back to him. She said his name more clearly this time, more positively, and the gratitude Ralph heard in her blurry voice made him feel like crying. Sue take the baby. Bill doesnt have a clue. She did, folding Nat gently and expertly into her arms. McGovern gave her a grateful smile, and Ralph suddenly realized what was wrong with the way he looked. McGovern wasnt wearing the Panama hat which seemed as much a part of him (in the summertime, at least) as the wen on the bridge of his nose. Hey, mister, what happened? one of the baseball kids asked. Nothing thats any of your business, Ralph said. Looks like she went a few rounds with Riddick Bowe. Nah, Tyson, one of the other baseball kids said, and incredibly, there was laughter. Get out of here! Ralph shouted at them, suddenly furious. Go peddle your papers! Mind your business! They shuffled back a few steps, but no one left. It was blood they were looking at, and not on a movie screen. Helen, can you walk? Yeff, she said. Fink . . . Think so. He led her carefully around the open door and into the Red Apple. She moved slowly, shuffling from foot to foot like an old woman. The smell of sweat and spent adrenaline was baking out of her pores in a sour reek, and Ralph felt his stomach turn over again. It wasnt the smell, not really; it was the effort to reconcile this Helen with the pert and pleasantly sexy woman he had spoken to yesterday while she worked in her flowerbeds. Ralph suddenly remembered something else about yesterday. Helen had been wearing blue shorts, cut quite high, and he had noticed a couple of bruises on her legs a large yellow blotch far up on the left thigh, a fresher, darker smudge on the right calf. He walked Helen toward the little office area behind the cash register. He glanced up into the convex antitheft mirror mounted in the corner and saw McGovern holding the door for Sue. Lock the door, he said over his shoulder. Gee, Ralph, Im not supposed to Just for a couple of minutes, Ralph said. Please. Well . . . okay. I guess. Ralph heard the snick of the bolt being turned as he eased Helen into the hard plastic contour chair behind the littery desk. He picked up the telephone and punched the button marked 911. Before the phone could ring on the other end, a bloodstreaked hand reached out and pushed down the gray disconnect button. Dough . . . Ral. She swallowed with an obvious effort, and tried again. Dont. Yes, Ralph said. Im going to. Now it was fear he saw in her one good eye, and nothing dull about it. No, she said. Please, Ralph. Dont. She looked past him and held out her hands again. The humble, pleading look on her beaten face made Ralph wince with dismay. Ralph? Sue asked. She wants the baby. I know. Go ahead. Sue handed Natalie to Helen, and Ralph watched as the baby a little over a year old now, he was pretty sure put her arms around her mothers neck and her face against her mothers shoulder. Helen kissed the top of Nats head. It clearly hurt her to do this, but she did it again. And then again. Looking down at her, Ralph could see blood grimed into the faint creases on the nape of Helens neck like dirt. As he looked at this, he felt the anger begin to pulse again. It was Ed, wasnt it? he asked. Of course it was you didnt hit the cutoff button on the phone when someone tried to call 911 if you had been beaten up by a total stranger but he had to ask. Yes, she said. Her voice was no more than a whisper, the answer a secret imparted into the fine cloud of her baby daughters hair. Yes, it was Ed. But you cant call the police. She looked up now, the good eye full of fear and misery. Please dont call the police, Ralph. I cant bear to think of Natalies dad in jail for . . . for . . . Helen burst into tears. Natalie goggled at her mother for a moment in comic surprise, and then joined her. 7 Ralph? McGovern asked hesitantly. Do you want me to get her some Tylenol or something? Better not, he said. We dont know whats wrong with her, how bad she might be hurt. His eyes shifted to the show window, not wanting to see what was out there, hoping not to, and seeing it anyway avid faces lined up all the way down to the place where the beer cooler cut off the view. Some of them were cupping their hands to the sides of their faces to cut the glare. What should we do, you guys? Sue asked. She was looking at the gawkers and picking nervously at the hem of the Red Apple duster employees had to wear. If the company finds out I locked the door during business hours, Im apt to lose my job. Helen tugged at his hand. Please, Ralph,she repeated, only it came out Peese, Raff through her swollen lips. Dont call anybody. Ralph looked at her uncertainly. He had seen a lot of women wearing a lot of bruises over the course of his life, and a couple (although not many, in all honesty) who had been beaten much more severely than Helen. It hadnt always seemed this grim, though. His mind and morals had been formed at a time when people believed that what went on between a husband and wife behind the closed doors of their marriage was their business, and that included the man who hit with his fists and the woman who cut with her tongue. You couldnt make people behave, and meddling into their affairs even with the best of intentions all too often turned friends into enemies. But then he thought of the way she had been carrying Natalie as she staggered across the parking lot held casually on one hip like a textbook. If she had dropped the baby in the lot, or crossing Harris Avenue, she probably wouldnt have known it; Ralph guessed that it was nothing but instinct that had caused Helen to take the baby in the first place. She hadnt wanted to leave Nat in the care of the man who had beaten her so badly she could only see out of one eye and talk in mushy, rounded syllables. He thought of something else, as well, something that had to do with the days following Carolyns death earlier in the year. He had been surprised at the depth of his grief it had been an expected death, after all; he had believed he had taken care of most of his grieving while Carolyn was still alive and it had rendered him awkward and ineffective about the final arrangements which needed to be made. He had managed the call to the BrookingsSmith funeral home, but it was Helen who had gotten the obit form from the Derry News and helped him to fill it out, Helen who had gone with him to pick out a coffin (McGovern, who hated death and the trappings which surrounded it, had made himself scarce), and Helen who had helped him choose a floral centerpiece the one which said Beloved Wife. And it had been Helen, of course, who had orchestrated the little party afterward, providing sandwiches from Franks Catering and soft drinks and beer from the Red Apple. These were things Helen had done for him when he could not do them for himself. Did he not have an obligation to repay her kindness, even if Helen might not see it as kindness right now? Bill? he asked. What do you think? McGovern looked from Ralph to Helen, sitting in the red plastic chair with her battered face lowered, and then back to Ralph again. He produced a handkerchief and wiped his lips nervously. I dont know. I like Helen a lot, and I want to do the right thing you know I do but something like this . . . who knows what the right thing is? Ralph suddenly remembered what Carolyn used to say whenever he started moaning and bitching about some chore he didnt want to do, some errand he didnt want to run, or some duty call he didnt want to make Its a long walk back to Eden, sweetheart, so dont sweat the small stuff. He reached for the phone again, and this time when Helen reached for his wrist, he pushed it away. You have reached the Derry Police Department, a recorded voice told him. Push one for emergency services. Push two for police services. Push three for information. Ralph, who suddenly understood he needed all three, hesitated for a second and then pushed two. The telephone buzzed and a womans voice said, This is Police 911, how may I help you? He took a deep breath and said, This is Ralph Roberts. Im at the Red Apple Store on Harris Avenue, with my neighbor from up the street. Her name is Helen Deepneau. Shes been beaten up pretty badly. He put his hand gently on the side of Helens face and she pressed her forehead against his side. He could feel the heat of her skin through his shirt. Please come as fast as you can. He hung up the telephone, then squatted down next to Helen. Natalie saw him, crowed with delight, and reached out to give his nose a friendly honk. Ralph smiled, kissed her tiny palm, then looked into Helens face. Im sorry, Helen, he said, but I had to. I couldnt not do it. Do you understand that? I couldnt not do it. I dont understand anyfing! she said. Her nose had stopped bleeding, but when she reached up to swipe at it, she winced back from the touch of her own fingers. Helen, why did he do it? Why would Ed beat you up like this? He found himself remembering the other bruises a pattern of them, perhaps. If there had been a pattern, he had missed it until now. Because of Carolyns death. And because of the insomnia which had come afterward. In any case, he did not believe this was the first time Ed had put his hands on his wife. Today might have been a drastic escalation, but it hadnt been the first time. He could grasp that idea and admit its logic, but he discovered he still couldnt see Ed doing it. He could see Eds quick grin, his lively eyes, the way his hands moved restlessly when he talked . . . but he couldnt see Ed using those hands to beat the crap out of his wife, no matter how hard he tried. Then a memory resurfaced, a memory of Ed walking stifflegged toward the man who had been driving the blue pickup it had been a Ford Ranger, hadnt it? and then flicking the flat of his hand across the heavyset mans jowls. Remembering that was like opening the door of Fibber McGees closet in that old radio show only what came falling out wasnt an avalanche of old stored junk but a series of vivid images from that day last July. The thunderheads building over the airport. Eds arm popping out of the Datsuns window and waving up and down, as if he could make the gate slide open faster that way. The scarf with the Chinese symbols on it. Hey, hey, Susan Day, how many kids did you kill today? Ralph thought, only it was Eds voice he heard, and he pretty well knew what Helen was going to say before she even opened her mouth. So stupid, she said dully. He hit me because I signed a petition thats all it was. Theyre circulating all over town. Someone pushed it into my face when I was going into the supermarket day before yesterday. He said something about a benefit for WomanCare, and that seemed all right. Besides, the baby was fussing, so I just . . . You just signed it, Ralph finished softly. She nodded and began to cry again. What petition? McGovern asked. To bring Susan Day to Derry, Ralph told him. Shes a feminist I know who Susan Day is, McGovern said irritably. Anyway, a bunch of people are trying to get her here to speak. On behalf of WomanCare. When Ed came home today he was in a great mood, Helen said through her tears. He almost always is on Thursdays, because its his half day. He was talking about how he was going to spend the afternoon pretending to read a book and actually just watching the sprinkler go around . . . you know how he is . . . Yes, Ralph said, remembering how Ed had plunged his arm into one of the heavyset mans barrels, and the crafty grin (I know a trick worth two of that) on his face. Yes, I know how he is. I sent him out to get some baby food . . . Her voice was rising, becoming fretful and frightened. I didnt know hed be upset . . . Id all but forgotten about signing the damned thing, to tell the truth . . . and I still dont know exactly why he was so upset . . . but . . . but when he came back . . . She hugged Natalie to her, trembling. Shhh, Helen, take it easy, everythings okay. No, its not! She looked up at him, tears streaming from one eye and seeping out from beneath the swelled lid of the other. Its nuhnuhnot! Why didnt he stop this time? And whats going to happen to me and the baby? Where will we go? I dont have any money except for whats in the joint checking account . . . I dont have a job . . . oh Ralph, why did you call the police? You shouldnt have done that! And she hit his forearm with a strengthless little fist. Youre going to get through this just fine, he said. Youve got a lot of friends in the neighborhood. But he barely heard what he was saying and hadnt felt her small punch at all. The anger was thudding away in his chest and at his temples like a second heartbeat. Not Why didnt he stop; that wasnt what she had said. |
What she had said was Why didnt he stop this time? This time. Helen, wheres Ed now? Home, I guess, she said dully. Ralph patted her on the shoulder, then turned and started for the door. Ralph? Bill McGovern asked. He sounded alarmed. Where you going? Lock the door after me, Ralph told Sue. Jeez, I dont know if I can do that. Sue looked doubtfully at the line of gawkers peering in through the dirty window. There were more of them now. You can, he said, then cocked his head, catching the first faint wail of an approaching siren. Hear that? Yes, but The cops will tell you what to do, and your boss wont be mad at you, either hell probably give you a medal for handling everything just right. If he does, Ill split it with you, she said, then glanced at Helen again. A little color had come back into Sues cheeks, but not much. Jeepers, Ralph, look at her! Did he really beat her up because she signed some stupid paper in the S and S? I guess so, Ralph said. The conversation made perfect sense to him, but it was coming in long distance. His rage was closer; it had its hot arms locked around his neck, it seemed. He wished he were forty again, even fifty, so he could give Ed a taste of his own medicine. And he had an idea he might try doing that anyway. He was turning the thumbbolt of the door when McGovern grabbed his shoulder. What do you think youre doing? Going to see Ed. Are you kidding? Hell take you apart if you get in his face. Didnt you see what he did to her? You bet I did, Ralph replied. The words werent quite a snarl, but close enough to make McGovern drop his hand. Youre seventy fucking years old, Ralph, in case you forgot. And Helen needs a friend right now, not some bustedup antique she can visit because his hospital room is three doors down from hers. Bill was right, of course, but that only made Ralph angrier. He supposed the insomnia was at work in this, too, stoking his anger and blurring his judgement, but that made no difference. In a way, the anger was a relief. It was better, certainly, than drifting through a world where everything had turned shades of dark gray. If he beats me up bad enough, theyll give me some Demerol and I can get a decent nights sleep, he said. Now leave me alone, Bill. He crossed the Red Apple parking lot at a brisk walk. A police car was approaching with its blue grille flashers pulsing. Questions What happened? She okay? were thrown at him, but Ralph ignored them. He paused on the sidewalk, waited for the police car to swing into the parking lot, then crossed Harris Avenue at that same brisk walk with McGovern trailing anxiously after him at a prudent distance. CHAPTER THREE 1 Ed and Helen Deepneau lived in a small Cape Cod chocolate brown, whippedcream trim, the kind of house which older women often call darling four houses up from the one Ralph and Bill McGovern shared. Carolyn had liked to say the Deepneaus belonged to the Church of the LatterDay Yuppies, although her genuine liking for them had robbed the phrase of any real bite. They were laissezfaire vegetarians who considered both fish and dairy products okay, they had worked for Clinton in the last election, and the car in the driveway not a Datsun now but one of the new minivans was wearing bumper stickers which said SPLIT WOOD, NOT ATOMS and FUR ON ANIMALS, NOT PEOPLE. The Deepneaus had also apparently kept every album they had ever purchased during the sixties Carolyn had found this one of their most endearing characteristics and now, as Ralph approached the Cape Cod with his hands curled into fists at his sides, he heard Grace Slick wailing one of those old San Francisco anthems One pill makes you bigger, One pill makes you small, And the ones that Mother gives you Dont do anything at all, Go ask Alice, when shes ten feet tall. The music was coming from a boombox on the Cape Cods postage stampsized porch. A sprinkler twirled on the lawn, making a hishahishahisha sound as it cast rainbows in the air and deposited a shiny wet patch on the sidewalk. Ed Deepneau, shirtless, was sitting in a lawnchair to the left of the concrete walk with his legs crossed, looking up at the sky with the bemused expression of a man trying to decide if the cloud passing overhead looks more like a horse or a unicorn. One bare foot bopped up and down in time to the music. The book lying open and facedown in his lap went perfectly with the music pouring from the boombox Even Cowgirls Get the Blues, by Tom Robbins. An all but perfect summer vignette; a scene of smalltown serenity Norman Rockwell might have painted and then titled Afternoon Off. All you had to overlook was the blood on Eds knuckles and the drop on the left lens of his round John Lennon specs. Ralph, for Gods sake dont get into a fight with him! McGovern hissed as Ralph left the sidewalk and cut across the lawn. He walked through the lawn sprinklers fine cold spray almost without feeling it. Ed turned, saw him, and broke into a sunny grin. Hey, Ralph! he said. Good to see you, man! In his minds eye, Ralph saw himself reaching out and shoving Eds chair, pushing him over and spilling him onto his lawn. He saw Eds eyes widen with shock and surprise behind the lenses of his glasses. This vision was so real he even saw the way the sun reflected on the face of Eds watch as he tried to sit up. Grab yourself a beer and drag up a rock, Ed was saying. If you feel like a game of chess Beer? A game of chess? Christ Jesus, Ed, whats wrong with you? Ed didnt answer immediately, only looked at Ralph with an expression that was both frightening and infuriating. It was a mixture of amusement and shame, the look of a man whos getting ready to say, Aw, shit, honey did I forget to put out the trash again? Ralph pointed down the hill, past McGovern, who was standing he would have been lurking, if there had been something to lurk behind near the wet patch the sprinkler had put on the sidewalk, watching them nervously. The first police car had been joined by a second, and Ralph could faintly hear the crackle of radio calls through the open windows. The crowd had gotten quite a bit bigger. The police are there because of Helen! he said, telling himself not to shout, it would do no good to shout, and shouting anyway. Theyre there because you beat up your wife, is that getting through to you? Oh, Ed said, and rubbed his cheek ruefully. That. Yes, that, Ralph said. He now felt almost stupefied with rage. Ed peered past him at the police cars, at the crowd standing around the Red Apple . . . and then he saw McGovern. Bill! he cried. McGovern recoiled. Ed either didnt notice or pretended not to. Hey, man! Drag up a rock! Want a beer? That was when Ralph knew he was going to hit Ed, break his stupid little roundlensed spectacles, drive a splinter of glass into his eye, maybe. He was going to do it, nothing on earth could stop him from doing it, except at the last moment something did. It was Carolyns voice he heard inside his head most frequently these days when he wasnt just muttering along to himself, that was but this wasnt Carolyns voice; this one, as unlikely as it seemed, belonged to Trigger Vachon, whom hed seen only once or twice since the day Trig had saved him from the thunderstorm, the day Carolyn had had her first seizure. Ayy, Ralph! Be damn careful, you! Dis one crazy like a fox! Maybe he want you to hit im! Yes, he decided. Maybe that was just what Ed wanted. Why? Who knew? Maybe to muddy the waters up a little bit, maybe just because he was crazy. Cut the shit, he said, dropping his voice almost to a whisper. He was gratified to see Eds attention snap back to him in a hurry, and even more pleased to see Eds pleasantly vague expression of rueful amusement disappear. It was replaced by a narrow, watchful expression. It was, Ralph thought, the look of a dangerous animal with its wind up. Ralph hunkered down so he could look directly at Ed. Was it Susan Day? he asked in the same soft voice. Susan Day and the abortion business? Something about dead babies? Is that why you unloaded on Helen? There was another question on his mind Who are you really, Ed? but before he could ask it, Ed reached out, placed a hand in the center of Ralphs chest, and pushed. Ralph fell backward onto the damp grass, catching himself on his elbows and shoulders. He lay there with his feet flat on the ground and his knees up, watching as Ed suddenly sprang out of his lawnchair. Ralph, dont mess with him! McGovern called from his place of relative safety on the sidewalk. Ralph paid no attention. He simply remained where he was, propped on his elbows and looking attentively up at Ed. He was still angry and afraid, but these emotions had begun to be overshadowed by a strange, chilly fascination. This was madness he was looking at the genuine article. No comicbook supervillain here, no Norman Bates, no Captain Ahab. It was just Ed Deepneau who worked down the coast at Hawking Labs one of those eggheads, the old guys who played chess at the picnic area out on the Extension would have said, but still a nice enough fella for a Democrat. Now the nice enough fella had gone totally bonkers, and it hadnt just happened this afternoon, when Ed had seen his wifes name on a petition hanging from the Community Bulletin Board in the Shop n Save. Ralph now understood that Eds madness was at least a year old, and that made him wonder what secrets Helen had been keeping behind her normal cheery demeanor and sunny smile, and what small, desperate signals besides the bruises, that was he might have missed. And then theres Natalie, he thought. Whats she seen? Whats she experienced? Besides, of course, being carried across Harris Avenue and the Red Apple parking lot on her staggering, bleeding mothers hip? Ralphs arms broke out in goosebumps. Ed had begun to pace, meanwhile, crossing and recrossing the cement path, trampling the zinnias Helen had planted along it as a border. He had returned to the Ed Ralph had encountered out by the airport the year before, right down to the fierce little pokes of the head and the sharp, jabbing glances at nothing. This is what the geewhiz act was supposed to hide, Ralph thought. He looks the same now as he did when he took after the guy driving that pickup truck. Like a rooster protecting his little piece of the barnyard. None of this is strictly her fault, I admit that. Ed spoke rapidly, pounding his right fist into his open left palm as he walked through the cloud of spray thrown by the sprinkler. Ralph realized he could see every rib in Eds chest; the man looked as if he hadnt had a decent meal in months. Still, once stupidity reaches a certain level, it becomes hard to live with, Ed went on. Shes like the Magi, actually coming to King Herod for information. I mean, how dumb can you get? Where is he that is born King of the Jews? To Herod they say this. I mean, wise men my ass! Right, Ralph? Ralph nodded. Sure, Ed. Whatever you say, Ed. Ed returned the nod and went on tramping back and forth through the spray and the ghostly interlocking rainbows, smacking his fist into his palm. Its like that Rolling Stones song Look at that, look at that, look at that stupid girl. You probably dont remember that one, do you? Ed laughed, a jagged little sound that made Ralph think of rats dancing on broken glass. McGovern knelt beside him. Lets get out of here, he muttered. Ralph shook his head, and when Ed swung back in their direction, McGovern quickly got up and retreated to the sidewalk again. She thought she could fool you, is that it? Ralph asked. He was still lying on the lawn, propped up on his elbows. She thought you wouldnt find out she signed the petition. Ed leaped over the walk, bent over Ralph, and shook his clenched fists over his head like the bad guy in a silent movie. Nononono! he cried. The Jefferson Airplane had been replaced by the Animals, Eric Burdon growling out the gospel according to John Lee Hooker Boomboomboomboom, gonna shoot ya right down. McGovern uttered a thin cry, apparently thinking Ed meant to attack Ralph, but instead Ed sank down with the knuckles of his left hand pressed into the grass, assuming the position of a sprinter who waits for the starters gun to explode him out of the blocks. His face was covered with beads of what Ralph at first took for sweat before remembering the way Ed had paced back and forth through the spray from the sprinkler. Ralph kept looking at the spot of blood on the left lens of Eds glasses. It had smeared a little, and now the pupil of his left eye looked as if it had filled up with blood. Finding out that she signed the petition was fate! Simple fate! Do you mean to tell me you dont see that? Dont insult my intelligence, Ralph! You may be getting on in years, but youre far from stupid. The thing is, I go down to the supermarket to buy babyfood, hows that for irony and find out shes signed on with the babykillers! The Centurions! With the Crimson King himself! And do you know what? I . . . just . . . saw . . . red! The Crimson King, Ed? Whos he? Oh, please. Ed gave Ralph a cunning look. Then Herod, when he saw that he was mocked, was exceeding wroth, and sent forth, and slew all the children that were in Bethlehem, and in all the coasts thereof, from two years old and under, according to the time which he had diligently enquired of the wise men. Its in the Bible, Ralph. Matthew, chapter 2, verse 16. Do you doubt it? Do you have any fucking question that it says that? No. If you say so, I believe it. Ed nodded. His eyes, a deep and startling shade of green, darted here and there. Then he slowly leaned forward over Ralph, planting one hand on either side of Ralphs arms. It was as if he meant to kiss him. Ralph could smell sweat, and some sort of aftershave that had almost completely faded away now, and something else something that smelled like old curdled milk. He wondered if it might be the smell of Eds madness. An ambulance was coming up Harris Avenue, running its flashers but not its siren. It turned into the Red Apples parking lot. You better, Ed breathed into his face. You just better believe it. His eyes stopped wandering and centered on Ralphs. They are killing the babies wholesale, he said in a low voice which was not quite steady. Ripping them from the wombs of their mothers and carrying them out of town in covered trucks. Flatbeds for the most part. Ask yourself this, Ralph how many times a week do you see one of those big flatbeds tooling down the road? A flatbed with a tarp stretched across the back? Ever ask yourself what those trucks were carrying? Ever wonder what was under most of those tarps? Ed grinned. His eyes rolled. They burn most of the fetuses over in Newport. The sign says landfill, but its really a crematorium. They send some of them out of state, though. In trucks, in light planes. Because fetal tissue is extremely valuable. I tell you that not just as a concerned citizen, Ralph, but as an employee of Hawking Laboratories. Fetal tissue is . . . more . . . valuable . . . than gold. He turned his head suddenly and stared at Bill McGovern, who had crept a little closer again in order to hear what Ed was saying. YEA, MORE VALUABLE THAN GOLD AND MORE PRECIOUS THAN RUBIES! he screamed, and McGovern leaped back, eyes widening in fear and dismay. DO YOU KNOW THAT, YOU OLD FAGGOT? Yes, McGovern said. I . . . I guess I did. He shot a quick glance down the street, where one of the police cars was now backing out of the Red Apple lot and turning in their direction. I might have read it somewhere. In Scientific American, perhaps. Scientific American! Ed laughed with gentle contempt and rolled his eyes at Ralph again, as if to say You see what I have to deal with. Then his face grew sober again. Wholesale murder, he said, just as in the time of Christ. Only now its the murder of the unborn. Not just here, but all over the world. Theyve been slaughtering them by their thousands, Ralph, by their millions, and do you know why? Do you know why weve reentered the Court of the Crimson King in this new age of darkness? Ralph knew. It wasnt that hard to put together, if you had enough pieces to work with. If you had seen Ed with his arm buried in a barrel of chemical fertilizer, fishing around for the dead babies he had been sure he would find. King Herod got a little advance word this time around, Ralph said. Thats what youre telling me, isnt it? Its the old Messiah thing, right? He sat up, half expecting Ed to shove him down again, almost hoping he would. His anger was coming back. It was surely wrong to critique a madmans delusional fantasies the way you might a play or a movie maybe even blasphemous but Ralph found the idea that Helen had been beaten because of such hackneyed old shit as this infuriating. Ed didnt touch him, merely got to his feet and dusted his hands off in businesslike fashion. He seemed to be cooling down again. Radio calls crackled louder as the police cruiser which had backed out of the Red Apples lot now glided up to the curb. Ed looked at the cruiser, then back at Ralph, who was getting up himself. You can mock, but its true, he said quietly. Its not King Herod, though its the Crimson King. Herod was merely one of his incarnations. The Crimson King jumps from body to body and generation to generation like a kid using steppingstones to cross a brook, Ralph, always looking for the Messiah. Hes always missed him, but this time it could be different. Because Derrys different. All lines of force have begun to converge here. I know how difficult that is to believe, but its true. The Crimson King, Ralph thought. Oh Helen, Im so sorry. What a sad thing this is. Two men one in uniform, one in streetclothes, both presumably cops got out of the police car and approached McGovern. Behind them, down at the store, Ralph spotted two more men, these dressed in white pants and white shortsleeved shirts, coming out of the Red Apple. One had his arm around Helen, who was walking with the fragile care of a postop patient. The other was holding Natalie. The paramedics helped Helen into the back of the ambulance. The one with the baby got in after her while the other moved toward the drivers seat. What Ralph sensed in their movements was competency rather than urgency, and he thought that was good news for Helen. Maybe Ed hadnt hurt her too badly . . . this time, at least. The plainclothes cop burly, broadshouldered, and wearing his blond mustache and sideburns in a style Ralph thought of as Early American Singles Bar had approached McGovern, whom he seemed to recognize. There was a big grin on the plainclothes cops face. Ed put an arm over Ralphs shoulders and pulled him a few steps away from the men on the sidewalk. He also dropped his voice to a bare murmur. Dont want them to hear us, he said. Im sure you dont. These creatures . . . Centurions . . . servants of the Crimson King . . . will stop at nothing. They are relentless. Ill bet. Ralph glanced over his shoulder in time to see McGovern point at Ed. The burly man nodded calmly. His hands were stuffed in the pockets of his chinos. He was still wearing a small, benign smile. This isnt just about abortion, dont get that idea! Not anymore. Theyre taking the unborn from all kinds of mothers, not just the junkies and the whores eight days, eight weeks, eight months, its all the same to the Centurions. The harvest goes on day and night. The slaughter. Ive seen the corpses of infants on roofs, Ralph . . . under hedges . . . theyre in the sewers . . . floating in the sewers and in the Kenduskeag down in the Barrens . . . His eyes, huge and green, as bright as trumpery emeralds, stared off into the distance. Ralph, he whispered, sometimes the world is full of colors. Ive seen them since he came and told me. But now all the colors are turning black. Since who came and told you, Ed? Well talk about it later, Ed replied, speaking out of the corner of his mouth like a con in a prison movie. Under other circumstances it would have been funny. A big gameshow host grin dawned on his face, banishing the madness as convincingly as sunrise banishes night. The change was almost tropical in its suddenness, and creepy as hell, but Ralph found something comforting about it, just the same. Perhaps they he, McGovern, Lois, all the others on this little stretch of Harris Avenue who knew Ed would not have to blame themselves too much for not seeing his madness sooner, after all. Because Ed was good; Ed really had his act down. That grin was an Academy Award winner. Even in a bizarre situation like this, it practically demanded that you respond to it. Hey, hi! he told the two cops. The burly one had finished his conversation with McGovern, and both of them were advancing across the lawn. Drag up a rock, you guys! Ed stepped around Ralph with his hand held out. The burly plainclothes cop shook it, still smiling his small, benign smile. Edward Deepneau? he asked. Right. Ed shook hands with the uniformed cop, who looked a trifle bemused, and then returned his attention to the burly man. Im Detective Sergeant John Leydecker, the burly man said. This is Officer Chris Nell. Understand you had a little trouble here, sir. Well, yes. I guess thats right. A little trouble. Or, if you want to call a spade a spade, I behaved like a horses ass. Eds embarrassed little chuckle was alarmingly normal. Ralph thought of all the charming psychopaths hed seen in the movies George Sanders had always been particularly good at that sort of role and wondered if it was possible for a smart research chemist to grow a smallcity detective who looked as if he had never completely outgrown his Saturday Night Fever phase. Ralph was terribly afraid it might be. Helen and I got into an argument about a petition shed signed, Ed was saying, and one thing just led to another. Man, I just cant believe I hit her. He flapped his arms, as if to convey how flustered he was not to mention confused and ashamed. Leydecker smiled in return. Ralphs mind returned to the confrontation last summer between Ed and the man in the blue pickup. Ed had called the heavyset man a murderer, had even stroked him one across the face, and still the guy had ended up looking at Ed almost with respect. It had been like a kind of hypnosis, and Ralph thought he was seeing the same force at work here. Things just kinda got out of hand a little, is that what youre telling me? Leydecker asked sympathetically. Thats about the size of it, yeah. Ed had to be at least thirtytwo, but his wide eyes and innocent expression made him look barely old enough to buy beer. Wait a minute, Ralph blurted. You cant believe him, hes nuts. And dangerous. He just told me This is Mr Roberts, right? Leydecker asked McGovern, ignoring Ralph completely. Yes, McGovern said, and to Ralph he sounded insufferably pompous. That is Ralph Roberts. Uhhuh. Leydecker at last looked at Ralph. Ill want to speak to you in a couple of minutes, Mr Roberts, but for the time being Id like you to stand over there beside your friend and keep quiet. Okay? But Okay? Angrier than ever, Ralph stalked over to where McGovern was standing. This did not seem to upset Leydecker in the least. He turned to Officer Nell. You want to turn off the music, Chris, so we can hear ourselves think? Yo. The uniformed cop went to the boombox, inspected the various knobs and switches, then killed The Who halfway through the song about the blind pinball wizard. I guess I did have it cranked a little. Ed looked sheepish. Wonder the neighbors didnt complain. Oh, well, life goes on, Leydecker said. He tilted his small, serene smile up toward the clouds drifting across the blue summer sky. Wonderful, Ralph thought. This guy is a regular Will Rogers. Ed, however, was nodding as if the detective had produced not just a single pearl of wisdom but a whole string of them. Leydecker rummaged in his pocket and came out with a little tube of toothpicks. He offered them to Ed, who declined, then shook one out and stuck it in the corner of his mouth. So, he said. Little family argument. Is that what Im hearing? Ed nodded eagerly. He was still smiling his sincere, slightly puzzled smile. More of a discussion, actually. A political Uhhuh, uhhuh, Leydecker said, nodding and smiling, but before you go any further, Mr Deepneau Ed. Please. Before we go any further, Mr Deepneau, I just kind of want to tell you that anything you say could be used against you you know, in a court of law. Also that you have a right to an attorney. Eds friendly but puzzled smile Gosh, what did I do? Can you help me figure it out? faltered for a moment. The narrow, appraising look replaced it. Ralph glanced at McGovern, and the relief he saw in Bills eyes mirrored what he was feeling himself. Leydecker was maybe not such a hick after all. What in Gods name would I want an attorney for? Ed asked. He made a halfturn and tried the puzzled smile out on Chris Nell, who was still standing beside the boombox on the porch. I dont know, and maybe you dont, Leydecker said, still smiling. Im just telling you that you can have one. And that if you cant afford one, the City of Derry will provide you with one. But I dont Leydecker was nodding and smiling. Thats okay, sure, whatever. But those are your rights. Do you understand your rights as Ive explained them to you, Mr Deepneau? Ed stood stockstill for a moment, his eyes suddenly wide and blank again. To Ralph he looked like a human computer trying to process a huge and complicated wad of input. Then the fact that the snowjob wasnt working seemed to get through to him. His shoulders sagged. The blankness was replaced by a look of unhappiness too real to doubt . . . but Ralph doubted it, anyway. He had to doubt it; he had seen the madness on Eds face before Leydecker and Nell arrived. So had Bill McGovern. Yet doubt was not quite the same as disbelief, and Ralph had an idea that on some level Ed honestly regretted beating Helen up. Yes, he thought, just as on some level he honestly believes that these Centurions of his are driving truckloads of fetuses out to the Newport landfill. And that the forces of good and evil are gathering in Derry to play out some drama thats going on in his mind. Call it Omen V In the Court of the Crimson King. Still, he could not help feeling a reluctant sympathy for Ed Deepneau, who had visited Carolyn faithfully three times a week during her final confinement at Derry Home, who always brought flowers, and always kissed her on the cheek when he left. He had continued giving her that kiss even when the smell of death had begun to surround her, and Carolyn had never failed to clasp his hand and give him a smile of gratitude. Thank you for remembering that Im still a human being, that smile had said. And thank you for treating me like one. That was the Ed Ralph had thought of as his friend, and he thought or maybe only hoped that that Ed was still in there. Im in trouble here, arent I? he asked Leydecker softly. Well, lets see, Leydecker said, still smiling. You knocked out two of your wifes teeth. Looks like you fractured her cheekbone. Id bet you my grandfathers watch shes got a concussion. Plus selected short subjects cuts, bruises, and this funny bare patch over her right temple. Whatd you try to do? Snatch her baldheaded? Ed was silent, his green eyes fixed on Leydeckers face. Shes going to spend the night in the hospital under observation because some asshole pounded the hell out of her, and everybody seems in agreement that the asshole was you, Mr Deepneau. I look at the blood on your hands and the blood on your glasses, and I got to say I also think it was probably you. So what do you think? You look like a bright guy. Do you think youre in trouble? Im very sorry I hit her, Ed said. I didnt mean to. Uhhuh, and if I had a quarter for every time Ive heard that, Id never have to buy another drink out of my paycheck. Im arresting you on a charge of seconddegree assault, Mr Deepneau, also known as domestic assault. This charge falls under Maines Domestic Violence law. Id like you to confirm once more that Ive informed you of your rights. Yes. Ed spoke in a small, unhappy voice. The smile puzzled or otherwise was gone. Yes, you did. Were going to take you down to the police station and book you, Leydecker said. Following that, you can make a telephone call and arrange bail. Chris, put him in the car, would you? Nell approached Ed. Are you going to be a problem, Mr Deepneau? No, Ed said in that same small voice, and Ralph saw a tear slip from Eds right eye. He wiped it away absently with the heel of his hand. No problem. Great! Nell said heartily, and walked with him to the cruiser. Ed glanced at Ralph as he crossed the sidewalk. Im sorry, old boy, he said, then got into the back of the car. Before Officer Nell closed the door, Ralph saw there was no handle on the inside of it. 2 Okay, Leydecker said, turning to Ralph and holding out his hand. Im sorry if I seemed a little brusque, Mr Roberts, but sometimes these guys can be volatile. I especially worry about the ones who look sober, because you can never tell what theyll do. John Leydecker. I had Johnny as a student when I was teaching at the Community College, McGovern said. Now that Ed Deepneau was safely tucked away in the back of the cruiser, he sounded almost giddy with relief. Good student. Did an excellent term paper on the Childrens Crusade. Its a pleasure to meet you, Ralph said, shaking Leydeckers hand. And dont worry. No offense taken. You were insane to come up here and confront him, you know, Leydecker said cheerfully. I was pissed off. Im still pissed off. I can understand that. And you got away with it thats the important thing. No. Helens the important thing. Helen and the baby. I can ride with that. Tell me what you and Mr Deepneau talked about before we got up here, Mr Roberts . . . or can I call you Ralph? Ralph, please. He ran through his conversation with Ed, trying to keep it brief. McGovern, who had heard some of it but not all of it, listened in roundeyed silence. Every time Ralph looked at him, he found himself wishing Bill had worn his Panama. He looked older without it. Almost ancient. Well, that certainly sounds pretty weird, doesnt it? Leydecker remarked when Ralph had finished. What will happen? Will he go to jail? He shouldnt go to jail; he should be committed. Probably should be, Leydecker agreed, but theres a lot of distance between should be and will be. He wont go to jail, and he isnt going to be carted off to Sunnyvale Sanitarium, either that sort of thing only happens in old movies. The best we can hope for is some courtordered therapy. But didnt Helen tell you The lady didnt tell us anything, and we didnt try to question her in the store. She was in a lot of pain, both physical and emotional. Yes, of course she was, Ralph said. Stupid of me. She might corroborate your stuff later on . . . but she might not. Domestic abuse victims have a way of turning into clams, you know. Luckily, it doesnt really matter one way or the other under the new law. We got him nailed to the wall. You and the lady in the little store down the street can testify to Mrs Deepneaus condition, and to who she said put her in that condition. I can testify to the fact that the victims husband had blood on his hands. Best of all, he said the magic words Man, I just cant believe I hit her. Id like you to come in probably tomorrow morning, if that works for you so I can take a complete statement from you, Ralph, but thats just filling in the blanks. Basically, this ones a done deal. Leydecker took the toothpick out of his mouth, broke it, tossed it in the gutter, and produced his tube again. Pick? No thanks, Ralph said, smiling faintly. Dont blame you. Lousy habit, but Im trying to quit smoking, which is an even worse one. |
The thing about guys like Deepneau is that theyre too goddam smart for their own good. They go over the high side, hurt someone . . . and then they pull back. If you get there soon enough after the blowup like you did, Ralph you can almost see them standing there with their heads cocked, listening to the music and trying to get back on the beat. Thats just how it was, Ralph said. Exactly how it was. Its a trick the bright ones manage for quite awhile they appear remorseful, appalled by their own actions, determined to make amends. Theyre persuasive, theyre charming, and its often all but impossible to see that underneath the sugar coating theyre as nutty as Christmas fruitcakes. Even extreme cases like Ted Bundy sometimes manage to look normal for years. The good news is that there arent many guys like Ted Bundy out there, in spite of all the psychokiller books and movies. Ralph sighed deeply. What a mess. Yeah. But look on the bright side were gonna be able to keep him away from her, at least for a while. Hell be out by suppertime on twentyfive dollars bail, but Twentyfive dollars? McGovern asked. He sounded simultaneously shocked and cynical. Thats all? Yup, Leydecker said. I gave Deepneau the seconddegree assault stuff because it do sound fearsome, but in the state of Maine, lumping up your wife is only a misdemeanor. Still, theres a nifty new wrinkle in the law, Chris Nell said, joining them. If Deepneau wants bail, he has to agree that hell have absolutely no contact with his wife until the case is settled in court he cant come to the house, approach her on the street, or even call her on the phone. If he doesnt agree, he sits in jail. Suppose he agrees and then comes back, anyway? Ralph asked. Then we slamdunk him, Nell said, because that one is a felony . . . or can be, if the district attorney wants to play hardball. In any case, violators of the Domestic Violence bail agreement usually spend a lot more than just the afternoon in jail. And hopefully the spouse he breaks the agreement to visit will still be alive when he comes to trial, McGovern said. Yeah, Leydecker said heavily. Sometimes thats a problem. 3 Ralph went home and sat staring not at the TV but through it for an hour or so. He got up during a commercial to see if there was a cold Coke in the refrigerator, staggered on his feet, and had to put a hand on the wall to steady himself. He was trembling all over and felt unpleasantly close to vomiting. He understood that this was nothing but delayed reaction, but the weakness and nausea still frightened him. He sat down again, took a minutes worth of deep breaths with his head down and his eyes closed, then got up and walked slowly into the bathroom. He filled the tub with warm water and soaked until he heard Night Court, the first of the afternoon sitcoms, starting up on the TV in the living room. By then the water in the tub had become almost chilly, and Ralph was glad to get out. He dried off, dressed in fresh clothes, and decided that a light supper was at least in the realm of possibility. He called downstairs, thinking McGovern might like to join him for a bite to eat, but there was no answer. Ralph put on water in which to boil a couple of eggs and called Derry Home Hospital from the phone by the stove. His call was shunted to a woman in Patient Services who checked her computer and told him yes, he was correct, Helen Deepneau had been admitted to the hospital. Her condition was listed as fair. No, she had no idea who was taking care of Mrs Deepneaus baby; all she knew was that she did not have a Natalie Deepneau on her admissions list. No, Ralph could not visit Mrs Deepneau that evening, but not because her doctor had established a novisitors policy; Mrs Deepneau had left that order herself. Why would she do that? Ralph started to ask, then didnt bother. The woman in Patient Services would probably tell him she was sorry, she didnt have that information in her computer, but Ralph decided he had it in his computer, the one between his giant economysize ears. Helen didnt want visitors because she was ashamed. None of what had happened was her fault, but Ralph doubted if that changed the way she felt. She had been seen by half of Harris Avenue staggering around like a badly beaten boxer after the ref has stopped the fight, she had been taken to the hospital in an ambulance, and her husband the father of her daughter was responsible. Ralph hoped they would give her something that would help her sleep through the night; he had an idea things might look a little better to her in the morning. God knew they couldnt look much worse. Hell, I wish someone would give me something to help me sleep through the night, he thought. Then go see Dr Litchfield, you idiot, another part of his mind responded immediately. The woman in Patient Services was asking Ralph if she could do anything else for him. Ralph said no and was starting to thank her when the line clicked in his ear. Nice, Ralph said. Very nice. He hung up himself, got a tablespoon, and gently lowered his eggs into the water. Ten minutes later, as he was sitting down with the boiled eggs sliding around on a plate and looking like the worlds biggest pearls, the phone rang. He put his supper on the table and grabbed it off the wall. Hello? Silence, broken only by breathing. Hello? Ralph repeated. There was one more breath, this one almost loud enough to be an aspirated sob, and then another click in his ear. Ralph hung up the telephone and stood looking at it for a moment, his frown putting three ascending wavelines on his brow. Come on, Helen,he said. Call me back. Please. Then he returned to the table, sat down, and began to eat his small bachelors supper. 4 He was washing up his few dishes fifteen minutes later when the phone rang again. That wont be her, he thought, wiping his hands on a dishtowel and then flipping it over his shoulder as he went to the phone. No way itll be her. Its probably Lois or Bill. But another part of him knew differently. Hi, Ralph. Hello, Helen. That was me a few minutes ago. Her voice was husky, as if she had been drinking or crying, and Ralph didnt think they allowed booze in the hospital. I kind of figured that. I heard your voice and I . . . I couldnt . . . Thats okay. I understand. Do you? She gave a long, watery sniff. I think so, yes. The nurse came by and gave me a painpill. I can use it, too my face really hurts. But I wouldnt let myself take it until I called you again and said what I had to say. Pain sucks, but its a hell of an incentive. Helen, you dont have to say anything. But he was afraid that she did, and he was afraid of what it might be . . . afraid of finding out that she had decided to be angry at him because she couldnt be angry with Ed. Yes I do. I have to say thank you. Ralph leaned against the side of the door and closed his eyes for a moment. He was relieved but unsure how to reply. He had been ready to say Im sorry you feel that way, Helen in the calmest voice he could manage, that was how sure hed been that she was going to start off by asking him why he couldnt mind his own business. And, as if she had read his mind and wanted to let him know he wasnt entirely off the hook, Helen said, I spent most of the ride here, and the checkin, and the first hour or so in the room, being terribly angry at you. I called Candy Shoemaker, my friend from over on Kansas Street, and she came and got Nat. Shes keeping her for the night. She wanted to know what had happened, but I wouldnt tell her. I just wanted to lie here and be mad that you called 911 even though I told you not to. Helen Let me finish so I can take my pill and go to sleep. Okay? Okay. Just after Candy left with the baby Nat didnt cry, thank God, I dont know if I could have handled that a woman came in. At first I thought she must have gotten the wrong room because I didnt know her from Eve, and when I got it through my head that she was here to see me, I told her I didnt want any visitors. She didnt pay any attention. She closed the door and lifted her skirt up so I could see her left thigh. There was a deep scar running down it, almost all the way from her hip to her knee. She said her name was Gretchen Tillbury, that she was a familyabuse counsellor at WomanCare, and that her husband had cut her leg open with a kitchen knife in 1978. She said if the man in the downstairs apartment hadnt gotten a tourniquet on it, she would have bled to death. I said I was very sorry to hear that, but I didnt want to talk about my own situation until Id had a chance to think it over. Helen paused and then said, But that was a lie, you know. Ive had plenty of time to think it over, because Ed first hit me two years ago, just before I got pregnant with Nat. I just kept . . . pushing it away. I can see how a person would do that, Ralph said. This lady . . . well, they must give people like her lessons on how to get through peoples defenses. Ralph smiled. I believe thats about half their training. She said I couldnt put it off, that I had a bad situation on my hands and I had to start dealing with it right away. I said that whatever I did, I didnt have to consult her before I did it, or listen to her line of bullshit just because her husband had cut her once. I almost said he probably did it because she wouldnt shut up and go away and give him some peace, can you believe that? But I was really pissed, Ralph. Hurting . . . confused . . . ashamed . . . but mostly just POd. I think thats probably a pretty normal reaction. She asked me how Id feel about myself not about Ed but about myself if I went back into the relationship and Ed beat me up again. Then she asked how Id feel if I went back in and Ed did it to Nat. That made me furious. It still makes me furious. Ed has never laid so much as a finger on her, and I said so. She nodded and said, That doesnt mean he wont, Helen. I know you dont want to think about that, but you have to. Still, suppose youre right? Suppose he never so much as slaps her on the wrist? Do you want her to grow up watching him hit you? Do you want her to grow up seeing the things she saw today? And that stopped me. Stopped me cold. I remembered how Ed looked when he came back in . . . how I knew as soon as I saw how white his face was . . . the way his head was moving . . . Like a rooster, Ralph murmured. What? Nothing. Go on. I dont know what set him off . . . I never do anymore, but I knew he was going to start in on me. Theres nothing you can do or say to stop it once he gets to a certain point. I ran for the bedroom, but he grabbed me by the hair . . . he pulled out a great big bunch of it . . . I screamed . . . and Natalie was sitting there in her highchair . . . sitting there watching us . . . and when I screamed, she screamed . . . Helen broke down then, crying hard. Ralph waited with his forehead leaning against the side of the doorway between the kitchen and the living room. He used the end of the dishtowel hed slung over his shoulder to wipe away his own tears almost without thinking about it. Anyway, Helen said when she was capable of speaking again, I ended up talking to this woman for almost an hour. Its called Victim Counselling and she does it for a living, can you believe it? Yes, Ralph said. I can. Its a good thing, Helen. Im going to see her again tomorrow, at WomanCare. Its ironic, you know, that I should be going there. I mean, if I hadnt signed that petition . . . If it hadnt been the petition, it would have been something else. She sighed. Yes, I guess that might be true. Is true. Anyway, Gretchen says I cant solve Eds problems, but I can start solving some of my own. Helen started to cry again and then took a deep breath. Im sorry Ive cried so much today I never want to cry again. I told her I loved him. I felt ashamed to say it, and Im not even sure its true, but it feels true. I said I wanted to give him another chance. She said that meant I was committing Natalie to give him another chance, too, and that made me think of how she looked sitting there in the kitchen, with pureed spinach all over her face, screaming her head off while Ed hit me. God, I hate the way people like her drive you into a corner and wont let you out. Shes trying to help, thats all. I hate that, too. Im very confused, Ralph. Probably you didnt know that, but I am. A wan chuckle drifted down the telephone line. Thats okay, Helen. Its natural for you to be confused. Just before she left, she told me about High Ridge. Right now that sounds like just the place for me. What is it? A kind of halfway house she kept explaining that it was a house, not a shelter for battered women. Which is what I guess I now officially am. This time the wan chuckle sounded perilously close to a sob. I can have Nat with me if I go, and thats a major part of the attraction. Where is this place? In the country. Out toward Newport, I think. Yeah, I guess I knew that. Of course he did; Ham Davenport had told him during his WomanCare spiel. Theyre involved in family counselling . . . spouse and child abuse . . . they run a shelter for abused women over by the Newport town line. All at once WomanCare seemed to be everywhere in his life. Ed would undoubtedly have seen sinister implications in this. That Gretchen Tillbury is one hard sugarbun, Helen was saying. Just before she left she told me it was all right for me to love Ed It has to be all right, she said, because love doesnt come out of a faucet you can turn on and off whenever you want to but that I had to remember my love couldnt fix him, that not even Eds love for Natalie could fix him, and that no amount of love changed my responsibility to take care of my child. Ive been lying in bed, thinking about that. I think I liked lying in bed and being mad better. It was certainly easier. Yes, he said, I can see how it might be. Helen, why dont you just take your pill and let it all go for awhile? I will, but first I wanted to say thanks. You know you dont have to do that. I dont think I know any such thing, she said, and Ralph was glad to hear the flash of emotion in her voice. It meant the essential Helen Deepneau was still there. I havent quit being mad at you, Ralph, but Im glad you didnt listen when I told you not to call the police. Its just that I was afraid, you know? Afraid. Helen, I His voice was thick, close to cracking. He cleared his throat and tried again. I just didnt want to see you hurt any more than you already were. When I saw you coming across the parking lot with blood all over your face, I was so afraid . . . Dont talk about that part. Please. Ill cry if you do, and I cant stand to cry anymore. Okay. He had a thousand questions about Ed, but this was clearly not the time to ask them. Can I come see you tomorrow? There was a short hesitation and then Helen said, I dont think so. Not for a little while. I have a lot of thinking to do, a lot of things to sort out, and its going to be hard. Ill be in touch, Ralph. Okay? Of course. Thats fine. What are you doing about the house? Candys husband is going to go over and lock it up. I gave him my keys. Gretchen Tillbury said that Ed isnt supposed to go back for anything, not even his checkbook or a change of underwear. If theres stuff he needs, he gives a list and his housekey to a policeman, and the policeman goes to get it. I suppose hell go to Fresh Harbor. Theres plenty of housing there for lab employees. These little cottages. Theyre actually sort of cute . . . The brief flash of fire hed heard in her voice was long gone. Helen now sounded depressed, forlorn, and very, very tired. Helen, Im delighted that you called. And relieved, I wont kid you about that. Now get some sleep. What about you, Ralph? she asked unexpectedly. Are you getting any sleep these days? The switch in focus startled him into an honesty he might not otherwise have managed. Some . . . but maybe not as much as I need. Probably not as much as I need. Well, take care of yourself. You were very brave today, like a knight in a story about King Arthur, but I think even Sir Lancelot had to fall out every now and then. He was touched by this, and also amused. A momentary picture, very vivid, arose in his mind Ralph Roberts dressed in armor and mounted on a snowwhite steed while Bill McGovern, his faithful squire, rode behind him on his pony, dressed in a leather jerkin and his snappy Panama hat. Thank you, dear, he said. I think thats the sweetest thing anyones said to me since Lyndon Johnson was President. Have the best night you can, okay? Okay. You too. She hung up. Ralph stood looking at the phone thoughtfully for a moment or two, then put it back in its cradle. Perhaps he would have a good night. After everything that had happened today, he certainly deserved one. For the time being he thought he might go downstairs, sit on the porch, watch the sun go down, and let later take care of itself. 5 McGovern was back, slouched in his favorite chair on the porch. He was looking at something up the street and didnt immediately turn when his upstairs neighbor stepped outside. Ralph followed his gaze and saw a blue stepvan parked at the curb half a block up Harris Avenue, on the Red Apple side of the street. DERRY MEDICAL SERVICES was printed across the rear doors in large white letters. Hi, Bill, Ralph said, and dropped into his own chair. The rocker where Lois Chasse always sat when she came over stood between them. A little twilight breeze had sprung up, delightfully cool after the heat of the afternoon, and the empty rocker moved lazily back and forth at its whim. Hi, McGovern said, glancing over at Ralph. He started to look away, then did a doubletake. Man, you better start pinning up the bags under your eyes. Youre going to be stepping on them pretty soon if you dont. Ralph thought this was supposed to come out sounding like one of the caustic little bons mots for which McGovern was famous along the street, but the look in his eyes was one of genuine concern. Its been a bitch of a day, he said. He told McGovern about Helens call, editing out the things he thought she might be uncomfortable with McGoverns knowing. Bill had never been one of her favorite people. Glad shes okay, McGovern said. Ill tell you something, Ralph you impressed me today, marching up the street that way, like Gary Cooper in High Noon. Maybe it was insane, but it was also pretty cool. He paused. To tell the truth, I was a little in awe of you. This was the second time in fifteen minutes that someone had come close to calling Ralph a hero. It made him uncomfortable. I was too mad at him to realize how dumb I was being until later. Where you been, Bill? I tried to call you a little while ago. I took a walk out to the Extension, McGovern said. Trying to cool my engine off a little, I guess. Ive felt headachey and sick to my stomach ever since Johnny Leydecker and that other one took Ed away. Ralph nodded. Me, too. Really? McGovern looked surprised, and a little skeptical. Really, Ralph said with a faint smile. Anyway, Faye Chapin was at the picnic area where those old lags usually hang out during the hot weather, and he coaxed me into a game of chess. What a piece of work that guy is, Ralph he thinks hes the reincarnation of Ruy Lpez, but he plays chess more like Soupy Sales . . . and he never shuts up. Fayes all right, though, Ralph said quietly. McGovern seemed not to have heard him. And that creepy Dorrance Marstellar was out there, he went on. If were old, hes a fossil. He just stands there by the fence between the picnic area and the airport with a book of poetry in his hands, watching the planes take off and land. Does he really read those books he carries around, do you think, or are they just props? Good question, Ralph said, but he was thinking about the word McGovern had employed to describe Dorrance creepy. It wasnt one he would have used himself, but there could be no doubt that old Dor was one of lifes originals. He wasnt senile (at least Ralph didnt think he was); it was more as if the few things he said were the product of a mind that was slightly skewed and perceptions that were slightly bent. He remembered that Dorrance had been there that day last summer when Ed ran into the guy in the pickup truck. At the time hed thought that Dorrances arrival had added the final screwy touch to the festivities. And Dorrance had said something funny. Ralph tried to recall what it was and couldnt. McGovern was gazing back up the street, where a whistling young man in a gray coverall had just come out of the house in front of which the Medical Services stepvan was parked. This young man, looking all of twentyfour and as if he hadnt needed a single medical service in his entire life, was rolling a dolly with a long green tank strapped to it. Thats the empty, McGovern said. You missed them taking in the full one. A second young man, also dressed in a coverall, stepped out through the front door of the small house, which combined yellow paint and deep pink trim in an unfortunate manner. He stood on the stoop for a moment, hand on the doorknob, apparently speaking to someone inside. Then he pulled the door shut and ran lithely down the walk. He was in time to help his colleague lift the dolly, with the tank still strapped to it, into the back of the van. Oxygen? Ralph asked. McGovern nodded. For Mrs Locher? McGovern nodded again, watching as the Medical Services workers slammed the doors of the stepvan and then stood behind them, talking quietly in the fading light. I went to grammar school and junior high with May Locher. Way out in Cardville, home of the brave and land of the cows. There were only five of us in our graduating class. Back in those days she was known as a hot ticket and fellows like me were known as a wee bit lavender. In that amusingly antique era, gay was how you described your Christmas tree after it was decorated. Ralph looked down at his hands, uncomfortable and tonguetied. Of course he knew that McGovern was a homosexual, had known it for years, but Bill had never spoken of it out loud until this evening. Ralph wished he could have saved it for another day . . . preferably one when Ralph himself wasnt feeling as if most of his brains had been replaced with goosedown. That was about a thousand years ago, McGovern said. Whodve thought wed both wash up on the shores of Harris Avenue. Its emphysema she has, isnt that right? I think thats what I heard. Yep. One of those diseases that keep on giving. Getting old is certainly no job for sissies, is it? No, its not, Ralph said, and then his mind brought the truth of it home with sudden force. It was Carolyn he thought of, and the terror he had felt when he came squelching into the apartment in his soaked sneakers and had seen her lying half in and half out of the kitchen . . . exactly where he had stood during most of his conversation with Helen, in fact. Facing Ed Deepneau had been nothing compared to the terror he had felt at that moment, when he had been sure Carolyn was dead. I can remember when they just brought May oxygen once every two weeks or so, McGovern said. Now they come every Monday and Thursday evening, like clockwork. I go over and see her when I can. Sometimes I read to her the most boring womens magazine bullshit you can imagine and sometimes we just sit and talk. She says it feels as if her lungs are filling up with seaweed. It wont be long now. Theyll come one day, and instead of loading an empty oxy tank into the back of that wagon, theyll load May in. Theyll take her off to Derry Home, and thatll be the end. Was it cigarettes? Ralph asked. McGovern favored him with a look so alien to that lean, mild face that it took Ralph several moments to realize it was contempt. May Perrault never smoked a cigarette in her whole life. What shes paying off is twenty years in the dyehouse at a mill in Corinna and another twenty working the picker at a mill in Newport. Its cotton, wool, and nylon shes trying to breathe through, not seaweed. The two young men from Derry Medical Services got into their van and drove away. Maines the northeastern anchor of Appalachia, Ralph a lot of people dont realize that, but its true and Mays dying of an Appalachian disease. The doctors call it Textile Lung. Thats a shame. I guess she means a lot to you. McGovern laughed ruefully. Nah. I visit her because she happens to be the last visible piece of my misspent youth. Sometimes I read to her and I always manage to get down one or two of her dry old oatmeal cookies, but thats about as far as it goes. My concern is safely selfish, I assure you. Safely selfish, Ralph thought. What a really odd phrase. What a really McGovern phrase. Never mind May, McGovern said. The question on the lips of Americans everywhere is what were going to do about you, Ralph. The whiskey didnt work, did it? No, Ralph said. Im afraid it didnt. To make a particularly apropos pun, did you give it a fair shot? Ralph nodded. Well, you have to do something about the bags under your eyes or youll never land the lovely Lois. McGovern studied Ralphs facial response to this and sighed. Not that funny, huh? Nope. Its been a long day. Sorry. Its okay. They sat in companionable silence for a while, watching the comings and goings on their part of Harris Avenue. Three little girls were playing hopscotch in the Red Apples parking lot across the street. Mrs Perrine stood nearby, straight as a sentry, watching them. A boy with his Red Sox cap turned around backward went past, bopping to the beat of his Walkman headset. Two kids were tossing a Frisbee back and forth in front of Loiss house. A dog barked. Somewhere a woman was yelling for Sam to get his sister and come inside. It was just the usual streetlife serenade, no more and no less, but to Ralph it all seemed strangely false. He supposed it was because he had gotten so used to seeing Harris Avenue empty lately. He turned to McGovern and said, You know what was just about the first thing I thought of when I saw you in the Red Apple parking lot this afternoon? In spite of everything else that was going on? McGovern shook his head. I wondered where the hell your hat was. The Panama. You looked very strange to me without it. Naked, almost. So come clean whered you stash the lid, son? McGovern touched the top of his head, where the remaining strands of his babyfine white hair were combed carefully left to right across his pink skull. I dont know, he said. I missed it this morning. I almost always remember to drop it on the table by the front door when I come in, but its not there. I suppose I put it down somewhere else this time and the exact locale has slipped my mind for the nonce. Give me another few years and Ill be wandering around in my underwear because I cant remember where I left my pants. All part of the wonderful aging experience, right, Ralph? Ralph nodded and smiled, thinking to himself that of all the elderly people he knew and he knew at least three dozen on a casual walkinthepark, hihowyadoin basis Bill McGovern bitched the most about getting on in years. He seemed to regard his vanished youth and recently departed middle age as a general would regard a couple of soldiers who desert on the eve of a big battle. He wasnt about to say such a thing, however. Everyone had their little eccentricities; being theatrically morbid about growing old was simply one of McGoverns. Did I say something funny? McGovern asked. Pardon? You were smiling, so I thought I must have said something funny. He sounded a bit touchy, especially for a man so fond of ribbing his upstairs neighbor about the pretty widow down the street, but Ralph reminded himself it had been a long day for McGovern, too. I wasnt thinking about you at all, Ralph said. I was thinking about how Carolyn used to say practically the same thing that getting old was like getting a bad dessert at the end of a really fine meal. This was at least half a lie. Carolyn had made the simile, but she had used it to describe the brain tumor that was killing her, not her life as a senior citizen. She hadnt been all that senior, anyway, just sixtyfour when she died, and until the last six or eight weeks of her life, she had claimed to feel only half of that on most days. Across from them, the three girls who had been playing hopscotch approached the curb, looked both ways for traffic, then joined hands and ran across the street, laughing. For just a moment they looked to him as if they were surrounded by a gray glow a nimbus that illuminated their cheeks and brows and laughing eyes like some strange, clarifying Saint Elmos fire. A little frightened, Ralph squeezed his eyes shut and then popped them open again. The gray envelope hed imagined around the trio of girls was gone, which was a relief, but he had to get some sleep soon. He had to. Ralph? McGoverns voice seemed to be coming from the far end of the porch, although he hadnt moved. You all right? Sure, Ralph said. Thinking about Ed and Helen, thats all. Did you have any idea how screwy he was getting, Bill? McGovern shook his head decisively. None whatsoever, he said. And although I saw bruises on Helen from time to time, I always believed her stories about them. I dont like to consider myself a tremendously gullible person, but I may have to reassess my thinking on that score. What do you think will happen with them? Any predictions? McGovern sighed and touched the top of his head with his fingertips, feeling for the missing Panama without realizing it. You know me, Ralph Im a cynic from a long line of them. I think its very rare for ordinary human conflicts to resolve themselves the way they do on TV. In reality they just keep coming back, turning in diminishing circles until they finally disappear. Except disappearing isnt really what they do; they dry up, like mudpuddles in the sun. McGovern paused and then added And most of them leave the same scummy residue behind. Jesus, Ralph said. That is cynical. McGovern shrugged. Most retired teachers are cynical, Ralph. We see them come in, so young and so strong, so convinced that its going to be different for them, and we see them make their messes and then paddle around in them, just as their parents and grandparents did. What I think is that Helen will go back to him, and Ed will do okay for awhile, and then hell beat her up again and shell leave again. Its like one of those sappy countrywestern songs they have on the juke out at Nickys Lunch, and some people have to listen to that song a long, long time before they decide they dont want to hear it anymore. Helens a bright young woman, though. I think one more verse is all shell need. One more verse might be all shell ever get, Ralph said quietly. Were not talking about some drunk husband coming home on Friday night and beating his wife up because he lost his paycheck in a poker game and she dared to bitch about it. I know, McGovern said, but you asked for my opinion and I gave it to you. I think Helens going to need one more goround before she can bring herself to call it off. And even then theyre apt to keep on bumping up against each other. Its still a pretty small town. He paused, squinting down the street. Oh, look, he said, hoisting his left brow. Our Lois. She walks in beauty, like the night. Ralph gave him an impatient look which McGovern either did not see or pretended not to. He got up, once again touching the tips of his fingers to the place where the Panama wasnt, and then went down the steps to meet her on the walk. Lois! McGovern cried, dropping to one knee before her and extending his hands theatrically. Would that our lives might be united by the starry bonds of love! Wed your fate to mine and let me whirl you away to climes various in the golden car of my affections! Gee, are you talking about a honeymoon or a onenight stand? Lois asked, smiling uncertainly. |
Ralph poked McGovern in the back. Get up, fool, he said, and took the small bag Lois was carrying. He looked inside and saw three cans of beer. McGovern got to his feet. Sorry, Lois, he said. It was a combination of summer twilight and your beauty. I plead temporary insanity, in other words. Lois smiled at him, then turned to Ralph. I just heard what happened, she said, and I hurried over as fast as I could. I was in Ludlow all afternoon, playing nickeldime poker with the girls. Ralph didnt have to look at McGovern to know his left eyebrow the one that said Poker with the girls! How wonderfully, perfectly Our Lois! would be hoisted to its maximum altitude. Is Helen all right? Yes, Ralph said. Well, maybe not exactly all right theyre keeping her in the hospital overnight but shes not in any danger. And the baby? Fine. Staying with a friend of Helens. Well, come on up on the porch, you two, and tell me all about it. She linked one arm through McGoverns, the other through Ralphs, and led them back up the walk. They mounted the porch steps that way, like two elderly musketeers with the woman whose affections they had vied for in the days of their youth held safely between them, and as Lois sat down in her rocking chair, the streetlights went on along Harris Avenue, glimmering in the dusk like a double rope of pearls. 6 Ralph fell asleep that night bare instants after his head hit the pillow, and came wide awake again at 330 a.m. on Friday morning. He knew immediately there was no question of going back to sleep; he might as well proceed directly to the wingchair in the living room. He lay there a moment longer anyway, looking up into the dark and trying to catch the tail of the dream hed been having. He couldnt do it. He could only remember that Ed had been in it . . . and Helen . . . and Rosalie, the dog he sometimes saw limping up or down Harris Avenue before Pete the paperboy showed up. Dorrance was in it, too. Dont forget him. Yes, right. And as if a key had turned in a lock, Ralph suddenly remembered the strange thing Dorrance had said during the confrontation between Ed and the heavyset man last year . . . the thing Ralph hadnt been able to remember earlier this evening. He, Ralph, had been holding Ed back, trying to keep him pinned against the bent hood of his car long enough for reason to reassert itself, and Dorrance had said (I wouldnt) that Ralph ought to stop touching him. He said he couldnt see my hands anymore, Ralph muttered, swinging his feet out of bed. That was it. He sat where he was for a little while, head down, hair frizzed up wildly in back, his fingers laced loosely together between his thighs. At last he stepped into his slippers and shuffled into the living room. It was time to start waiting for the sun to come up. CHAPTER FOUR 1 Although cynics always sounded more plausible than the cockeyed optimists of the world, Ralphs experience had been that they were wrong at least as much of the time, if not more, and he was delighted to find that McGovern was wrong about Helen Deepneau in her case, a single verse of The Beaten Up, BrokenHearted Blues seemed to have been enough. On Wednesday of the following week, just as Ralph was deciding hed better track down the woman Helen had spoken with in the hospital (Tillbury, her name had been Gretchen Tillbury) and try to make sure Helen was okay, he received a letter from her. The return address was simple just Helen and Nat, High Ridge but it was enough to relieve Ralphs mind considerably. He sat down in his chair on the porch, tore the end off the envelope, and shook out two sheets of lined paper crammed with Helens backslanted handwriting. Dear Ralph, [the letter began], I suppose by now you must be thinking I decided to be mad at you after all, but I really didnt. Its just that were supposed to stay out of contact with everyone by phone and letter for the first few days. Rules of the house. I like this place very much, and so does Nat. Of course she does; there are at least six kids her age to crawl around with. As for me, I am finding more women who know what Ive been through than I ever would have believed. I mean, you see the TV shows Oprah Talks With Women Who Love Men Who Use Them For Punching Bags but when it happens to you, you cant help feeling that its happening in a way its never happened to anyone else, in a way thats brandnew to the world. The relief of knowing thats not true is the best thing thats happened to me in a long, long time . . . She talked about the chores to which she had been assigned working in the garden, helping to repaint an equipment shed, washing the storm windows with vinegar and water and about Nats adventures in learning to walk. The rest of the letter was about what had happened and what she intended to do about it, and it was here that Ralph for the first time really sensed the emotional turmoil Helen must be feeling, her worries about the future, and, counterbalancing these things, a formidable determination to do what was right for Nat . . . and for herself, too. Helen seemed to be just discovering that she also had a right to the right thing. Ralph was happy she had found out, but sad when he thought of all the dark times she must have trudged through in order to reach that simple insight. Im going to divorce him, [she wrote.] Part of my mind (it sounds like my mother when it talks) just about howls when I put it that bluntly, but Im tired of fooling myself about my situation. Theres a lot of therapy out here, the kind of thing where people sit around in a circle and use up about four boxes of Kleenex an hour, but it all seems to come back to seeing things plain. In my case, the plain fact is that the man I married has been replaced by a dangerous paranoid. That he can sometimes he loving and sweet isnt the point but a distraction. I need to remember that the man who used to bring me handpicked flowers now sometimes sits on the porch and talks to someone who isnt there, a man he calls the little bald doctor. Isnt that a beaut? I think I have an idea of how all this started, Ralph, and when I see you Ill tell you, if you really want to hear. I should be back at the house on Harris Avenue (for awhile, anyway) by midSeptember, if only to look for a job . . . but no more about that now, the whole subject scares me to death! I had a note from Ed just a paragraph, but a great relief just the same saying that he was staying at one of the cottages at the Hawking Labs compound in Fresh Harbor, and that he would honor the noncontact clause in the bail agreement. He said he was sorry for everything, but I didnt get any real sense of it, if he was. Its not that I was expecting tearstains on the letter or a package with his ear in it, but . . . I dont know. It was as if he wasnt really apologizing at all, but just getting on the record. Does that make sense? He also included a 750 check, which seems to indicate he understands his responsibilities. Thats good, but I think Id have been happier to hear he was getting help with his mental problems. That should be his sentence, you know eighteen months at hard therapy. I said that in group and several people laughed as if they thought I was joking. I wasnt. Sometimes I get these scary pictures in my head when I try to think of the future. I see us standing in line at Manna for a free meal, or me walking into the Third Street homeless shelter with Nat in my arms, wrapped in a blanket. When I think of that stuff I start to shake, and sometimes I cry. I know its stupid; Ive got a graduate degree in Library Science, for Gods sake, but I cant help it. And do you know what I hold onto when those bad pictures come? What you said after you took me behind the counter in the Red Apple and sat me down. You told me that I had a lot of friends in the neighborhood, and I was going to get through this. I know I have one friend, at least. One very true friend. The letter was signed Love, Helen. Ralph wiped tears from the corners of his eyes he cried at the drop of a hat just lately, it seemed; it probably came from being so goddam tired and read the PS she had crammed in at the bottom of the sheet and up the righthand margin Id love to have you come and visit, but men are off limits out here for reasons Im sure you will understand. They even want us to be quiet about the exact location! H. Ralph sat for a minute or two with Helens letter in his lap, looking out over Harris Avenue. It was the tag end of August now, still summer but the leaves of the poplars had begun to gleam silver when the wind stroked them and there was the first touch of coolness in the air. The sign in the window of the Red Apple said SCHOOL SUPPLIES OF ALL TYPES! CHECK HERE FIRST! And, out by the Newport town line, in some big old farmhouse where battered women went to try and start putting their lives back together, Helen Deepneau was washing storm windows, getting them ready for another long winter. He slid the letter carefully back into its envelope, trying to remember how long Ed and Helen had been married. Six or seven years, he thought. Carolyn would have known for sure. How much courage does it take to fire up your tractor and plow under a crop you spent six or seven years growing? he asked himself. How much courage to go on and do that after youve spent all that time finding out how to prepare the soil and when to plant and how much to water and when to reap? How much to just say, I have to quit these peas, peas are no good for me, I better try corn or beans. A lot, he said, wiping at the corners of his eyes again. A damn lot, thats what I think. Suddenly he wanted very badly to see Helen, to repeat what she so well remembered hearing and what he could barely remember saying Youll be okay, youll get through this, you have a lot of friends in the neighborhood. Take it to the bank, Ralph said. Hearing from Helen seemed to have taken a great weight off his shoulders. He got up, put her letter in his back pocket, and started up Harris Avenue toward the picnic area on the Extension. If he was lucky, he could find Faye Chapin or Don Veazie and play a little chess. 2 His relief at hearing from Helen did nothing to alleviate Ralphs insomnia; the premature waking continued, and by Labor Day he was opening his eyes around 245 a.m. By the tenth of September the day when Ed Deepneau was arrested again, this time along with fifteen others Ralphs average nights sleep had shrunk to roughly three hours and he had begun to feel quite a little bit like something on a slide under a microscope. Just a lonely lil protozoa, thats me, he thought as he sat in the wingback chair, staring out at Harris Avenue, and wished he could laugh. His list of surefire, nevermiss folk remedies continued to grow, and it had occurred to him more than once that he could write an amusing little book on the subject . . . if, that was, he ever got enough sleep to make organized thinking possible again. This late summer he was doing well to slide into matching socks each day, and his mind kept returning to his purgatorial efforts to find a CupASoup in the kitchen cabinet on the day Helen had been beaten. There had been no return to that level since, because he had managed at least some sleep every night, but Ralph was terribly afraid he would arrive there again and perhaps places beyond there if things didnt improve. There were times (usually sitting in the wingback chair at fourthirty in the morning) when he swore he could actually feel his brains draining. The remedies ranged from the sublime to the ridiculous. The best example of the former was a fullcolor brochure advertising the wonders of the Minnesota Institute for Sleep Studies in St Paul. A fair example of the latter was the Magic Eye, an allpurpose amulet sold through supermarket tabloids like the National Enquirer and Inside View. Sue, the countergirl at the Red Apple, bought one of these and presented it to him one afternoon. Ralph looked down at the badly painted blue eye staring up at him from the medallion (which he believed had probably started life as a pokerchip) and felt wild laughter bubbling up inside him. He somehow managed to suppress it until he had regained the safety of his own upstairs apartment across the street, and for that he was very grateful. The gravity with which Sue had given it to him and the expensivelooking gold chain she had threaded through the eyelet on top suggested it had cost her a fair amount of money. She had regarded Ralph with something close to awe since the day the two of them had rescued Helen. This made Ralph uncomfortable, but he had no idea what to do about it. In the meantime, he supposed it didnt hurt to wear the medallion so she could see the shape of it under his shirt. It didnt help him sleep, though. After taking his statement on Ralphs part in the Deepneaus domestic problems, Detective John Leydecker had pushed back his desk chair, laced his fingers together behind his not inconsiderable breadth of neck, and said that McGovern had told him Ralph suffered from insomnia. Ralph allowed that he did. Leydecker nodded, rolled his chair forward again, clasped his hands atop the litter of paperwork beneath which the surface of his desk was mostly buried, and looked at Ralph seriously. Honeycomb, he said. His tone of voice reminded Ralph of McGoverns tone when he had suggested that whiskey was the answer, and his reply now was exactly the same. I beg your pardon? My grandfather swore by it, Leydecker said. Little piece of honeycomb just before bedtime. Suck the honey out of the comb, chew the wax a little like you would a wad of gum then spit it out. Bees secrete some sort of natural sedative when they make honey. Put you right out. No kidding, Ralph said, simultaneously believing it was utter crap and believing every word. Where would a person get honeycomb, do you think? Nutra the health food store out at the mall. Try it. By next week this time your troubles are going to be over. Ralph enjoyed the experiment the comb honey was so sweetly powerful it seemed to suffuse his whole being but he still woke at 310 a.m. after the first dosage, at 308 after the second, and at 307 after the third. By then the small piece of honeycomb hed purchased was gone, and he went out to Nutra right away for another one. Its value as a sedative might be nil, but it made a wonderful snack; he only wished he had discovered it earlier. He tried putting his feet in warm water. Lois bought him something called an AllPurpose Gel Wrap from a catalogue you put it around your neck and it was supposed to take care of your arthritis as well as help you sleep (it did neither for Ralph, but he had only the mildest case of arthritis to begin with). Following a chance meeting with Trigger Vachon at the counter of Nickys Lunch, he tried camomile tea. That cammys a beaut, Trig told him. You gonna sleep great, Ralphie. And Ralph did . . . right up until 258 a.m., that was. Those were the folk cures and homeopathic remedies he tried. Ones he didnt included megavitamin packages which cost much more than Ralph could afford to spend on his fixed income, a yoga position called The Dreamer (as described by the postman, The Dreamer sounded to Ralph like a fine way to get a look at your own hemorrhoids), and marijuana. Ralph considered this last one very carefully before deciding it would very likely turn out to be an illegal version of the whiskey and honeycomb and the camomile tea. Besides, if McGovern found out Ralph was smoking pot, he would never hear the end of it. And through all these experiments a voice in his brain kept asking him if he really was going to have to get down to eye of newt and tongue of toad before he gave up and went to the doctor. That voice was not so much critical as genuinely curious. Ralph had become fairly curious himself. On September 10th, the day of the first Friends of Life demonstration at WomanCare, Ralph decided that he would try something from the drugstore . . . but not the Rexall downtown where hed gotten Carolyns prescriptions filled. They knew him down there, knew him well, and he didnt want Paul Durgin, the Rexall druggist, to see him buying sleepingpills. It was probably stupid like going across town to buy rubbers but that didnt change the way he felt. He had never traded at the Rite Aid across from Strawford Park, so that was where he meant to go. And if the drugstore version of newts eye and toads tongue didnt work, he really would go to the doctor. Is that true, Ralph? Do you really mean it? I do, he said out loud as he walked slowly down Harris Avenue in the bright September sunshine. Be damned if Ill put up with this much longer. Big talk, Ralph, the voice replied skeptically. Bill McGovern and Lois Chasse were standing outside the park, having what looked like an animated discussion. Bill looked up, saw him, and motioned for him to come over. Ralph went, not liking the combination of their expressions brighteyed interest on McGoverns face, distress and worry on Loiss. Have you heard about the thing out at the hospital? she asked as Ralph joined them. It wasnt at the hospital, and it wasnt a thing, McGovern said testily. It was a demonstration thats what they called it, anyway and it was at WomanCare, which is actually behind the hospital. They took a bunch of people to jail somewhere between six and two dozen, nobody really seems to know yet. One of them was Ed Deepneau! Lois said breathlessly, and McGovern shot her a disgusted glance. He clearly believed that handling this piece of news had been his job. Ed! Ralph said, startled. Eds in Fresh Harbor! Wrong, McGovern said. The battered brown fedora he was wearing today gave him a slightly rakish look, like a newspaperman in a forties crime drama. Ralph wondered if the Panama was still lost or had merely been retired for the fall. Today hes once more cooling his heels in our picturesque city jail. What exactly happened? But neither of them really knew. At that point the story was little more than a rumor which had spread through the park like a contagious headcold, a rumor which was of particular interest in this part of town because Ed Deepneaus name was attached to it. Marie Callan had told Lois that there had been rockthrowing involved, and that was why the demonstrators had been arrested. According to Stan Eberly, who had passed the story on to McGovern shortly before McGovern ran into Lois, someone it might have been Ed, but it might well have been one of the others had Maced a couple of doctors as they used the walkway between WomanCare and the back entrance to the hospital. This walkway was technically public property, and had become a favorite haunt of antiabortion demonstrators during the seven years that WomanCare had been providing abortions on demand. The two versions of the story were so vague and conflicting that Ralph felt he could reasonably hope neither was true, that perhaps it was just a case of a few overenthusiastic people whod been arrested for trespassing, or something. In places like Derry, that kind of thing happened; stories had a way of inflating like beachballs as they were passed from mouth to mouth. Yet he couldnt shake the feeling that this time it would turn out to be more serious, mostly because both the Bill version and the Lois version included Ed Deepneau, and Ed was not your average antiabortion protestor. This was, after all, the guy who had pulled a clump of his wifes hair right out of her scalp, rearranged her dental work, and fractured her cheekbone simply because he had seen her name on a petition which mentioned WomanCare. This was the guy who seemed honestly convinced that someone calling himself the Crimson King it would be a great name for a pro wrestler, Ralph thought was running around Derry, and that his minions were hauling their unborn victims out of town on flatbed trucks (plus a few pickups with the fetuses stuffed into barrels marked WEEDGO). No, he had an idea that if Ed had been there, it had probably not been just a case of someone accidentally bonked on the head with a protest sign. Lets go up to my house, Lois proposed suddenly. Ill call Simone Castonguay. Her niece is the day receptionist at WomanCare. If anyone knows exactly what happened up there this morning, itll be Simone shell have called Barbara. I was just on my way down to the supermarket, Ralph said. It was a lie, of course, but surely a very small one; the market stood next to the Rite Aid in the stripmall half a block down from the park. Why dont I stop in on my way back? All right, Lois said, smiling at him. Well expect you in a few minutes, wont we, Bill? Yes, McGovern said, and suddenly swept her into his arms. It was a bit of a reach, but he managed. In the meantime, Ill have you all to myself. Oh, Lois, how those sweet minutes will fly! Just inside the park, a group of young women with babies in strollers (a gossip of mothers, Ralph thought) had been watching them, probably attracted by Loiss gestures, which had a tendency to become grandiose when she was excited. Now, as McGovern bent Lois backward, looking down at her with the counterfeit ardor of a bad actor at the end of a stage tango, one of the mothers spoke to another and both laughed. It was a shrill, unkind sound that made Ralph think of chalk squealing on blackboards and forks dragged across porcelain sinks. Look at the funny old people, the laughter said. Look at the funny old people, pretending to be young again. Stop that, Bill! Lois said. She was blushing, and maybe not just because Bill was up to his usual tricks. Shed also heard the laughter from the park. McGovern undoubtedly had, too, but McGovern would believe they were laughing with him, not at him. Sometimes, Ralph thought wearily, a slightly inflated ego could be a protection. McGovern let her go, then removed his fedora and swept it across his waist as he made an exaggerated bow. Lois was too busy making sure that her silk blouse was still tucked into the waistband of her skirt all the way around to pay him much notice. Her blush was already fading, and Ralph saw she looked rather pale and not particularly well. He hoped she wasnt coming down with something. Come by, if you can, she told Ralph quietly. I will, Lois. McGovern slipped an arm around her waist, the gesture of affection both friendly and sincere this time, and they started up the street together. Watching them, Ralph was suddenly gripped by a strong sense of dj vu, as if he had seen them like that in some other place. Or some other life. Then, just as McGovern dropped his arm, breaking the illusion, it came to him Fred Astaire leading a darkhaired and rather plump Ginger Rogers out onto a smalltown movie set, where they would dance together to some tune by Jerome Kern or maybe Irving Berlin. Thats weird, he thought, turning back toward the little stripmall halfway down UpMile Hill. Thats very weird, Ralph. Bill McGovern and Lois Chasse are about as far from Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers as you can g Ralph? Lois called, and he turned back. There was one intersection and about a blocks worth of distance between them now. Cars zipped back and forth on Elizabeth Street, turning Ralphs view of them into a moderate stutter. What? he called back. You look better! More rested! Are you finally getting some sleep? Yes! he returned, thinking, Just another small lie, in another good cause. Didnt I say youd feel better once the seasons changed? See you in a little while! Lois wiggled her fingers at him, and Ralph was amazed to see bright blue diagonal lines stream back from the short but carefully shaped nails. They looked like contrails. What the fuck? He shut his eyes tight, then popped them open again. Nothing. Only Bill and Lois once again walking up the street toward Loiss house, their backs to him. No bright blue diagonals in the air, nothing like that Ralphs eyes dropped to the sidewalk and he saw that Lois and Bill were leaving tracks behind them on the concrete, tracks that looked exactly like the footprints in the old Arthur Murray learntodance instructions you used to be able to get by mailorder. Loiss were gray. McGoverns larger but still oddly delicate were a dark shade of olive green. They glowed on the sidewalk, and Ralph, who was standing on the far side of Elizabeth Street with his jaw hanging almost down to his breastbone, suddenly realized he could see little ribbands of colored smoke rising from them. Or perhaps it was steam. A city bus bound for Old Cape snored by, momentarily blocking his view, and when it passed the tracks were gone. There was nothing on the sidewalk but a message chalked inside a fading pink heart SAM DEANIE 4EVER. Those tracks are not gone, Ralph; they were never there in the first place. You know that, dont you? Yes, he knew. The idea that Bill and Lois looked like Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers had gotten into his head; progressing from that idea to a hallucination of phantom footprints leading up the sidewalk like tracks in an Arthur Murray dancediagram had a certain bizarre logic. Still, it was scary. His heart was beating too fast, and when he closed his eyes for a moment to try and calm down, he saw those marks trailing up from Loiss waving fingers like bright blue jet contrails. Ive got to get more sleep, Ralph thought. Ive got to. If I dont, Im apt to start seeing anything. Thats right, he muttered under his breath as he turned toward the drugstore again. Anything at all. 3 Ten minutes later, Ralph was standing at the front of the Rite Aid Pharmacy and looking at a sign which hung on chains from the ceiling. FEEL BETTER AT RITE AID! it said, seeming to suggest that feeling better was a goal attainable by any reasonable, hardworking consumer. Ralph had his doubts about that. This, Ralph decided, was retail drugdealing on a grand scale it made the Rexall where he usually traded look like a tenement apartment by comparison. The fluorescentlit aisles seemed as long as bowling alleys and displayed everything from toaster ovens to jigsaw puzzles. After a little study, Ralph decided Aisle 3 contained most of the patent medicines and was probably his best bet. He made his way slowly through the area marked STOMACH REMEDIES, sojourned briefly in the kingdom of ANALGESICS, and quickly crossed the land of LAXATIVES. And there, between LAXATIVES and DECONGESTANTS, he stopped. This is it, folks my last shot. After this theres only Dr Litchfield, and if he suggests chewing honeycomb or drinking camomile tea, Ill probably snap and itll take both nurses and the receptionist to pull me off him. SLEEPING AIDS, the sign over this section of Aisle 3 read. Ralph, never much of a patent medicine user (he would otherwise have arrived here much sooner, no doubt), didnt know exactly what hed expected, but it surely had not been this wild, almost indecent profusion of products. His eye slipped across the boxes (the majority were a soothing blue), reading the names. Most seemed strange and slightly ominous Compoz, Nytol, Sleepinal, ZPower, Sominex, Sleepinex, DrowZee. There was even a generic brand. You have to be kidding, he thought. None of these things are going to work for you. Its time to quit fucking around, dont you know that? When you start to see colored footprints on the sidewalk, its time to quit fucking around and go to the doctor. But on the heels of this he heard Dr Litchfield, heard him so clearly it was as if a tape recorder had turned on in the middle of his head Your wife is suffering from tension headaches, Ralph unpleasant and painful, but not lifethreatening. I think we can take care of the problem. Unpleasant and painful, but not lifethreatening yes, right, that was what the man had said. And then he had reached for his prescription pad and written out the order for the first bunch of useless pills while the tiny clump of alien cells in Carolyns head continued to send out its microbursts of destruction, and maybe Dr Jamal had been right, maybe it was too late even then, but maybe Jamal was full of shit, maybe Jamal was just a stranger in a strange land, trying to get along, trying not to make waves. Maybe this and maybe that; Ralph didnt know for sure and never would. All he really knew was that Litchfield hadnt been around when the final two tasks of their marriage had been set before them her job to die, his job to watch her do it. Is that what I want to do? Go to Litchfield and watch him reach for his prescription pad again? Maybe this time it would work, he argued to with himself. At the same time his hand stole out, seemingly of its own volition, and took a box of Sleepinex from the shelf. He turned it over, held it slightly away from his eyes so he could read the small print on the side panel, and ran his eye slowly down the list of active ingredients. He had no idea of how to pronounce most of the jawbreaking words, and even less of what they were or how they were supposed to help you sleep. Yes, he answered the voice. Maybe this time it would work. But maybe the real answer would be just to find another doc Help you? a voice asked from directly behind Ralphs shoulder. He was in the act of returning the box of Sleepinex to its place, meaning to take something that sounded a little less like a sinister drug in a Robin Cook novel, when the voice spoke. Ralph jumped and knocked a dozen assorted boxes of synthetic sleep onto the floor. Oh, sorry clumsy! Ralph said, and looked over his shoulder. Not at all. My fault entirely. And before Ralph could do more than pick up two boxes of Sleepinex and one box of DrowZee gel capsules, the man in the white smock who had spoken to him had swept up the rest and was redistributing them with the speed of a riverboat gambler dealing a hand of poker. According to the gold ID bar pinned to his breast, this was JOE WYZER, RITE AID PHARMACIST. Now, Wyzer said, dusting off his hands and turning to Ralph with a friendly grin, lets start over. Can I help you? You look a little lost. Ralphs initial response annoyance at being disturbed while having a deep and meaningful conversation with himself was being replaced with guarded interest. Well, I dont know, he said, and gestured to the array of sleeping potions. Do any of these actually work? Wyzers grin widened. He was a tall, middleaged man with fair skin and thinning brown hair which he parted in the middle. He stuck out his hand, and Ralph had barely begun the polite reciprocatory gesture when his own hand was swallowed. Im Joe, the pharmacist said, and tapped the gold tunicpin with his free hand. I used to be Joe Wyze, but now Im older and Wyzer. This was almost certainly an ancient joke, but it had lost none of its savor for Joe Wyzer, who laughed uproariously. Ralph smiled a polite little smile with just the smallest touch of anxiety around its edges. The hand which had enfolded his was clearly a strong one, and he was afraid if the pharmacist squeezed hard, his hand might finish the day in a cast. He found himself wishing, at least momentarily, that hed taken his problem to Paul Durgin downtown after all. Then Wyzer gave his hand two energetic pumps and let go. Im Ralph Roberts. Nice to meet you, Mr Wyzer. Mutual. Now, concerning the efficacy of these fine products. Let me answer your question with one of my own, to wit, does a bear shit in a telephone booth? Ralph burst out laughing. Rarely, Id think, he said when he could say anything again. Correct. And I rest my case. Wyzer glanced at the sleeping aids, a wall done in shades of blue. Thank God Im a pharmacist and not a salesman, Mr Roberts; Id starve trying to peddle stuff door to door. Are you an insomniac? Im asking partly because youre investigating the sleeping aids, but mostly because you have that lean and holloweyed look. |
Ralph said, Mr Wyzer, Id be the happiest man on earth if I could get five hours sleep some night, and Id settle for four. How longs it been going on, Mr Roberts? Or do you prefer Ralph? Ralphs fine. Good. And Im Joe. It started in April, I think. A month or six weeks after my wife died, anyway. Gee, Im sorry to hear you lost your wife. My sympathies. Thank you, Ralph said, then repeated the old formula. I miss her a lot, but I was glad when her suffering was over. Except now youre suffering. For . . . lets see. Wyzer counted quickly on his big fingers. Going on half a year now. Ralph suddenly found himself fascinated by those fingers. No jet contrails this time, but the tip of each one appeared to be wrapped in a bright silvery haze, like tinfoil you could somehow look right through. He suddenly found himself thinking of Carolyn again, and remembering the phantom smells she had sometimes complained of last fall cloves, sewage, burning ham. Maybe this was the male equivalent, and the onset of his own brain tumor had been signaled not by headaches but by insomnia. Selfdiagnosis is a fools game, Ralph, so why dont you just quit it? He moved his eyes resolutely back to Wyzers big, pleasant face. No silvery haze there; not so much as a hint of a haze. He was almost sure of it. Thats right, he said. Going on half a year. It seems longer. A lot longer, actually. Any noticeable pattern? There usually is. I mean, do you toss and turn before you go to sleep, or Im a premature waker. Wyzers eyebrows went up. And read a book or three about the problem too, I deduce. If Litchfield had made a remark of this sort, Ralph would have read condescension into it. From Joe Wyzer he sensed not condescension but genuine admiration. I read what the library had, but there wasnt much, and none of it has helped much. Ralph paused, then added The truth is none of it has helped at all. Well, let me tell you what I know on the subject, and you just kind of flop your hand when I start heading into territory youve already explored. Whos your doctor, by the way? Litchfield. Uhhuh. And you usually trade at . . . where? The Peoples Drug out at the mall? The Rexall downtown? The Rexall. Youre incognito today, I take it. Ralph blushed . . . then grinned. Yeah, something like that. Uhhuh. And I dont need to ask if youve been to see Litchfield about your problem, do I? If you had, you wouldnt be exploring the wonderful world of patent medicines. Is that what these are? Patent medicines? Put it this way Id feel a helluva lot more comfortable selling most of this crap off the back of a big red wagon with fancy yellow wheels. Ralph laughed, and the bright silvery cloud which had been gathering in front of Joe Wyzers tunic blew away when he did. That kind of salesmanship I might be able to get into, Wyzer said with a misty little grin. Id get a sweet little honeybun to do a dance in a sequined bra and a pair of harem pants . . . call her Little Egypt, like in that old Coasters song . . . shed be my warmup act. Plus Id have a banjopicker. In my experience, theres nothing like a good dose of banjo music to put people in a buying mood. Wyzer looked off past the laxatives and analgesics, enjoying this gaudy daydream. Then he looked back at Ralph again. For a premature waker like you, Ralph, this stuff is entirely useless. Youd be better off with a shot of booze or one of those wave machines they sell through the catalogues, and looking at you, Id guess you probably tried em both. Yes. Along with about two dozen other oldtimertested home remedies. Ralph laughed again. He was coming to like this guy a lot. Try four dozen and youll be in the ballpark. Well, youre an industrious bugger, Ill give you that, Wyzer said, and waved a hand at the blue boxes. These things are nothing but antihistamines. Essentially theyre trading on a sideeffect antihistamines make people sleepy. Check out a box of Comtrex or Benadryl down there in Decongestants and itll say you shouldnt take it if youre going to be driving or operating heavy machinery. For people who suffer from occasional sleeplessness, a Sominex every now and then may work. It gives them a nudge. But they wouldnt work for you in any case, because your problem isnt getting to sleep, its staying asleep . . . correct? Correct. Can I ask you a delicate question? Sure. I guess so. Do you have a problem with Dr Litchfield regarding this? Maybe have some doubts about his ability to understand how really pissy your insomnia is making you feel? Yes, Ralph said gratefully. Do you think I should go see him? Try to explain that to him so hell understand? To this question Wyzer would of course respond in the affirmative, and Ralph would finally make the call. And it would be, should be Litchfield he saw that now. It was madness to think of hooking up with a new doctor at his age. Can you tell Dr Litchfield youre seeing things? Can you tell him about the blue marks you saw shooting up from the tips of Lois Chasses fingers? The footprints on the sidewalk, like the footprints in an Arthur Murray dancediagram? The silvery stuff around the tips of Joe Wyzers fingers? Are you really going to tell Litchfield that stuff? And if youre not, if you cant, why are you going to see him in the first place, no matter what this guy recommends? Wyzer, however, surprised him by going in an entirely different direction. Are you still dreaming? Yes. Quite a lot, in fact, considering that Im down to about three hours sleep a night. Are they coherent dreams dreams that consist of perceivable events and have some kind of narrative flow, no matter how kooky or are they just jumbled images? Ralph remembered a dream hed had the night before. He and Helen Deepneau and Bill McGovern had been having a threesided game of Frisbee in the middle of Harris Avenue. Helen had a pair of huge, clunky saddle shoes on her feet; McGovern was wearing a sweatshirt with a vodka bottle on it. ABSOLUTLY THE BEST, the sweatshirt proclaimed. The Frisbee had been bright red with fluorescent green stripes. Then Rosalie the dog had shown up. The faded blue bandanna someone had hung around her neck was flapping as she limped toward them. All at once she had leaped into the air, snatched the Frisbee, and gone running off with it in her mouth. Ralph wanted to give chase, but McGovern said, Relax, Ralph, were getting a whole case of them for Christmas. Ralph turned to him, intending to point out that Christmas was over three months away and to ask what the hell they were going to do if they wanted to play Frisbee between then and now, but before he could, the dream had either ended or gone on to some other, less vivid, mindmovie. If I understand what youre saying, Ralph replied, my dreams are coherent. Good. I also want to know if theyre lucid dreams. Lucid dreams fulfill two requirements. First, you know youre dreaming. Second, you can often influence the course the dream takes youre more than just a passive observer. Ralph nodded. Sure, I have those, too. In fact, I seem to have a lot of them lately. I was just thinking of one I had last night. In it this stray dog I see on the street from time to time ran off with a Frisbee some friends of mine and I were playing with. I was mad that she broke up the game, and I tried to make her drop the Frisbee just by sending her the thought. Sort of a telepathic command, you know? He uttered a small, embarrassed chuckle, but Wyzer only nodded matteroffactly. Did it work? Not this time, Ralph said, but I think I have made that sort of thing work in other dreams. Only I cant be sure, because most of the dreams I have seem to fade away almost as soon as I wake up. Thats the case with everyone, Wyzer said. The brain treats most dreams as disposable matter, storing them in extreme shortterm memory. You know a lot about this, dont you? Insomnia interests me very much. I did two research papers on the link between dreams and sleep disorders when I was in college. Wyzer glanced at his watch. Its my breaktime. Would you like to have a cup of coffee and a piece of apple pie with me? Theres a place just two doors down, and the pie is fantastic. Sounds good, but maybe Ill settle for an orange soda. Ive been trying to cut down on my coffee intake. Understandable but completely useless, Wyzer said cheerfully. Caffeine is not your problem, Ralph. No, I suppose not . . . but what is? To this point Ralph had been quite successful at keeping the misery out of his voice, but now it crept back in. Wyzer clapped him on the shoulder and looked at him kindly. That, he said, is what were going to talk about. Come on. CHAPTER FIVE 1 Think of it this way, Wyzer recommenced five minutes later. They were in a New Agey sort of diner called Day Break, Sun Down. The place was a little too ferny for Ralph, who believed in oldfashioned diners that gleamed with chrome and smelled of grease, but the pie was good, and while the coffee was not up to Lois Chasses standards Lois made the best cup he had ever tasted it was hot and strong. Which way is that? Ralph asked. There are certain things mankind womankind, too keeps striving for. Not the stuff that gets written up in the history and civics books, either, at least for the most part; Im talking fundamentals here. A roof to keep the rain out. Three hots and a cot. A decent sexlife. Healthy bowels. But maybe the most fundamental thing of all is what youve been missing, my friend. Because theres really nothing in the world that can measure up to a good nights sleep, is there? Boy, you got that right, Ralph said. Wyzer nodded. Sleep is the overlooked hero and the poor mans physician. Shakespeare said its the thread that knits up the ravelled sleeve of care, Napoleon called it the blessed end of night, and Winston Churchill one of the great insomniacs of the twentieth century said it was the only relief he ever got from his deep depressions. I put all that stuff in my papers, but what all the quotes come down to is what I just said nothing in the whole wide world can measure up to a good nights sleep. Youve had the problem yourself, havent you? Ralph asked suddenly. Is that why you . . . well . . . why youre taking me under your wing? Joe Wyzer grinned. Is that what Im doing? I think so, yes. Hey, I can live with that. The answer is yes. Ive suffered from slowsleep insomnia ever since I was thirteen. Its why I ended up doing not just one research paper on the subject but two. How are you doing with it these days? Wyzer shrugged. So far its been a pretty good year. Not the best, but Ill take it. For a couple of years in my early twenties, the problem was acute Id go to bed at ten, fall asleep around four, get up at seven, and drag myself through the day feeling like a bit player in someone elses nightmare. This was so familiar to Ralph that his back and upper arms broke out in goosebumps. Here comes the most important thing I can tell you, Ralph, so listen up. I am. The thing you have to hang onto is that youre still basically okay, even though you feel like shit a lot of the time. All sleep is not created equal, you see theres good sleep and bad sleep. If youre still having coherent dreams, and, maybe even more importantly, lucid dreams, youre still having good sleep. And because of that, a scrip for sleeping pills could be about the worst thing in the world for you right now. And I know Litchfield. Hes a nice enough guy, but he loves that prescription pad. Say it twice, Ralph told him, thinking of Carolyn. If you tell Litchfield what you told me while we were walking down here, hes going to prescribe a benzodiazepine probably Dalmane or Restoril, maybe Halcion or even Valium. Youll sleep, but youll pay a price. Benzodiazepines are habitforming, theyre respiratory depressants, and worst of all, for guys like you and me, they significantly reduce REM sleep. Dreaming sleep, in other words. Hows your pie? I only ask because youve hardly touched it. Ralph took a big bite and swallowed it without tasting. Good, he said. Now tell me why you have to have dreams to make your sleep good sleep. If I could answer that, Id retire from the pillpushing business and go into business as a sleep guru. Wyzer had finished his pie and was now using the pad of his index finger to pick up the larger crumbs left on his plate. REM stands for rapid eye movements, of course, and the terms REM sleep and dreaming sleep have become synonymous in the public mind, but nobody really knows just how the eye movements of sleepers relate to the dreams they are having. It seems unlikely that the eye movements indicate watching or tracking, because sleep researchers see a lot of it even in dreams test subjects later describe as fairly static dreams of conversations, for instance, like the one were having now. Similarly, no one really knows why there seems to be a clear relationship between lucid, coherent dreams and overall mental health the more dreams of that sort a person has, the better off he seems to be, the less he has, the worse. Theres a real scale there. Mental healths a pretty general phrase, Ralph said skeptically. Yeah. Wyzer grinned. Makes me think of a bumper sticker I saw a few years back SUPPORT MENTAL HEALTH OR ILL KILL YOU. Anyway, were talking about some basic, measurable components cognitive ability, problemsolving ability, by both inductive and deductive methods, ability to grasp relationships, memory My memory is lousy these days, Ralph said. He was thinking of his inability to remember the number of the cinema complex and his long hunt through the kitchen cabinet for the last CupASoup envelope. Yeah, youre probably suffering some shortterm memory loss, but your fly is zipped, your shirt is on rightside out, and I bet if I asked you what your middle name is, you could tell me. Im not belittling your problem Id be the last person in the world to do that but I am asking you to change your point of view for a minute or two. To think of all the areas in your life where youre still perfectly functional. All right. These lucid and coherent dreams do they just indicate how well youre functioning, like a gas gauge in a car, or do they actually help you function? No one knows for sure, but the most likely answer is a little of both. In the late fifties, around the time the doctors were phasing out the barbiturates the last really popular one was a fun drug called Thalidomide a few scientists even tried to suggest that the good sleep weve been beating our gums about and dreams arent related. And? The tests dont support the hypothesis. People who stop dreaming or suffer from constant dream interruptions have all sorts of problems, including loss of cognitive ability and emotional stability. They also start to suffer perceptual problems like hyperreality. Beyond Wyzer, at the far end of the counter, sat a fellow reading a copy of the Derry News. Only his hands and the top of his head were visible. He was wearing a rather ostentatious pinkyring on his left hand. The headline at the top of the front page read ABORTION RIGHTS ADVOCATE AGREES TO SPEAK IN DERRY NEXT MONTH. Below it, in slightly smaller type, was a subhead ProLife Groups Promise Organized Protests. In the center of the page was a color picture of Susan Day, one that did her much more justice than the flat photographs on the poster he had seen in the window of Secondhand Rose, Secondhand Clothes. In those she had looked ordinary, perhaps even a bit sinister; in this one she was radiant. Her long, honeyblonde hair had been pulled back from her face. Her eyes were dark, intelligent, arresting. Hamilton Davenports pessimism had been misplaced, it seemed. Susan Day was coming after all. Then Ralph saw something which made him forget all about Ham Davenport and Susan Day. A grayblue aura had begun to gather around the hands of the man reading the newspaper, and around the justvisible crown of his head. It seemed particularly bright around the onyx pinkyring he wore. It did not obscure but seemed to clarify, turning the ringstone into something that looked like an asteroid in a really realistic sciencefiction movie What did you say, Ralph? Hmm? Ralph drew his gaze away from the newspaper readers pinkyring with an effort. I dont know . . . was I talking? I guess I asked you what hyperreality is. Heightened sensory awareness, Wyzer said. Like taking an LSD trip without having to ingest any chemicals. Oh, Ralph said, watching as the bright grayblue aura began to form complicated, runic patterns on the nail of the finger Wyzer was using to mash up crumbs. At first they looked like letters written in frost . . . then sentences written in fog . . . then odd, gasping faces. He blinked and they were gone. Ralph? You still there? Sure, you bet. But listen, Joe if the folk remedies dont work and the stuff in Aisle 3 doesnt work and the prescription drugs could actually make things worse instead of better, what does that leave? Nothing, right? You going to eat the rest of that? Wyzer said, pointing at Ralphs plate. Chilly grayblue light drifted off the tip of his finger like Arabic letters written in dry ice vapor. Nope. Im full. Be my guest. Wyzer pulled Ralphs plate to him. Dont give up so fast, he said. I want you to come back to the pharm with me so I can give you a couple of business cards. My advice, as your friendly neighborhood drugpusher, is that you give these guys a try. What guys? Ralph watched, fascinated, as Wyzer opened his mouth to receive the last bite of pie. Each of his teeth was lit with a fierce gray glow. The fillings in his molars glowed like tiny suns. The fragments of crust and apple filling on his tongue crawled with (lucid Ralph lucid) light. Then Wyzer closed his mouth to chew, and the glow was gone. James Roy Hong and Anthony Forbes. Hong is an acupuncturist with offices on Kansas Street. Forbes is a hypnotist with a place over on the east side Hesser Street, I think. And before you yell quack Im not going to yell quack, Ralph said quietly. His hand rose to touch the Magic Eye, which he was still wearing under his shirt. Believe me, Im not. Okay, good. My advice is that you try Hong first. The needles look scary, but they only hurt a little, and hes got something going there. I dont know what the hell it is or how it works, but I do know that when I went through a bad patch two winters ago, he helped me a lot. Forbes is also good so Ive heard but Hongs my pick. Hes busy as hell, but I might be able to help you there. What do you say? Ralph saw a bright gray glow, no thicker than a thread, slip from the corner of Wyzers eye and slide down his cheek like a supernatural tear. It decided him. I say lets go. Wyzer clapped him on the shoulder. Good man! Lets pay up and get out of here. He produced a quarter. Flip you for the check? 2 Halfway back to the pharmacy, Wyzer stopped to look at a poster which had been put up in the window of an empty storefront between the Rite Aid and the diner. Ralph only glanced at it. He had seen it before, in the window of Secondhand Rose, Secondhand Clothes. Wanted for murder, Wyzer marvelled. People have lost all goddam sense of perspective, do you know it? Yes, Ralph said. If we had tails, I think most of us would spend all day chasing them and trying to bite them off. The posters bad enough, Wyzer said indignantly,but look at this! He was pointing at something beside the poster, something which had been written in the dirt which coated the outside of the empty display window. Ralph leaned close to read the short message. KILL THIS CUNT, it said. Below the words was an arrow pointing at the lefthand photo of Susan Day. Jesus, Ralph said quietly. Yeah, Wyzer agreed. He pulled a handkerchief from his back pocket and wiped away the message, leaving in place of the words a bright silvery fanshape which Ralph knew only he could see. 3 He followed Wyzer to the rear of the pharmacy and stood in the doorway of an office not much bigger than a publictoilet cubicle while Wyzer sat on the only piece of furniture a high stool that would have looked at home in Ebenezer Scrooges countinghouse and phoned the office of James Roy Hong, acupuncturist. Wyzer pushed the phones speaker button so Ralph could follow the conversation. Hongs receptionist (someone named Audra who seemed to know Wyzer on a basis a good deal warmer than a merely professional one) at first said Dr Hong could not possibly see a new patient until after Thanksgiving. Ralphs shoulders slumped. Wyzer raised an open palm in his direction Wait a minute, Ralph and then proceeded to talk Audra into finding (or perhaps creating) an opening for Ralph in early October. That was almost a month away, but a lot better than Thanksgiving. Thanks, Audra, Wyzer said. We still on for dinner Friday night? Yes, she said. Now turn off the damned speaker, Joe I have something thats for your ears only. Wyzer did it, listened, laughed until tears to Ralph they looked like gorgeous liquid pearls stood in his eyes. Then he smooched twice into the phone and hung up. Youre all set, he said, handing Ralph a small white card with the time and date of the appointment written on the back. October fourth, not great, but really the best she could do. Audras good people. Its fine. Heres Anthony Forbess card, in case you want to call him in the interim. Thanks, Ralph said, taking the second card. I owe you. The only thing you owe me is a return visit so I can find out how it went. Im concerned. There are doctors who wont prescribe anything for insomnia, you know. They like to say that no one ever died from lack of sleep, but Im here to tell you thats crap. Ralph supposed this news should have frightened him, but he felt pretty steady, at least for the time being. The auras had gone away the bright gray gleams in Wyzers eyes as hed laughed at whatever Hongs receptionist had said had been the last. He was starting to think they had just been a mental fugue brought on by a combination of extreme tiredness and Wyzers mention of hyperreality. There was another reason for feeling good he now had an appointment with a man who had helped this man through a similar bad patch. Ralph thought hed let Hong stick needles into him until he looked like a porcupine, if the treatment allowed him to sleep until the sun came up. And there was a third thing the gray auras hadnt actually been scary. They had been sort of . . . interesting. People die from lack of sleep all the time, Wyzer was saying, although the medical examiner usually ends up writing suicide on the causeofdeath line, rather than insomnia. Insomnia and alcoholism have a lot in common, but the major thing is this theyre both diseases of the heart and mind, and when theyre allowed to run their course they usually gut the spirit long before theyre able to destroy the body. So yeah people do die from lack of sleep. This is a dangerous time for you, and you have to take care of yourself. If you start to feel really wonky, call Litchfield. Do you hear me? Dont stand on ceremony. Ralph grimaced. I think Id be more apt to call you. Wyzer nodded as if he had absolutely expected this. The number under Hongs is mine, he said. Surprised, Ralph looked down at the card again. There was a second number there, marked J.W. Day or night, Wyzer said. Really. You wont disturb my wife; weve been divorced since 1983. Ralph tried to speak and found he couldnt. All that came out was a choked, meaningless little sound. He swallowed hard, trying to clear the obstruction in his throat. Wyzer saw he was struggling and clapped him on the back. No bawling in the store, Ralph it scares away the big spenders. You want a Kleenex? No, Im okay. His voice was slightly watery, but audible and mostly under control. Wyzer cast a critical eye on him. Not yet, but you will be. Wyzers big hand swallowed Ralphs once more, and this time Ralph didnt worry about it. For the time being, try to relax. And remember to be grateful for the sleep you do get. Okay. Thanks again. Wyzer nodded and walked back to the prescription counter. 4 Ralph walked back down Aisle 3, turned left at the formidable condom display, and went out through a door with THANK YOU FOR SHOPPING AT RITE AID declared above the pushbar. At first he thought there was nothing unusual about the fierce brightness that made him squint his eyes almost shut it was midday, after all, and perhaps the drugstore had been a little darker than he had realized. Then he opened his eyes wide again, and his breath came to a dead stop in his throat. A look of thunderstruck amazement spread over his face. It was the expression an explorer might wear when, after pushing his way through just one more nondescript tangle of bushes, he finds himself looking at some fabulous lost city or brainbusting geological feature a cliff of diamonds, perhaps, or a spiral waterfall. Ralph shrank back against the blue mailbox standing to one side of the drugstores entrance, still not breathing, his eyes shuttling jerkily from left to right as the brain behind them tried to understand the wonderful and terrible news it was receiving. The auras were back, but that was a little like saying Hawaii was a place where you didnt have to wear your overcoat. This time the light was everywhere, fierce and flowing, strange and beautiful. Ralph had had only one experience in his entire life which was remotely similar to this. During the summer of 1941, the year hed turned eighteen, hed been riding his thumb from Derry to his uncles place in Poughkeepsie, New York, a distance of about four hundred miles. An early evening thunderstorm at the end of his second day on the road had sent him scurrying for the nearest available shelter a decrepit barn swaying drunkenly at the end of a long hayfield. He had spent more of that day walking than riding, and had fallen soundly asleep in one of the barns longabandoned horse stalls even before the thunder had stopped blasting the sky overhead. Hed awakened at midmorning the next day after a solid fourteen hours of sleep and had looked around in utter wonder, not even sure, in those first few moments, where he was. He only knew it was some dark, sweetsmelling place, and that the world above and on all sides of him had been split open with brilliant seams of light. Then he had remembered taking shelter in the barn, and it came to him that this strange vision had been caused by the cracks in the barns walls and roof combined with the bright summer sunlight . . . only that, and nothing more. Yet hed sat there in mute wonder for at least five minutes just the same, a wideeyed teenage boy with hay in his hair and his arms dusted with chaff; he sat there looking up at the tidal gold of dustmotes spinning lazily in the slanting, crosshatching rays of the sun. He remembered thinking it had been like being in church. This was that experience to the tenth power. And the hell of it was simply this he could not describe exactly what had happened, and how the world had changed, to make it so wonderful. Things and people, particularly the people, had auras, yes, but that was only where this amazing phenomenon began. Things had never been so brilliant, so utterly and completely there. The cars, the telephone poles, the shopping carts in the Kart Korral in front of the supermarket, the frame apartment buildings across the street all these things seemed to pop out at him like 3D images in an old film. All at once this dingy little stripmall on Witcham Street had become wonderland, and although Ralph was looking right at it, he was not sure what he was looking at, only that it was rich and gorgeous and fabulously strange. The only things he could isolate were the auras surrounding the people going in and out of stores, stowing packages in their trunks, or getting in their cars and driving away. Some of these auras were brighter than others, but even the dimmest were a hundred times brighter than his first glimpses of the phenomenon. But its what Wyzer was talking about, no doubt of that. Its hyperreality, and what youre looking at is no more there than the hallucinations of people who are under the influence of LSD. What youre seeing is just another symptom of your insomnia, no more and no less. Look at it, Ralph, and marvel over it as much as you want it is marvellous just dont believe it. He didnt need to tell himself to marvel, however there were marvels everywhere. A bakery truck was backing out of a slot in front of Day Break, Sun Down, and a bright maroon substance it was almost the color of dried blood came from its tailpipe. It was neither smoke nor vapor but had some of the characteristics of each. This brightness rose in gradually attenuating spikes, like the lines of an EEG readout. Ralph looked down at the pavement and saw the tread of the vans tires printed on the concrete in that same maroon shade. The van speeded up as it left the parking lot, and the ghostly graphtrail emerging with its exhaust turned the bright red of arterial blood as it did. There were similar oddities everywhere, phenomena which intersected in slanting paths and made Ralph think again of how the light had come slanting through the cracks in the roof and walls of that longago barn. But the real wonder was the people, and it was around them that the auras seemed most clearly defined and real. A bagboy came out of the supermarket, pushing a cartload of groceries and walking in a nimbus of such brilliant white that it was like a travelling spotlight. The aura of the woman beside him was dingy by comparison, the graygreen of cheese which has begun to mould. A young girl called to the bagboy from the open window of a Subaru and waved; her left hand left bright contrails, as pink as cotton candy, in the air as it moved. They began to fade almost as soon as they appeared. The bagboy grinned and waved back; his hand left a fantail of yellowishwhite behind. To Ralph it looked like the fin of a tropical fish. This also began to fade, but more slowly. Ralphs fear at this confused, shining vision was considerable, but for the time being, at least, fear had taken a back seat to wonder, awe, and simple amazement. It was more beautiful than anything he had ever seen in his life. But its not real, he cautioned himself. Remember that, Ralph. He promised himself he would try, but for the time being that cautioning voice seemed very far away. Now he noticed something else there was a line of that lucid brightness emerging from the head of every person he could see. It trailed upward like a ribbon of bunting or brightly colored crepe paper until it attenuated and disappeared. For some people the point of disappearance was five feet above the head; for others it was ten or fifteen. In most cases the color of the bright, ascending line matched the rest of the aura bright white for the bagboy, graygreen in the case of the female customer beside him, for instance but there were some striking exceptions. Ralph saw a rustred line rising from a middleaged man who was striding along in the middle of a darkblue aura, and a woman with a lightgray aura whose ascending line was an amazing (and slightly alarming) shade of magenta. In some cases two or three, not a lot the rising lines were almost black. Ralph didnt like those, and he noticed that the people to whom these balloonstrings (they were named just that simply and quickly in his mind) belonged invariably looked unwell. Of course they do. The balloonstrings are an indicator of health . . . and illhealth, in some cases. Like the Kirlian auras people were so fascinated with back in the late sixties and early seventies. |
Ralph, another voice warned, you are not really seeing these things, okay? I mean, I hate to be a bore, but But wasnt it at least possible that the phenomenon was real? That his persistent insomnia, coupled with the stabilizing influence of his lucid, coherent dreams, had afforded him a glimpse of a fabulous dimension just beyond the reach of ordinary perception? Quit it, Ralph, and right now. You have to do better than that, or youll end up in the same boat as poor old Ed Deepneau. Thinking of Ed kicked off some association something hed said on the day hed been arrested for beating his wife but before Ralph could isolate it, a voice spoke almost at his left elbow. Mom? Mommy? Can we get the Honey Nut Cheerios again? Well see once we get inside, hon. A young woman and a little boy passed in front of him, walking handinhand. It was the boy, who looked to be four or five, who had spoken. His mother was walking in an envelope of almost blinding white. The balloonstring rising out of her blonde hair was also white and very wide more like the ribbon on a fancy gift box than a string. It rose to a height of at least twenty feet and floated out slightly behind her as she walked. It made Ralph think of things bridal trains, veils, gauzy billows of skirt. Her sons aura was a healthy dark blue verging on violet, and as the two of them walked past, Ralph saw a fascinating thing. Tendrils of aura were also rising from their clasped hands white from the woman, dark blue from the boy. They twined in a pigtail as they rose, faded, and disappeared. Motherandson, motherandson, Ralph thought. There was something perfectly, simply symbolic about those bands, which were wrapped around each other like woodbine climbing a garden stake. Looking at them made his heart rejoice corny, but it was exactly how he felt. Motherandson, whiteandblue, motherand Mom, whats that man looking at? The blonde womans glance at Ralph was brief, but he saw the way her lips thinned down and pressed together before she turned away. More importantly, he saw the brilliant aura which surrounded her suddenly darken, close in, and pick up spiraling tints of dark red. Thats the color of fright, Ralph thought. Or maybe anger. I dont know, Tim. Come on, stop dawdling. She began to move him along faster, her ponytailed hair flipping back and forth and leaving small fans of gray tinged with red in the air. To Ralph they looked like the arcs that wipers sometimes left on dirty windshields. Hey, Mom, get a life! Quit pulling! The little boy had to trot in order to keep up. Thats my fault, Ralph thought, and an image of how he must have looked to the young mother flashed into his mind old guy, tired face, big purplish pouches under his eyes. Hes standing hunching by the mailbox outside the Rite Aid Pharmacy, staring at her and her little boy as if they were the most remarkable things in the world. Which you just about are, maam, if you but knew it. To her he must have looked like the biggest pervo of all time. He had to get rid of this. Real or hallucination, it didnt matter he had to make it quit. If he didnt somebody was going to call either the cops or the men with the butterfly nets. For all he knew, the pretty mother could be making the bank of payphones just inside the markets main doors her first stop. He was just asking himself how one thought away something which was all in ones mind to begin with when he realized it had already happened. Psychic phenomenon or sensory hallucination, it had simply disappeared while hed been thinking about how awful he must have looked to the pretty young mother. The day had gone back to its previous Indian summery brilliance, which was wonderful but still a long way from that pellucid, allpervading glow. The people crisscrossing the parking lot of the stripmall were just people again no auras, no balloonstrings, no fireworks. Just people on their way to buy groceries in the Shop n Save, or to pick up their last batch of summer pictures at PhotoMat, or to grab a takeout coffee from Day Break, Sun Down. Some of them might even be ducking into the Rite Aid for a box of Trojans or, God bless us and keep us, a SLEEPING AID. Just your ordinary, everyday citizens of Derry going about their ordinary, everyday business. Ralph released pentup breath in a gusty sigh and braced himself for a wave of relief. Relief did come, but not in the tidal wave he had expected. There was no sense of having drawn back from the brink of madness in the nick of time; no sense of having been close to any sort of brink. Yet he understood perfectly well that he couldnt live for long in a world that bright and wonderful without endangering his sanity; it would be like having an orgasm which lasted for hours. That might be how geniuses and great artists experienced things, but it was not for him; so much juice would blow his fuses in short order, and when the men with the butterfly nets rolled up to give him a shot and take him away, he would probably be happy to go. The most readily identifiable emotion he was feeling just now wasnt relief but a species of pleasant melancholy which he remembered sometimes experiencing after sex when he was a very young man. This melancholy was not deep but it was wide, seeming to fill the empty places of his body and mind the way a receding flood leaves a scrim of loose, rich topsoil. He wondered if he would ever have such an alarming, exhilarating moment of epiphany again. He thought the chances were fairly good . . . at least until next month, when James Roy Hong got his needles into him, or perhaps until Anthony Forbes started swinging his gold pocket watch in front of his eyes and telling him he was getting . . . very . . . sleepy. It was possible that neither Hong nor Forbes would have any success in curing his insomnia, but if one of them did, Ralph guessed he would stop seeing auras and balloonstrings after his first good nights sleep. And, after a month or so of restful nights, he would probably forget this had ever happened. As far as he was concerned, that was a perfectly good reason to feel a touch of melancholy. You better get moving, buddy if your new friend happens to look out the drugstore window and sees you still standing here like a dope, hell probably send for the men with the nets himself. Call Dr Litchfield, more like it, Ralph muttered, and cut across the parking lot toward Harris Avenue. 5 He poked his head through Loiss front door and called, Yo! Anybody home? Come on in, Ralph! Lois called back. Were in the living room! Ralph had always imagined a hobbithole would be a lot like Lois Chasses little house half a block or so down the hill from the Red Apple neat and crowded, a little too dark, perhaps, but scrupulously clean. And he guessed a hobbit like Bilbo Baggins, whose interest in his ancestors was eclipsed only by his interest in what might be for dinner, would have been enchanted by the tiny living room, where relatives looked down from every wall. The place of honor, on top of the television, was held by a tinted studio photograph of the man Lois always referred to as Mr Chasse. McGovern was sitting hunched forward on the couch with a plate of macaroni and cheese balanced on his bony knees. The television was on and a gameshow was clattering through the bonus round. What does she mean, were in the living room? Ralph asked, but before McGovern could answer, Lois came in with a steaming plate in her hands. Here, she said. Sit down, eat. I talked with Simone, and she said itll probably be on News at Noon. Gee, Lois, you didnt have to do this, he said, taking the plate, but his stomach demurred strongly when he got his first smell of onions and mellow cheddar. He glanced at the clock on the wall just visible between photos of a man in a raccoon coat and a woman who looked as if vododeeohdo might have been in her vocabulary and was astounded to see it was five minutes of twelve. I didnt do anything but stick some leftovers into the microwave, she said. Someday, Ralph, Ill cook for you. Now sit down. Not on my hat, though, McGovern said, without taking his eyes from the bonus round. He picked the fedora up off the couch, dropped it on the floor beside him, and went back to his own portion of the casserole, which was disappearing rapidly. This is very tasty, Lois. Thank you. She paused long enough to watch one of the contestants bag a trip to Barbados and a new car, then hurried back into the kitchen. The screaming winner faded out and was replaced by a man in wrinkled pajamas, tossing and turning in bed. He sat up and looked at the clock on the nightstand. It said 318 a.m., a time of day with which Ralph had become very familiar. Cant sleep? an announcer asked sympathetically. Tired of lying awake night after night? A small glowing pill came gliding in through the insomniacs bedroom window. To Ralph it looked like the worlds smallest flying saucer, and he wasnt surprised to see that it was blue. Ralph sat down beside McGovern. Although both men were quite slim (scrawny might actually have described Bill better), between them they used up most of the couch. Lois came in with her own plate and sat down in the rocker by the window. Over the canned music and studio applause that marked the end of the gameshow, a womans voice said, This is Lisette Benson. Topping our News at Noon, a wellknown womens rights advocate agrees to speak in Derry, sparking a protest and six arrests at a local clinic. Well also have Chris Altobergs weather and Bob McClanahan on sports. Stay tuned. Ralph forked a bite of macaroni and cheese into his mouth, looked up, and saw Lois watching him. All right? she asked. Delicious, he said, and it was, but he thought that right now a big helping of FrancoAmerican spaghetti served cold right out of the can would have tasted just as good. He wasnt just hungry; he was ravenous. Seeing auras apparently burned a lot of calories. What happened, very briefly, was this, McGovern said, swallowing the last of his own lunch and putting the plate down next to his hat. About eighteen people showed up outside WomanCare at eightthirty this morning, while people were arriving for work. Loiss friend Simone says theyre calling themselves The Friends of Life, but the core group are the assorted fruits and nuts that used to go by the name of Daily Bread. She said one of them was Charles Pickering, the guy the cops caught apparently getting ready to firebomb the joint late last year. Simones niece said the police only arrested four people. It looks like she was a little low. Was Ed really with them? Ralph asked. Yes, Lois said, and he got arrested, too. At least no one got Maced. That was just a rumor. No one got hurt at all. This time, McGovern added darkly. The News at Noon logo appeared on Loiss hobbitsized color TV, then dissolved into Lisette Benson. Good afternoon, she said. Topping our news on this beautiful latesummer day, prominent writer and controversial womens rights advocate Susan Day agrees to speak at the Civic Center next month, and the announcement of her speech sparks a demonstration at WomanCare, the Derry womens resource center and abortion clinic which has so polarized There they go with that abortion clinic stuff again! McGovern exclaimed. Jesus! Hush! Lois said in a peremptory tone not much like her usual tentative murmur. McGovern gave her a surprised look and hushed. John Kirkland at WomanCare, with the first of two reports, Lisette Benson was finishing, and the picture switched to a reporter doing a standup outside a long, low brick building. A super at the bottom of the screen informed viewers that this was a LIVEEYE REPORT. A strip of windows ran along one side of WomanCare. Two of them were broken, and several others were smeared with red stuff that looked like blood. Yellow policeline tape had been strung between the reporter and the building; three uniformed Derry cops and one plainclothesman stood in a little group on the far side of it. Ralph was not very surprised to recognize the detective as John Leydecker. They call themselves The Friends of Life, Lisette, and they claim their demonstration this morning was a spontaneous outpouring of indignation prompted by the news that Susan Day the woman radical prolife groups nationwide call Americas Number One BabyKiller is coming to Derry next month to speak at the Civic Center. At least one Derry police officer believes thats not quite the way it was, however. Kirklands report went to tape, beginning with a closeup of Leydecker, who seemed resigned to the microphone in his face. There was no spontaneity about this, he said. Clearly a lot of preparation went into it. Theyve probably been sitting on advance word of Susan Days decision to come here and speak for most of the week, just getting ready and waiting for the news to break in the paper, which it did this morning. The camera went to a twoshot. Kirkland was giving Leydecker his most penetrating Geraldo look. What do you mean a lot of preparation? he asked. Most of the signs they were carrying had Ms Days name on them. Also, there were over a dozen of these. A surprisingly human emotion slipped through Leydeckers policemanbeinginterviewed mask; Ralph thought it was distaste. He raised a large plastic evidence bag, and for one horrified instant Ralph was positive that there was a mangled and bloody baby inside. Then he realized that, whatever the red stuff might be, the body in the evidence bag was a dolls body. They didnt buy these at Kmart, Leydecker told the TV reporter. I guarantee you that. The next shot was a longlens closeup of the smeared and broken windows. The camera panned them slowly. The stuff on the smeared ones looked more like blood than ever, and Ralph decided he didnt want the last two or three bites of his macaroni and cheese. The demonstrators came with babydolls whose soft bodies had been injected with what police believe to be a mixture of Karo syrup and red foodcoloring, Kirkland said in voiceover. They flung the dolls at the side of the building as they chanted antiSusan Day slogans. Two windows were broken, but there was no major damage. The camera stopped, centering on a gruesomely smeared pane of glass. Most of the dolls split open, Kirkland was saying, splattering a substance that looked enough like blood to badly frighten the employees who witnessed the bombardment. The shot of the redsmeared window was replaced by one of a lovely darkhaired woman in slacks and a pullover. Oooh, look, its Barbie! Lois cried. Golly, I hope Simones watching! Maybe I ought to It was McGoverns turn to say hush. I was terrified, Barbara Richards told Kirkland. At first I thought they were really throwing dead babies, or maybe fetuses theyd gotten hold of somehow. Even after Dr Warper ran through, yelling they were only dolls, I still wasnt sure. You said they were chanting? Kirkland asked. Yes. What I heard most clearly was Keep the Angel of Death out of Derry. The report now reverted to Kirkland in his live standup mode. The demonstrators were ferried from WomanCare to Derry Police Headquarters on Main Street around nine oclock this morning, Lisette. I understand that twelve were questioned and released; six others were arrested on charges of malicious mischief, a misdemeanor. So it seems that another shot in Derrys continuing war over abortion has been fired. This is John Kirkland, Channel Four news. Another shot in McGovern began, and threw up his hands. Lisette Benson was back on the screen. We now go to Anne Rivers, who talked less than an hour ago to two of the socalled Friends of Life who were arrested in this mornings demonstration. Anne Rivers was standing on the steps of the Main Street copshop with Ed Deepneau on one side and a tall, sallow, goateed individual on the other. Ed was looking natty and downright handsome in a gray tweed jacket and navy slacks. The tall man with the goatee was dressed as only a liberal with daydreams of what he might think of as the Maine proletariat could dress faded jeans, faded blue workshirt, wide red firemans suspenders. It took Ralph only a second to place him. It was Dan Dalton, owner of Secondhand Rose, Secondhand Clothes. The last time Ralph had seen him, he had been standing behind the hanging guitars and birdcages in his shop window, flapping his hands at Ham Davenport in a gesture that said Who gives a shit what you think? But it was Ed his eyes were drawn back to, of course, Ed who looked natty and put together in more ways than one. McGovern apparently felt the same. My God, I cant believe its the same man, he murmured. Lisette, the goodlooking blonde was saying, with me I have Edward Deepneau and Daniel Dalton, both of Derry, two of those arrested in this mornings demonstration. Thats correct, gentlemen? You were arrested? They nodded, Ed with the barest twinkle of humor, Dalton with dour, jutjawed determination. The gaze the latter fixed on Anne Rivers made him look to Ralph, at least as if he were trying to remember which abortion clinic he had seen her hurrying into, head down and shoulders hunched. Have you been released on bail? We were released on our own recognizance, Ed answered. The charges were minor. It was not our intention to hurt anyone, and no one was hurt. We were arrested only because the Godless entrenched powerstructure in this town wants to make an example of us, Dalton said, and Ralph thought he saw a minute wince momentarily tighten Eds face. A therehegoesagain expression. Anne Rivers swung the mike back to Ed. The major issue here isnt philosophical but practical, he said. Although the people who run WomanCare like to concentrate on their counselling services, therapy services, free mammograms and other such admirable functions, theres another side to the place. Rivers of blood run out of WomanCare Innocent blood! Dalton cried. His eyes glowed in his long, lean face, and Ralph had a disturbing insight all over eastern Maine, people were watching this and deciding that the man in the red suspenders was crazy, while his partner seemed like a pretty reasonable fellow. It was almost funny. Ed treated Daltons interjection as the prolife equivalent of Hallelujah, giving it a single respectful beat before speaking again. The slaughter at WomanCare has been going on for nearly eight years now, Ed told her. Many people especially radical feminists like Dr Roberta Warper, WomanCares chief administrator like to gild the lily with phrases like early termination, but what shes talking about is abortion, the ultimate act of abuse against women by a sexist society. But is lobbing dolls loaded with fake blood against the windows of a private clinic the way to put your views before the public, Mr Deepneau? For a moment just a moment, there and gone the twinkle of good humor in Eds eyes was replaced by a flash of something much harder and colder. For that one moment Ralph was again looking at the Ed Deepneau who had been ready to take on a truckdriver who outweighed him by a hundred pounds. Ralph forgot that what he was watching had been taped an hour ago and was afraid for the slim blonde, who was almost as pretty as the woman to whom her interview subject was still married. Be careful, young lady, Ralph thought. Be careful and be afraid. Youre standing next to a very dangerous man. Then the flash was gone and the man in the tweed coat was once more just an earnest young fellow who had followed his conscience to jail. Once more it was Dalton, now nervously snapping his suspenders like big red rubber bands, who looked a few sandwiches shy of a picnic. What were doing is what the socalled good Germans failed to do in the thirties, Ed was saying. He spoke in the patient, lecturely tones of a man who has been forced to point this out over and over . . . mostly to those who should already know it. They were silent and six million Jews died. In this country a similar holocaust Over a thousand babies every day, Dalton said. His former shrillness had departed. He sounded horrified and desperately tired. Many of them are ripped from the wombs of their mothers in pieces, with their little arms waving in protest even as they die. Oh good God, McGovern said. Thats the most ridiculous thing I have ever Hush, Bill! Lois said. purpose of this protest? Rivers was asking Dalton. As you probably know, Dalton said,the City Council has agreed to reexamine the zoning regulations that allow WomanCare to operate where it does and how it does. They could vote on the issue as early as November. The abortion rights people are afraid the Council might throw sand in the gears of their deathmachine, so theyve summoned Susan Day, this countrys most notorious proabortion advocate, to try and keep the machine running. We are marshalling our forces The pendulum of the microphone swung back to Ed. Will there be more protests, Mr Deepneau? she asked, and Ralph suddenly had an idea she might be interested in him in a way which was not strictly professional. Hey, why not? Ed was a goodlooking guy, and Ms Rivers could hardly know that he believed the Crimson King and his Centurions were in Derry, joining forces with the babykillers at WomanCare. Until the legal aberration which opened the door to this slaughter has been corrected, the protests will continue, Ed replied. And well go on hoping that the histories of the next century will record that not all Americans were good Nazis during this dark period of our history. Violent protests? Its violence we oppose. The two of them were now maintaining strong eye contact, and Ralph thought Anne Rivers had what Carolyn would have called a case of hot thighs. Dan Dalton was standing off to one side of the screen, all but forgotten. And when Susan Day comes to Derry next month, can you guarantee her safety? Ed smiled, and in his minds eye Ralph saw him as he had been on that hot August afternoon less than a month ago kneeling with one hand planted on either side of Ralphs shoulders and breathing They burn the fetuses over in Newport into his face. Ralph shivered. In a country where thousands of children are sucked from the wombs of their mothers by the medical equivalent of industrial vacuum cleaners, I dont believe anyone can guarantee anything, Ed replied. Anne Rivers looked at him uncertainly for a moment, as if deciding whether or not she wanted to ask another question (maybe for his telephone number), and then turned back to face the camera. This is Anne Rivers, at Derry Police Headquarters, she said. Lisette Benson reappeared, and something in the bemused cast of her mouth made Ralph think that perhaps he hadnt been the only one to sense the attraction between interviewer and interviewee. Well be following this story all day,she said. Be sure to tune in at six for further updates. In Augusta, Governor Greta Powers responded to charges that she may have Lois got up and pushed the Off button on the TV. She simply stared at the darkening screen for a moment, then sighed heavily and sat down. I have blueberry compote, she said, but after that, do either of you want any? Both men shook their heads. McGovern looked at Ralph and said, That was scary. Ralph nodded. He kept thinking of how Ed had gone striding back and forth through the spray thrown by the lawnsprinkler, breaking the rainbows with his body, pounding his fist into his open palm. How could they let him out on bail and then interview him on the news as if he was a normal human being? Lois asked indignantly. After what he did to poor Helen? My God, that Anne Rivers looked ready to invite him home to dinner! Or to eat crackers in bed with her, Ralph said dryly. The assault charge and this stuff today are entirely different matters, McGovern said, and you can bet your boots the lawyer or lawyers these yoyos have got on retainer will be sure to keep it that way. And even the assault charge was only a misdemeanor, Ralph reminded her. How can assault be a misdemeanor? Lois asked. Im sorry, but I never did understand that part. Its a misdemeanor when you only do it to your wife, McGovern said, hoisting his satiric eyebrow. Its the American way, Lo. She twisted her hands together restlessly, took Mr Chasse down from the television, looked at him for a moment, then put him back and resumed twisting her hands. Well, the laws one thing, she said, and Id be the first to admit that I dont understand it all. But somebody ought to tell them hes crazy. That hes a wifebeater and hes crazy. You dont know how crazy, Ralph said, and for the first time he told them the story of what had happened the previous summer, out by the airport. It took about ten minutes. When he finished, neither of them said anything they only looked at him with wide eyes. What? Ralph asked uneasily. You dont believe me? You think I imagined it? Of course I believe it, Lois said. I was just . . . well . . . stunned. And frightened. Ralph, I think maybe you ought to pass that story on to John Leydecker, McGovern said. I dont think he can do a goddam thing with it, but considering Eds new playmates, I think its information he should have. Ralph thought it over carefully, then nodded and pushed himself to his feet. No time like the present, he said. Want to come, Lois? She thought it over, then shook her head. Im tired out, she said. And a little what do the kids call it these days? a little freaked. I think Ill put my feet up for a bit. Take a nap. You do that, Ralph said. You do look a little tuckered. And thanks for feeding us. Impulsively, he bent over her and kissed the corner of her mouth. Lois looked up at him with startled gratitude. 6 Ralph turned off his own television a little over six hours later, as Lisette Benson finished the evening news and handed off to the sports guy. The demonstration at WomanCare had been bumped to the number two slot the evenings big story was the continuing allegations that Governor Greta Powers had used cocaine as a grad student and there was nothing new, except that Dan Dalton was now being identified as the head of the Friends of Life. Ralph thought figurehead was probably a better word. Was Ed actually in charge yet? If he wasnt, Ralph guessed he would be before long Christmas at the latest. A potentially more interesting question was what Eds employers thought about Eds legal adventures up the road in Derry. Ralph had an idea they would be a lot less comfortable with what had gone on today than with last months domestic abuse charge; he had read only recently that Hawking Labs would soon become the fifth such research center in the Northeast to be working with fetal tissue. They probably wouldnt applaud the information that one of their research chemists had been arrested for chucking dolls filled with fake blood at the side of a clinic that did abortions. And if they knew how crazy he really was Whos going to tell them, Ralph? You? No. That was a step further than he was willing to go, at least for the time being. Unlike going down to the police station with McGovern to talk to John Leydecker about the incident last summer, it felt like persecution. Like writing KILL THIS CUNT beside a picture of a woman with whose views you didnt agree. Thats bullshit, and you know it. I dont know anything, he said, getting up and going to the window. Im too tired to know anything. But as he stood there, looking across the street at two men coming out of the Red Apple with a sixpack apiece, he suddenly did know something, remembered something that drew a cold line up his back. This morning, when he had come out of the Rite Aid and been overwhelmed by the auras and a sense of having stepped up to some new level of awareness he had reminded himself again and again to enjoy but not to believe; that if he failed to make that crucial distinction, he was apt to end up in the same boat as Ed Deepneau. That thought had almost opened the door on some associative memory, but the shifting auras in the parking lot had pulled him away from it before it had been able to kick all the way in. Now it came to him Ed had said something about seeing auras, hadnt he? No he might have meant auras, but the word he actually used was colors. Im almost positive of that. It was right after he talked about seeing the corpses of babies everyplace, even on the roofs. He said Ralph watched the two men get into a beatup old van and thought that he would never be able to remember Eds words exactly; he was just too tired. Then, as the van drove off trailing a cloud of exhaust that reminded him of the bright maroon stuff hed seen coming from the tailpipe of the bakery truck that noon, another door opened and the memory did come. He said that sometimes the world is full of colors, Ralph told his empty apartment, but that at some point they all started turning black. I think that was it. It was close, but was it everything? Ralph thought there had been at least a little more to Eds spiel, but he couldnt remember what. And did it matter, anyway? His nerves suggested strongly that it did the cold line up his back had both widened and deepened. Behind him, the telephone rang. Ralph turned and saw it sitting in a bath of baleful red light, dark red, the color of nosebleeds and (cocks fighting cocks) roostercombs. No, part of his mind moaned. Oh no, Ralph, dont get going on this again Each time the phone rang, the envelope of light got brighter. During the intervals of silence, it darkened. It was like looking at a ghostly heart with a telephone inside it. Ralph closed his eyes tightly, and when he opened them again, the red aura around the telephone was gone. No, you just cant see it right now. Im not sure, but I think you might have willed it away. Like something in a lucid dream. As he crossed the room to the telephone, he told himself and in no uncertain terms that that idea was as crazy as seeing the auras in the first place. Except it wasnt, and he knew it wasnt. Because if it was crazy, how come it had taken only one look at that roosterred halo of light to make him sure that it was Ed Deepneau calling? Thats crap, Ralph. You think its Ed because Eds on your mind . . . and because youre so tired your heads getting funny. Go on, pick it up, youll see. Its not the telltale heart, not even the telltale phone. Its probably some guy wanting to sell you subscriptions or the lady at the bloodbank, wondering why you havent been in lately. Except he knew better. Ralph picked up the phone and said hello. 7 No answer. But someone was there; Ralph could hear breathing. Hello? he asked again. There was still no immediate answer, and he was about to say Im hanging up now when Ed Deepneau said, I called about your mouth, Ralph. Its trying to get you in trouble. The line of cold between his shoulderblades was no longer a line; now it was a thin plate of ice covering him from the nape of his neck to the small of his back. Hello, Ed. I saw you on the news today. It was the only thing he could think of to say. His hand did not seem to be holding the phone so much as to be cramped around it. Never mind that, old boy. Just pay attention. Ive had a visit from that wide detective who arrested me last month Leydecker. He just left, in fact. Ralphs heart sank, but not as far as he might have feared. After all, Leydeckers going to see Ed wasnt that surprising, was it? He had been very interested in Ralphs story of the airport confrontation in the summer of 92. Very interested indeed. Did he? Ralph asked evenly. Detective Leydecker has the idea that I think people or possibly supernatural beings of some sort are trucking fetuses out of town in flatbeds and pickup trucks. What a scream, huh? Ralph stood beside the sofa, pulling the telephone cord restlessly through his fingers and realizing that he could see dull red light creeping out of the wire like sweat. The light pulsed with the rhythms of Eds speech. |
Youve been telling tales out of school, old boy. Ralph was silent. Calling the police after I gave that bitch the lesson she so richly deserved didnt bother me, Ed told him. I put it down to . . . well, grandfatherly concern. Or maybe you thought that if she was grateful enough, she might actually spare you a mercyfuck. After all, youre old but not exactly ready for Jurassic Park yet. You might have thought shed let you get a finger into her at the very least. Ralph said nothing. Right, old boy? Ralph said nothing. You think youre going to rattle me with the silent treatment? Forget it. But Ed did sound rattled, thrown off his stride. It was as if he had made the call with a certain script in his head and Ralph was refusing to read his lines. You cant . . . you better not . . . My calling the police after you beat Helen didnt upset you, but your conversation with Leydecker today obviously did. Whys that, Ed? Are you finally starting to have some questions about your behavior? And your thinking, maybe? It was Eds turn to be silent. At last he whispered harshly, If you dont take this seriously, Ralph, it would be the worst mistake Oh, I take it seriously, Ralph said. I saw what you did today, I saw what you did to your wife last month . . . and I saw what you did out by the airport a year ago. Now the police know. I listened to you, Ed, now you listen to me. Youre ill. Youve had some sort of mental breakdown, youre having delusions I dont have to listen to your crap! Ed nearly screamed. No, you dont. You can hang up. Its your dime, after all. But until you do, Im going to keep hammering away. Because I liked you, Ed, and I want to like you again. Youre a bright guy, delusions or no delusions, and I think you can understand me Leydecker knows, and Leydecker is going to be watching y Are you seeing the colors yet? Ed asked. His voice had become calm again. At the same instant, the red glow around the telephone wire popped out of existence. What colors? Ralph asked at last. Ed ignored the question. You said you liked me. Well, I like you, too. Ive always liked you. So Im going to give you some very valuable advice. Youre drifting into deep water, and there are things swimming around in the undertow you cant even conceive of. You think Im crazy, but I want to tell you that you dont know what madness is. You dont have the slightest idea. You will, though, if you keep on meddling in things that dont concern you. Take my word for it. What things? Ralph asked. He tried to keep his voice light, but he was still squeezing the telephone receiver tight enough to make his fingers throb. Forces, Ed replied. There are forces at work in Derry that you dont want to know about. There are . . . well, lets just say there are entities. They havent really noticed you yet, but if you keep fooling with me, they will. And you dont want that. Believe me, you dont. Forces. Entities. You asked me how I found out about all this stuff. Who brought me into the picture. Do you remember that, Ralph? Yes. He did, too. Now. That had been the last thing Ed had said to him before turning on the big gameshow grin and going over to greet the cops. Ive seen the colors since he came and told me . . . well talk about it later. The doctor told me. The little bald doctor. I think its him youll have to answer to if you try to mind my business again. And then God help you. The little bald doctor, uhhuh, Ralph said. Yes, I see. First the Crimson King and the Centurions, now the little bald doctor. I suppose next itll be Spare me your sarcasm, Ralph. Just stay away from me and my interests, do you hear? Stay away. There was a click and Ed was gone. Ralph looked at the telephone in his hand for a long time, then slowly hung it up. Just stay away from me and my interests. Yes, and why not? He had plenty of his own fish to fry. Ralph walked slowly into the kitchen, stuck a TV dinner (filet of haddock, as a matter of fact) into the oven, and tried to put abortion protests, auras, Ed Deepneau, and the Crimson King out of his mind. It was easier than he would have expected. CHAPTER SIX 1 Summer slipped away as it does in Maine, almost unnoticed. Ralphs premature waking continued, and by the time the fall colors had begun to burn in the trees along Harris Avenue, he was opening his eyes around twofifteen each morning. That was lousy, but he had his appointment with James Roy Hong to look forward to and there had been no repeat of the weird fireworks show he had been treated to after his first meeting with Joe Wyzer. There were occasional flickers around the edges of things, but Ralph found that if he squeezed his eyes shut and counted to five, the flickers were gone when he opened them again. Well . . . usually gone. Susan Days speech was scheduled for Friday, the eighth of October, and as September drew toward its conclusion, the protests and the public abortionondemand debate sharpened and began to focus more and more on her appearance. Ralph saw Ed on the TV news many times, sometimes in the company of Dan Dalton but more and more frequently on his own, speaking swiftly, cogently, and often with that little gleam of humor not only in his eyes but in his voice. People liked him, and The Friends of Life was apparently attracting the large membership to which Daily Bread, its political progenitor, had only been able to aspire. There were no more dollthrowing parties or other violent demonstrations, but there were plenty of marches and countermarches, plenty of namecalling and fistshaking and angry letters to the editor. Preachers promised damnation; teachers urged moderation and education; half a dozen young women calling themselves The Gay Lesbo Babes for Jesus were arrested for parading in front of The First Baptist Church of Derry with signs which read GET THE FUCK OUT OF MY BODY. A nameless policeman was quoted in the Derry News as saying that he hoped Susan Day would come down with the flu or something and have to cancel her appearance. Ralph received no further communications from Ed, but on September twentyfirst he received a postcard from Helen with fourteen jubilant words scrawled across the back Hooray, a job! Derry Public Library! I start next month! See you soon Helen. Feeling more cheered than he had since the night Helen had called him from the hospital, Ralph went downstairs to show the card to McGovern, but the door of the downstairs apartment was shut and locked. Lois, then . . . except that Lois was also gone, probably off to one of her cardparties or maybe downtown shopping for yarn and plotting another afghan. Mildly chagrined and musing on how the people you most wanted to share good news with were hardly ever around when you were all but bursting with it, Ralph wandered down to Strawford Park. And it was there that he found Bill McGovern, sitting on a bench near the softball field and crying. 2 Crying was perhaps too strong a word; leaking might have been better. McGovern sat with a handkerchief sticking out of one gnarled fist, watching a mother and her young son play rolltoss along the firstbase line of the diamond where the last big softball event of the season the Intramural City Tournament had concluded just two days before. Every now and then he would raise the fist with the handkerchief in it to his face and swipe at his eyes. Ralph, who had never seen McGovern weep not even at Carolyns funeral loitered near the playground for a few moments, wondering if he should approach McGovern or just go back the way he had come. At last he gathered up his courage and walked over to the park bench. Lo, Bill, he said. McGovern looked up with eyes that were red, watery, and a trifle embarrassed. He wiped them again and tried a smile. Hi, Ralph. You caught me snivelling. Sorry. Its okay, Ralph said, sitting down. Ive done my share of it. Whats wrong? McGovern shrugged, then dabbed at his eyes again. Nothing much. Im suffering the effects of a paradox, thats all. What paradox is that? Something good is happening to one of my oldest friends the man who hired me for my first teaching position, in fact. Hes dying. Ralph raised his eyebrows but said nothing. Hes got pneumonia. His niece will probably haul him off to the hospital today or tomorrow, and theyll put him on a ventilator, at least for awhile, but hes almost certainly dying. Ill celebrate his death when it comes, and I suppose its that more than anything else thats depressing the shit out of me. McGovern paused. You dont understand a thing Im saying, do you? Nope, Ralph said. But thats all right. McGovern looked into his face, did a doubletake, then snorted. The sound was harsh and thick with his tears, but Ralph thought it was a real laugh just the same, and risked a small return smile. Did I say something funny? No, McGovern said, and clapped him lightly on the shoulder. I was just looking at your face, so earnest and sincere youre really an open book, Ralph and thinking how much I like you. Sometimes I wish I could be you. Not at three in the morning, you wouldnt, Ralph said quietly. McGovern sighed and nodded. The insomnia. Thats right. The insomnia. Im sorry I laughed, but No apology necessary, Bill. but please believe me when I say it was an admiring laugh. Whos your friend, and whys it a good thing that hes dying? Ralph asked. He already had a guess as to what lay at the root of McGoverns paradox; he was not quite as goodheartedly dense as Bill sometimes seemed to think. His names Bob Polhurst, and his pneumonia is good news because hes suffered from Alzheimers since the summer of 88. It was what Ralph had thought . . . although AIDS had crossed his mind, as well. He wondered if that would shock McGovern, and felt a small ripple of amusement at the idea. Then he looked at the man and felt ashamed of his amusement. He knew that when it came to gloom McGovern was at least a semipro, but he didnt believe that made his obvious grief over his old friend any less genuine. Bob was head of the History Department at Derry High from 1948, when he couldnt have been more than twentyfive, until 1981 or 82. He was a great teacher, one of those fiercely bright people you sometimes find out in the sticks, hiding their lights under bushels. They usually end up heading their departments and running half a dozen extracurricular activities on the side because they simply dont know how to say no. Bob sure didnt. The mother was now leading her little boy past them and toward the little snackbar that would be closing up for the season very soon now. The kids face had an extraordinary translucence, a beauty that was enhanced by the rosecolored aura Ralph saw revolving about his head and moving across his small, lively face in calm waves. Can we go home, Mommy? he asked. I want to use my PlayDoh now. I want to make the Clay Family. Lets get something to eat first, big boy kay? Mommys hungry. Okay. There was a hookshaped scar across the bridge of the boys nose, and here the rosy glow of his aura deepened to scarlet. Fell out of his crib when he was eight months old, Ralph thought. Reaching for the butterflies on the mobile his mom hung from the ceiling. It scared her to death when she ran in and saw all the blood; she thought the poor kid was dying. Patrick, thats his name. She calls him Pat. Hes named after his grandfather, and He closed his eyes tightly for a moment. His stomach was fluttering lightly just below his Adams apple and he was suddenly sure he was going to vomit. Ralph? McGovern asked. Are you all right? He opened his eyes. No aura, rosecolored or otherwise; just a mother and son heading over to the snackbar for a cold drink, and there was no way, absolutely no way that he could tell she didnt want to take Pat home because Pats father was drinking again after almost six months on the wagon, and when he drank he got mean Stop it, for Gods sake stop it. Im okay, he told McGovern. Got a speck in my eye is all. Go on. Finish telling me about your friend. Not much to tell. He was a genius, but over the years Ive become convinced that genius is a vastly overrated commodity. I think this country is full of geniuses, guys and gals so bright they make your average cardcarrying MENSA member look like Fucko the Clown. And I think that most of them are teachers, living and working in smalltown obscurity because thats the way they like it. It was certainly the way Bob Polhurst liked it. He saw into people in a way that seemed scary to me . . . at first, anyway. After awhile you found out you didnt have to be scared, because Bob was kind, but at first he inspired a sense of dread. You sometimes wondered if it was an ordinary pair of eyes he was using to look at you, or some kind of Xray machine. At the snackbar, the woman was bending down with a small paper cup of soda. The kid reached up for it with both hands, grinning, and took it. He drank thirstily. The rosy glow pulsed briefly into existence around him again as he did, and Ralph knew he had been right the kids name was Patrick, and his mother didnt want to take him home. There was no way he could know such things, but he did just the same. In those days, McGovern said, if you were from central Maine and not one hundred per cent heterosexual, you tried like hell to pass for it. That was the only choice there was, outside of moving to Greenwich Village and wearing a beret and spending Saturday nights in the kind of jazz clubs where they used to applaud by snapping their fingers. Back then, the idea of coming out of the closet was ridiculous. For most of us the closet was all there was. Unless you wanted a pack of liquoredup fraternity boys sitting on you in an alley and trying to pull your face off, the world was your closet. Pat finished his drink and tossed his paper cup on the ground. His mother told him to pick it up and put it in the litter basket, a task he performed with immense good cheer. Then she took his hand and they began to walk slowly out of the park. Ralph watched them go with a feeling of trepidation, hoping the womans fears and worries would turn out to be unjustified, fearing that they wouldnt be. When I applied for a job in the Derry High history department this was in 1951 I was fresh from two years teaching in the sticks, way to hell and gone in Lubec, and I figured if I could get along up there with no questions being asked, I could get along anywhere. But Bob took one look at me hell, inside me with those Xray eyes of his and just knew. And he wasnt shy, either. If I decide to offer you this job and you decide to take it, Mr McGovern, may I be assured that there will never be so much as an iota of trouble over the matter of your sexual preference? Sexual preference, Ralph! Man, oh man! Id never even dreamed of such a phrase before that day, but it came sliding out of his mouth slicker than a ballbearing coated with Crisco. I started to get up on my high horse, tell him I didnt have the slightest idea what he was talking about but I resented the hell out of it just the same on general principles, you might say and then I took another look at him and decided to save my energy. I might have fooled some people up in Lubec, but I wasnt fooling Bob Polhurst. He wasnt thirty himself yet, probably hadnt been south of Kittery more than a dozen times in his whole life, but he knew everything that mattered about me, and all it had taken him to find it out was one twentyminute interview. No, sir, not an iota, I said, just as meek as Marys little lamb. McGovern dabbed at his eyes with the handkerchief again, but Ralph had an idea that this time the gesture was mostly theatrical. In the twentythree years before I went off to teach at Derry Community College, Bob taught me everything I know about teaching history and playing chess. He was a brilliant player . . . he certainly would have given that windbag Faye Chapin some hard bark to chew on, I can tell you that. I only beat him once, and that was after the Alzheimers started to take hold. I never played him again after that. And there were other things. He never forgot a joke. He never forgot the birthdays or anniversaries of the people who were close to him he didnt send cards or give gifts, but he always offered congratulations and good wishes, and no one ever doubted his sincerity. He published over sixty articles on teaching history and on the Civil War, which was his specialty. In 1967 and 1968 he wrote a book called Later That Summer, about what happened in the months following Gettysburg. He let me read the manuscript ten years ago, and I think its the best book on the Civil War Ive ever read the only one that even comes close is a novel called The Killer Angels, by Michael Shaara. Bob wouldnt hear of publishing it, though. When I asked him why, he said that I of all people should understand his reasons. McGovern paused briefly, looking out across the park, which was filled with greengold light and black interlacings of shadow which moved and shifted with each breath of wind. He said he had a fear of exposure. Okay, Ralph said. I get it. Maybe this sums him up best of all he used to do the big Sunday New York Times crossword puzzle in ink. I poked him about that once accused him of hubris. He gave me a grin and said, Theres a big difference between pride and optimism, Bill Im an optimist, thats all. Anyway, you get the picture. A kind man, a good teacher, a brilliant mind. His specialty was the Civil War, and now he doesnt even know what a civil war is, let alone who won ours. Hell, he doesnt even know his own name, and at some point soon the sooner the better, actually hes going to die without any idea that he ever lived. A middleaged man in a University of Maine teeshirt and a pair of ragged blue jeans came shuffling through the playground, carrying a crumpled paper shopping bag under one arm. He stopped beside the snackbar to examine the contents of the wastebarrel, hoping for a returnable or two. As he bent over, Ralph saw the dark green envelope which surrounded him and the lighter green balloonstring which rose, wavering, from the crown of his head. And suddenly he was too tired to close his eyes, too tired to wish it away. He turned to McGovern and said, Ever since last month Ive been seeing stuff that I guess Im in mourning, McGovern said, giving his eyes another theatrical wipe, although I dont know if its for Bob or for me. Isnt that a hoot? But if you could have seen how bright he was in those days . . . how goddam scarybright . . . Bill? You see that guy over there by the snackbar? The one rooting through the trash barrel? I see Yeah, those guys are all over the place now, McGovern said, giving the wino (who had found two empty Budweiser cans and tucked them into his bag) a cursory glance before turning to Ralph again. I hate being old I guess maybe thats all it really comes down to. I mean bigtime. The wino approached their bench in a bentkneed shuffle, the breeze heralding his arrival with a smell which was not English Leather. His aura a sprightly and energetic green that made Ralph think of Saint Patricks Day decorations went oddly with his subservient posture and sickly grin. Say, you guys! How you doon? Weve been better, McGovern said, hoisting the satiric eyebrow, and I expect well be better again once you shove off. The wino looked at McGovern uncertainly, seemed to decide he was a lost cause, and shifted his gaze to Ralph. You got a bitta spare change, mister? I gotta get to Dexter. My uncle call me out dere at the Shelter on Neibolt Street, say I can have my old job back at the mill, but only if I Get lost, chum, McGovern said. The wino gave him a brief, anxious glance, and then his bloodshot brown eyes rolled back to Ralph again. Dass a good job, you know? I could have it back, but ony if I get dere today. Deres a bus Ralph reached into his pocket, found a quarter and a dime, and dropped them into the outstretched hand. The wino grinned. The aura surrounding him brightened, then suddenly disappeared. Ralph found that a great relief. Hey, great! Thank you, mister! Dont mention it, Ralph said. The wino lurched off in the direction of the Shop n Save, where such brands as Night Train, Old Duke, and Silver Satin were always on sale. Oh shit, Ralph, would it hurt you to be a little charitable in your head, as well? he asked himself. Go another half a mile in that direction, you come to the bus station. True, but Ralph had lived long enough to know there was a world of difference between charitable thinking and illusions. If the wino with the dark green aura was going to the bus station, then Ralph was going to Washington to be Secretary of State. You shouldnt do that, Ralph, McGovern said reprovingly. It just encourages them. I suppose, Ralph said wearily. What were you saying when we were so rudely interrupted? The idea of telling McGovern about the auras now seemed an incredibly bad one, and he could not for the life of him imagine how he had gotten so close to doing it. The insomnia, of course that was the only answer. It had done a number on his judgement as well as his shortterm memory and sense of perception. That I got something in the mail this morning, Ralph said. I thought it might cheer you up. He passed Helens postcard over to McGovern, who read it and then reread it. The second time through, his long, horsey face broke into a broad grin. The combination of relief and honest pleasure in that expression made Ralph forgive McGovern his selfindulgent bathos at once. It was easy to forget that Bill could be generous as well as pompous. Say, this is great, isnt it? A job! It sure is. Want to celebrate with some lunch? Theres a nice little diner two doors down from the Rite Aid Day Break, Sun Down, its called. Maybe a little ferny, but Thanks, but I promised Bobs niece Id go over and sit with him awhile. Of course hes doesnt have the slightest idea of who I am, but that doesnt matter, because I know who he is. You capisce? Yep, Ralph said. A raincheck, then? You got it. McGovern scanned the message on the postcard again, still grinning. This is the berries the absolute berries! Ralph laughed at this winsome old expression. I thought so, too. I would have bet you five bucks she was going to walk right back into her marriage to that weirdo, and pushing the baby in front of her in its damn stroller . . . but I would have been glad to lose the money. I suppose that sounds crazy. A little, Ralph said, but only because he knew it was what McGovern expected to hear. What he really thought was that Bill McGovern had just summed up his own character and worldview more succinctly than Ralph ever could have done himself. Nice to know someones getting better instead of worse, huh? You bet. Has Lois seen that yet? Ralph shook his head. Shes not home. Ill show it to her when I see her, though. You do that. Are you sleeping any better, Ralph? Im doing okay, I guess. Good. You look a little better. A little stronger. We cant give in, Ralph, thats the important thing. Am I right? I guess you are, Ralph said, and sighed. I guess you are, at that. 3 Two days later Ralph sat at his kitchen table, slowly eating a bowl of bran flakes he didnt really want (but supposed in some vague way to be good for him) and looking at the front page of the Derry News. He had skimmed the lead story quickly, but it was the photo that kept drawing his eye back; it seemed to express all the bad feelings he had been living with over the last month without really explaining any of them. Ralph thought the headline over the photograph WOMANCARE DEMONSTRATION SPARKS VIOLENCE didnt reflect the story which followed, but that didnt surprise him; he had been reading the News for years and had gotten used to its biases, which included a firm antiabortion stance. Still, the paper had been careful to distance itself from The Friends of Life in that days tuttut, nowyouboysjuststopit editorial, and Ralph wasnt surprised. The Friends had gathered in the parking lot adjacent to both WomanCare and Derry Home Hospital, waiting for a group of about two hundred prochoice marchers who were walking across town from the Civic Center. Most of the marchers were carrying signs with pictures of Susan Day and the slogan CHOICE, NOT FEAR on them. The marchers idea was to gather supporters as they went, like a snowball rolling downhill. At WomanCare there would be a short rally intended to pump people up for the coming Susan Day speech followed by refreshments. The rally never happened. As the prochoice marchers approached the parking lot, the Friends of Life people rushed out and blocked the road, holding their own signs (MURDER IS MURDER, SUSAN DAY STAY AWAY, STOP THE SLAUGHTER OF THE INNOCENTS) in front of them like shields. The marchers had been escorted by police, but no one had been prepared for the speed with which the heckling and angry words escalated into kicks and punches. It had begun with one of The Friends of Life recognizing her own daughter among the prochoice people. The older woman had dropped her sign and charged the younger. The daughters boyfriend had caught the older woman and tried to restrain her. When Mom opened his face with her fingernails, the young man had thrown her to the ground. That had ignited a tenminute mle and provoked more than thirty arrests, split roughly half and half between the two groups. The picture on the front page of this mornings News featured Hamilton Davenport and Dan Dalton. The photographer had caught Davenport in a snarl which was entirely unlike his usual look of calm selfsatisfaction. One fist was raised over his head in a primitive gesture of triumph. Facing him and wearing Hams CHOICE, NOT FEAR sign around the top of his head like a surreal cardboard halo was The Friends of Lifes grand fromage. Daltons eyes were dazed, his mouth slack. The highcontrast black and white photo made the blood flowing from his nostrils look like chocolate sauce. Ralph would look away from this for awhile, try to concentrate on finishing his cereal, and then he would remember the day last summer when he had first seen one of the pseudo wanted posters that were now pasted up all over Derry the day he had nearly fainted outside Strawford Park. Mostly it was their faces his mind fixed on Davenports full of angry intensity as he peered into the dusty show window of Secondhand Rose, Secondhand Clothes, Daltons wearing a small, disdainful smile that seemed to suggest that an ape like Hamilton Davenport could not be expected to understand the higher morality of the abortion issue, and they both knew it. Ralph would think of those two expressions and the distance between the men who wore them, and after awhile his dismayed eyes would wander back to the news photo. Two men stood close behind Dalton, both carrying prolife signs and watching the confrontation intently. Ralph didnt recognize the skinny man with the hornrimmed glasses and the cloud of receding gray hair, but he knew the man beside him. It was Ed Deepneau. Yet in this context, Ed seemed almost not to matter. What drew Ralph and frightened him were the faces of the two men who had done business next door to each other on Lower Witcham Street for years Davenport with his cavemans snarl and clenched fist, Dalton with his dazed eyes and bloody nose. He thought, If youre not careful with your passions, this is where they get you. But this is where things had better stop, because Because if those two had had guns, theydve shot each other, he muttered, and at that moment the doorbell rang the one down on the front porch. Ralph got up, looked at the picture again, and felt a kind of vertigo sweep through him. With it came an odd, dismal surety it was Ed down there, and God knew what he might want. Dont answer it then, Ralph! He stood by the kitchen table for a long undecided moment, wishing bitterly that he could cut through the fog that seemed to have taken up permanent residence in his head this year. Then the doorbell chimed again and he found he had decided. It didnt matter if that was Saddam Hussein down there; this was his place, and he wasnt going to cower in it like a whipped cur. Ralph crossed the living room, opened the door to the hall, and went down the shadowy front stairs. 4 Halfway down he relaxed a little. The top half of the door which gave on the front porch was composed of heavy glass panes. They distorted the view, but not so much that Ralph could not see that his two visitors were both women. He guessed at once who one of them must be and hurried the rest of the way down, running one hand lightly over the banister. He threw the door open and there was Helen Deepneau with a totebag (BABY FIRSTAID STATION was printed on the side) slung over one shoulder and Natalie peering over the other, her eyes as bright as the eyes of a cartoon mouse. Helen was smiling hopefully and a little nervously. Natalies face suddenly lit up and she began to bounce up and down in the Papoose carrier Helen was wearing, waving her arms excitedly in Ralphs direction. She remembers me, Ralph thought. How about that. And as he reached out and let one of the waving hands grasp his right index finger, his eyes flooded with tears. Ralph? Helen asked. Are you okay? He smiled, nodded, stepped forward, and hugged her. He felt Helen lock her own arms around his neck. For a moment he was dizzy with the smell of her perfume, mingled with the milky smell of healthy baby, and then she gave his ear a dazzling smack and let him go. You are okay, arent you? she asked. There were tears in her eyes, too, but Ralph barely noticed them; he was too busy taking inventory, wanting to make sure that no signs of the beating remained. So far as he could see, none did. She looked flawless. Better right now than in weeks, he said. You are such a sight for sore eyes. You too, Nat. He kissed the small, chubby hand that was still wrapped around his finger, and was not entirely surprised to see the ghostly grayblue lipprint his mouth left behind. It faded almost as soon as he had noted it and he hugged Helen again, mostly to make sure that she was really there. Dear Ralph, she murmured in his ear. Dear, sweet Ralph. He felt a stirring in his groin, apparently brought on by the combination of her light perfume and the gentle puffs her words made against the cup of his ear . . . and then he remembered another voice in his ear. Eds voice. I called about your mouth, Ralph. Its trying to get you in trouble. Ralph let her go and held her at arms length, still smiling. Youre a sight for sore eyes, Helen. Ill be damned if youre not. You are, too. Id like you to meet a friend of mine. Ralph Roberts, Gretchen Tillbury. Gretchen, Ralph. Ralph turned toward the other woman and took his first good look at her as he carefully folded his large, gnarled hand over her slim white one. She was the kind of woman that made a man (even one who had left his sixties behind) want to stand up straight and suck in his gut. She was very tall, perhaps six feet, and she was blonde, but that wasnt it. There was something else something that was like a smell, or a vibration, or (an aura) yes, all right, like an aura. She was, quite simply, a woman you couldnt not look at, couldnt not think about, couldnt not speculate about. Ralph remembered Helens telling him that Gretchens husband had cut her leg open with a kitchen knife and left her to bleed to death. He wondered how any man could do such a thing; how any man could touch a creature such as this with anything but awe. Also a little lust, maybe, once he got beyond the She walks in beauty like the night stage. And just by the way, Ralph, this might be a really good time to reel your eyes back into their sockets. Very pleased to meet you, he said, letting go of her hand. Helen told me about how you came to see her in the hospital. Thank you for helping her. |
Helen was a pleasure to help, Gretchen said, and gave him a dazzling smile. Shes the kind of woman that makes it all worthwhile, actually . . . but I have an idea you already know that. I guess I might at that, Ralph said. Have you got time for a cup of coffee? Please say yes. Gretchen glanced at Helen, who nodded. That would be fine, Helen said. Because . . . well . . . This isnt entirely a social call, is it? Ralph asked, looking from Helen to Gretchen Tillbury and then back to Helen again. No, Helen said. Theres something we need to talk to you about, Ralph. 5 As soon as they had reached the top of the gloomy front stairs, Natalie began to wriggle impatiently around in the Papoose carrier and to talk in that imperious baby pig Latin that would all too soon be replaced by actual words. Can I hold her? Ralph asked. All right, Helen said. If she cries, Ill take her right back. Promise. Deal. But the Exalted Revered Baby didnt cry. As soon as Ralph had hoisted her out of the Papoose, she slung an arm companionably around his neck and cozied her bottom into the crook of his right arm as if it were her own private easychair. Wow, Gretchen said. Im impressed. Blig! Natalie said, seizing Ralphs lower lip and pulling it out like a windowshade. Gannawig! Andoosis! I think she just said something about the Andrews Sisters, Ralph said. Helen threw her head back and laughed her hearty laugh, the one that seemed to come all the way up from her heels. Ralph didnt realize how much he had missed it until he heard it. Natalie let Ralphs lower lip snap back as he led them into the kitchen, the sunniest room of the house at this time of day. He saw Helen looking around curiously as he turned on the Bunn, and realized she hadnt been here for a long time. Too long. She picked up the picture of Carolyn that stood on the kitchen table and looked at it closely, a little smile playing about the corners of her lips. The sun lit the tips of her hair, which had been cropped short, making a kind of corona around her head, and Ralph had a sudden revelation he loved Helen in large part because Carolyn had loved her they had both been allowed into the deeper ranges of Carolyns heart and mind. She was so pretty, Helen murmured. Wasnt she, Ralph? Yes, he said, putting out cups (and being careful to set them beyond the reach of Natalies restless, interested hands). That was taken just a month or two before the headaches started. I suppose its eccentric to keep a framed studio portrait on the kitchen table in front of the sugarbowl, but this is the room where I seem to spend most of my time lately, so . . . I think its a lovely place for it, Gretchen said. Her voice was low, sweetly husky. Ralph thought, If shed been the one to whisper in my ear, I bet the old trousermouse would have done a little more than just turn over in its sleep. I do, too, Helen said. She gave him a fragile, notquiteeyecontact smile, then slipped the pink totebag off her shoulder and set it on the counter. Natalie began to gabble impatiently and hold her hands out again as soon as she saw the plastic shell of the Playtex Nurser. Ralph had a vivid but mercifully brief flash of memory Helen staggering toward the Red Apple, one eye puffed shut, her cheek lashed with beads of blood, carrying Nat on one hip, the way a teenager might carry a textbook. Want to give it a try, old fella? Helen asked. Her smile had strengthened a little and she was meeting his eye again. Sure, why not? But the coffee Ill take care of the coffee, DaddyO, Gretchen said. Made a million cups in my time. Is there halfandhalf? In the fridge. Ralph sat down at the table, letting Natalie rest the back of her head in the hollow of his shoulder and grasp the bottle with her tiny, fascinating hands. This she did with complete assurance, guiding the nipple into her mouth and beginning to suck at once. Ralph grinned up at Helen and pretended not to see that she had begun to cry a little again. They learn fast, dont they? Yes, she said, and pulled a paper towel off the roll mounted on the wall by the sink. She wiped her eyes with it. I cant get over how easy she is with you, Ralph she wasnt that way before, was she? I dont really remember, he lied. She hadnt been. Not standoffish, no, but a long way from this comfortable. Keep pushing up on the plastic liner inside the bottle, okay? Otherwise shell swallow a lot of air and get all gassy. Roger. He glanced over at Gretchen. Doing okay? Fine. How do you take it, Ralph? Just in a cups fine. She laughed and put the cup on the table out of Natalies reach. When she sat down and crossed her legs, Ralph checked he was helpless not to. When he looked up again, Gretchen was wearing a small, ironic smile. What the hell, Ralph thought. No goat like an old goat, I guess. Even an old goat that cant manage much more than two or two and a half hours worth of sleep a night. Tell me about your job, he said as Helen sat down and sipped her coffee. Well, I think they ought to make Mike Hanlons birthday a national holiday does that tell you anything? A little, yes, Ralph said, smiling. I was all but positive Id have to leave Derry. I sent away for applications to libraries as far south as Portsmouth, but I felt sick doing it. Im going on thirtyone and Ive only lived here for six of those years, but Derry feels like home I cant explain it, but its the truth. You dont have to explain it, Helen. I think homes just one of those things that happens to a person, like their complexion or the color of their eyes. Gretchen was nodding. Yes, she said. Just like that. Mike called Monday and told me the assistants position in the Childrens Library had opened up. I could hardly believe it. I mean, Ive been walking around all week just pinching myself. Havent I, Gretchen? Well, youve been very happy, Gretchen said, and thats been very good to see. She smiled at Helen, and for Ralph that smile was a revelation. He suddenly understood that he could look at Gretchen Tillbury all he wanted, and it wouldnt make any difference. If the only man in this room had been Tom Cruise, it still would have made no difference. He wondered if Helen knew, and then scolded himself for his foolishness. Helen was many things, but stupid wasnt one of them. When do you start? he asked her. Columbus Day week, she said. The twelfth. Afternoons and evenings. The salarys not exactly a kings ransom, but itll be enough to keep us through the winter no matter how the . . . the rest of my situation works out. Isnt it great, Ralph? Yes, he said. Very great. The baby had drunk half the bottle and now showed signs of losing interest. The nipple popped halfway out of her mouth, and a little rill of milk ran down from the corner of her lips toward her chin. Ralph reached to wipe it away, and his fingers left a series of delicate grayblue lines in the air. Baby Natalie snatched at them, then laughed as they dissolved in her fist. Ralphs breath caught in his throat. She sees. The baby sees what I see. Thats nuts, Ralph. Thats nuts and you know it. Except he knew no such thing. He had just seen it had seen Nat try to grab the aural contrails his fingers left behind. Ralph? Helen asked. Are you all right? Sure. He looked up and saw that Helen was now surrounded by a luxurious ivorycolored aura. It had the satiny look of an expensive slip. The balloonstring floating up from it was an identical shade of ivory, and as broad and flat as the ribbon on a wedding present. The aura surrounding Gretchen Tillbury was a dark orange shading to yellow at the edges. Will you be moving back into the house? Helen and Gretchen exchanged another of those glances, but Ralph barely noticed. He didnt need to observe their faces or gestures or body language to read their feelings, he discovered; he only had to look at their auras. The lemony tints at the edges of Gretchens now darkened, so that the whole was a uniform orange. Helens, meanwhile, simultaneously pulled in and brightened until it was hard to look at. Helen was afraid to go back. Gretchen knew it, and was infuriated by it. And her own helplessness, Ralph thought. That infuriates her even more. Im going to stay at High Ridge awhile longer, Helen was saying. Maybe until winter. Nat and I will move back into town eventually, I imagine, but the house is going up for sale. If someone actually buys it and with the real estate market the way it is that looks like a pretty big question mark the money goes into an escrow account. That account will be divided according to the decree. You know the divorce decree. Her lower lip was trembling. Her aura had grown still tighter; it now fit her body almost like a second skin, and Ralph could see minute red flashes skimming through it. They looked like sparks dancing over an incinerator. He reached out across the table, took her hand, squeezed it. She smiled at him gratefully. Youre telling me two things, he said. That youre going ahead with the divorce and that youre still scared of him. Shes been regularly battered and abused for the last two years of her marriage, Gretchen said. Of course shes still scared of him. She spoke quietly, calmly, reasonably, but looking at her aura now was like looking through the small isinglass window you used to find in the doors of coalfurnaces. He looked down at the baby and saw her now surrounded in her own gauzy, brilliant cloud of weddingsatin. It was smaller than her mothers, but otherwise identical . . . like her blue eyes and auburn hair. Natalies balloonstring rose from the top of her head in a pure white ribbon that floated all the way to the ceiling and then actually coiled there in an ethereal heap beside the lightfixture. When a breath of breeze puffed in through the open window by the stove, he saw the wide white band bell and ripple. He glanced up and saw Helens and Gretchens balloonstrings were also rippling. And if I could see my own, it would be doing the same thing, he thought. Its real whatever that twoandtwomakefour part of my mind may think, the auras are real. Theyre real and Im seeing them. He waited for the inevitable demurral, but this time none came. I feel like Im spending most of my time in an emotional washingmachine these days, Helen said. My moms mad at me . . . shes done everything but call me a quitter outright . . . and sometimes I feel like a quitter . . . ashamed . . . You have nothing to be ashamed of, Ralph said. He glanced up at Natalies balloonstring again, wavering in the breeze. It was beautiful, but he felt no urge to touch it; some deep instinct told him that might be dangerous for both of them. I guess I know that, Helen said,but girls go through a lot of indoctrination. Its like,Heres your Barbie, heres your Ken, heres your Hostess Play Kitchen. Learn well, because when the real stuff comes along itll be your job to take care of it, and if any of it gets broken, youll get the blame. And I think I could have gone down the line with that I really do. Except no one told me that in some marriages Ken goes nuts. Does that sound selfindulgent? No. Thats pretty much what happened, so far as I can see. Helen laughed a jagged, bitter, guilty sound. Dont try to tell my mother that. She refuses to believe Ed ever did anything more than give me a husbandly swat on the fanny once in awhile . . . just to get me moving in the right direction again if I happened to slip offcourse. She thinks I imagined the rest. She doesnt come right out and say it, but I hear it in her voice every time we talk on the phone. I dont think you imagined it, Ralph said. I saw you, remember? And I was there when you begged me not to call the police. He felt his thigh squeezed beneath the table and looked up, startled. Gretchen Tillbury gave him a very slight nod and another squeeze this one more emphatic. Yes, Helen said. You were there, werent you? She smiled a little, which was good, but what was happening to her aura was better those tiny red flickers were fading, and the aura itself was spreading out again. No, he thought. Not spreading out. Loosening. Relaxing. Helen got up and came around the table. Nats bailing out on you better let me take her. Ralph looked down and saw Nat looking across the room with heavy, fascinated eyes. He followed her gaze and saw the little vase standing on the windowsill beside the sink. He had filled it with fall flowers less than two hours ago and now a low green mist was sizzling off the stems and surrounding the blooms with a faint, misty glow. Im watching them breathe their last, Ralph thought. Oh my God, Im never going to pick another flower in my life. I promise. Helen took the baby gently from his arms. Nat went tractably enough, although her eyes never left the sizzling flowers as her mother went back around the table, sat down, and nestled her in the crook of her arm. Gretchen tapped the face of her watch lightly. If were going to make that meeting at noon Yes, of course, Helen said, a little apologetically. Were on the official Susan Day Welcoming Committee, she told Ralph, and in this case thats not quite as Junior League as it sounds. Our main job really isnt to welcome her but to help protect her. Is that going to be a problem, do you think? Itll be tense, lets put it that way, Gretchen said. Shes got half a dozen of her own security people, and theyve been sending us turnaround faxes of all the Derryrelated threats shes received. Its standard operating procedure with them shes been in a lot of peoples faces for a lot of years. Theyre keeping us in the picture, but theyre also making sure we understand that, because were the inviting group, her safety is WomanCares responsibility as well as theirs. Ralph opened his mouth to ask if there had been many threats, but he supposed he already knew the answer to that question. Hed lived in Derry for seventy years, off and on, and he knew it was a dangerous machine there were a lot of sharp points and cutting edges just below the surface. That was true of a lot of cities, of course, but in Derry there had always seemed to be an extra dimension to the ugliness. Helen had called it home, and it was his home, too, but He found himself remembering something which had happened almost ten years ago, shortly after the annual Canal Days Festival had ended. Three boys had thrown an unassuming and inoffensive young gay man named Adrian Mellon into the Kenduskeag after repeatedly biting and stabbing him; it was rumored they had stood there on the bridge behind the Falcon Tavern and watched him die. Theyd told the police they hadnt liked the hat he was wearing. That was also Derry, and only a fool would ignore the fact. As if this memory had led him to it (perhaps it had), Ralph looked at the photo on the front page of todays paper again Ham Davenport with his upraised fist, Dan Dalton with his bloody nose and dazed eyes, wearing Hams sign on his head. How many threats? he asked. Over a dozen? About thirty, Gretchen said. Of those, her security people take half a dozen seriously. Two are threats to blow up the Civic Center if she doesnt cancel. One this is a real honey is from someone who says hes got a Big Squirt watergun filled with battery acid. If I make a direct hit, not even your dyke friends will be able to look at you without throwing up, that one says. Nice, Ralph said. It brings us to the point, anyway, Gretchen said. She rummaged in her bag, brought out a small can with a red top, and put it on the table. A little present from all your grateful friends at WomanCare. Ralph picked the can up. On one side was a picture of a woman spraying a cloud of gas at a man wearing a slouch hat and a Beagle Boystype eyemask. On the other was a single word in bright red capital letters BODYGUARD What is this? he asked, shocked in spite of himself. Mace? No, Gretchen said. Mace is a risky proposition in Maine, legally speaking. This stuff is much milder . . . but if you give somebody a faceful, they wont even think of hassling you for at least a couple of minutes. It numbs the skin, irritates the eyes, and causes nausea. Ralph took the cap off the can, looked at the red aerosol nozzle beneath, then replaced the cap. Good Christ, woman, why would I want to lug around a can of this stuff? Because youve been officially designated a Centurion, Gretchen said. A what? Ralph asked. A Centurion, Helen repeated. Nat was fast asleep in her arms, and Ralph realized the auras were gone again. Its what The Friends of Life call their major enemies the ringleaders of the opposition. Okay, Ralph said, Ive got it now. Ed talked about people he called Centurions on the day he . . . assaulted you. He talked about a lot of things that day, though, and all of them were crazy. Yes, Eds at the bottom of it, and he is crazy, Helen said. We dont think hes mentioned this Centurion business except to a small inner circle people who are almost as gonzo as he is. The rest of The Friends of Life . . . I dont think they have any idea. I mean, did you? Until last month, did you have any idea that he was crazy? Ralph shook his head. Hawking Labs finally fired him, Helen said. Yesterday. They held onto him as long as they could hes great at what he does, and they had a lot invested in him but in the end they had to let him go. Three months severance pay in lieu of notice . . . not bad for a guy who beats up his wife and throws dolls loaded with fake blood at the windows of the local womens clinic. She tapped the newspaper. This last demonstration was the final straw. Its the third or fourth time hes been arrested since he got involved with The Friends of Life. You have someone inside, dont you? Ralph said. Thats how you know all this. Gretchen smiled. Were not the only ones whove got someone at least partway inside; we have a running joke that there really are no Friends of Life, just a bunch of double agents. Derry PDs got someone; the State Police do, too. And those are just the ones our . . . our person . . . knows about. Hell, the FBI could be monitoring them, as well. The Friends of Life are eminently infiltratable, Ralph, because theyre convinced that, deep down, everyone is on their side. But we believe that our person is the only one whos gotten in toward the middle, and this person says that Dan Dalton is just the tail Ed Deepneau wags. I guessed that the first time I saw them together on the TV news, Ralph said. Gretchen got up, gathered the coffee cups, took them over to the sink, and began to rinse them. Ive been active in the womens movement for thirteen years now, and Ive seen a lot of crazy shit, but Ive never seen anything like this. Hes got these dopes believing that women in Derry are undergoing involuntary abortions, that half of them havent even realized theyre pregnant before the Centurions come in the night and take their babies. Has he told them about the incinerator over in Newport? Ralph asked. The one thats really a baby crematorium? Gretchen turned from the sink, her eyes wide. How did you know about that? Oh, I got the lowdown from Ed himself, up close and in person. Starting in July of 92. He hesitated for just a moment, then gave them an account of the day he had met Ed out by the airport, and how Ed had accused the man in the pickup of hauling dead babies in the barrels marked WEEDGO. Helen listened silently, her eyes growing steadily wider and rounder. He was going on about the same stuff on the day he beat you up, Ralph finished, but hed embellished it considerably by then. That probably explains why hes fixated on you, Gretchen said, but in a very real sense, the why doesnt matter. The fact is, hes given his nuttier friends a list of these socalled Centurions. We dont know everyone whos on it, but I am, and Helen is, and Susan Day, of course . . . and you. Why me? Ralph almost asked, then recognized it as another pointless question. Maybe Ed had targeted him because he had called the cops after Ed had beaten Helen; more likely it had happened for no understandable reason at all. Ralph remembered reading somewhere that David Berkowitz also known as the Son of Sam claimed to have killed on some occasions under instructions from his dog. What do you expect them to try? Ralph asked. Armed assault, like in a Chuck Norris movie? He smiled, but Gretchen did not answer it. The thing is, we dont know what they might try, she said. The most likely answer is nothing at all. Then again, Ed or one of the others might take it into his head to try and push you out your own kitchen window. The spray is basically nothing but watereddown teargas. A little insurance policy, thats all. Insurance, he said thoughtfully. Youre in very select company, Helen said with a wan smile. The only other male Centurion on their list that we know about, anyway is Mayor Cohen. Did you give him one of these? Ralph asked, picking up the aerosol can. It looked no more dangerous than the free samples of shaving cream he got in the mail from time to time. We didnt need to, Gretchen said. She looked at her watch again. Helen saw the gesture and stood up with the sleeping baby in her arms. Hes got a license to carry a concealed weapon. How would you know a thing like that? Ralph asked. We checked the files at City Hall, she said, and grinned. Gun permits are a matter of public record. Oh. A thought occurred to him. What about Ed? Did you check on him? Does he have one? Nope, she said. But guys like Ed dont necessarily apply for weapons permits once they get past a certain point . . . you know that, dont you? Yes, Ralph replied, also getting up. I suppose I do. What about you guys? Are you watching out? You bet, DaddyO. You bet we are. He nodded, but wasnt entirely satisfied. There was a faintly patronizing tone in her voice that he didnt like, as if the very question were a silly one. But it wasnt silly, and if she didnt know that, she and her friends could be in trouble down the line. Bad trouble. I hope so, he said. I really do. Can I carry Nat downstairs for you, Helen? Better not youd wake her. She looked at him gravely. Would you carry that spray for me, Ralph? I cant stand the thought of you being hurt just because you tried to help me and hes got some crazy bee in his bonnet. Ill think about it very seriously. Will that do? I guess it will have to. She looked at him closely, her eyes searching his face. You look much better than the last time I saw you youre sleeping again, arent you? He grinned. Well, to tell you the truth, Im still having my problems, but I must be getting better, because people keep telling me that. She stood on tiptoe and kissed the corner of his mouth. Well be in touch, wont we? I mean, well stay in touch. Ill do my part if youll do yours, sweetie. She smiled. You can count on that, Ralph youre the nicest male Centurion I know. They all laughed at that, so hard that Natalie woke up and looked around at them in sleepy surprise. 6 After he had seen the women off (IM PROCHOICE, AND I VOTE! read the sticker on the rear bumper of Gretchen Tillburys Accord fastback), Ralph climbed slowly up to the second floor again. Weariness dragged at his heels like invisible weights. Once in the kitchen he looked first at the vase of flowers, trying to see that strange and gorgeous green mist rising from the stems. Nothing. Then he picked up the aerosol and reexamined the cartoon on the side of the can. One Menaced Woman, heroically warding off her attacker; one Bad Man, complete with eyemask and slouch hat. No shades of gray here; just a case of go ahead, punk, make my day. It occurred to Ralph that Eds madness was catching. There were women all over Derry Gretchen Tillbury and his own sweet Helen among them walking around with these little spraycans in their purses, and all the cans really said the same thing Im afraid. The bad men in the masks and the slouch hats have arrived in Derry and Im afraid. Ralph wanted no part of it. Standing on tiptoe, he put the can of Bodyguard on top of the kitchen cabinet beside the sink, then shrugged into his old gray leather jacket. He would go up to the picnic area near the airport and see if he could find a game of chess. Lacking that, maybe a few rounds of cribbage. He paused in the kitchen doorway, looking fixedly at the flowers, trying to make that sizzling green mist come. Nothing happened. But it was there. You saw it; Natalie did, too. But had she? Had she really? Babies were always goggling at stuff, everything amazed them, so how could he know for sure? I just do, he said to the empty apartment. Correct. The green mist rising from the stems of the flowers had been there, all the auras had been there, and . . . And theyre still there, he said, and did not know if he should be relieved or appalled by the firmness he heard in his own voice. For right now, why dont you try being neither, sweetheart? His thought, Carolyns voice, good advice. Ralph locked up his apartment and went out into the Derry of the Old Crocks, looking for a game of chess. CHAPTER SEVEN 1 When Ralph came walking up Harris Avenue to his apartment on October 2nd, with a couple of recycled Elmer Kelton Westerns from Back Pages in one hand, he saw that someone was sitting on the porch steps with his own book. The visitor wasnt reading, however; he was watching with dreamy intensity as the warm wind which had been blowing all day harvested the yellow and gold leaves from the oaks and the three surviving elms across the street. Ralph came closer, observing the thin white hair flying around the skull of the man on the porch, and the way all his bulk seemed to have run into his belly, hips, and bottom. That wide center section, coupled with the scrawny neck, narrow chest, and spindly legs clad in old green flannel pants, gave him the look of a man wearing an inner tube beneath his clothes. Even from a hundred and fifty yards away, there was really no question about who the visitor was Dorrance Marstellar. Sighing, Ralph walked the rest of the way up to his building. Dorrance, seemingly hypnotized by the bright falling leaves, did not look around until Ralphs shadow dropped across him. Then he turned, craned his neck, and smiled his sweet, strangely vulnerable smile. Faye Chapin, Don Veazie, and some of the other oldtimers who hung out at the picnic area up by Runway 3 (they would retire to the Jackson Street Billiard Emporium once Indian summer broke and the weather turned cold) saw that smile as just another indicator that Old Dor, poetry books or no poetry books, was essentially brainless. Don Veazie, nobodys idea of Mr Sensitivity, had fallen into the habit of calling Dorrance Old Chief Dumbhead, and Faye had once told Ralph that he, Faye, wasnt in the least surprised that Old Dor had lived to the age of halfpast ninety. People who dont have any furniture on their upper storey always live the longest, he had explained to Ralph earlier that year. They dont have anything to worry about. That keeps their bloodpressure down and they aint so likely to blow a valve or throw a rod. Ralph, however, was not so sure. The sweetness in Dorrances smile did not make the old man look emptyheaded to him; it made him look somehow ethereal and knowing at the same time . . . sort of like a smalltown Merlin. None the less, he could have done without a visit from Dor today; this morning he had set a new record, waking at 158 a.m., and he was exhausted. He only wanted to sit in his own living room, drink coffee, and try to read one of the Westerns he had picked up downtown. Maybe later on he would take another stab at napping. Hello, Dorrance said. The book he was holding was a paperback Cemetery Nights, by a man named Stephen Dobyns. Hello, Dor, he said. Good book? Dorrance looked down at the book as if hed forgotten he had one, then smiled and nodded. Yes, very good. He writes poems that are like stories. I dont always like that, but sometimes I do. Thats good. Listen, Dor, its great to see you, but the walk up the hill kind of tired me out, so maybe we could visit another t Oh, thats all right, Dorrance said, standing up. There was a faint cinnamony smell about him that always made Ralph think of Egyptian mummies kept behind red velvet ropes in shadowy museums. His face was almost without lines except for the tiny sprays of crows feet around his eyes, but his age was unmistakable (and a little scary) his blue eyes were faded to the watery gray of an April sky and his skin had a translucent clarity that reminded Ralph of Nats skin. His lips were loose and almost lavender in color. They made little smacking sounds when he spoke. Thats all right, I didnt come to visit; I came to give you a message. What message? From who? I dont know who its from, Dorrance said, giving Ralph a look that suggested he thought Ralph was either being foolish or playing dumb. I dont mess in with longtime business. I told you not to, either, dont you remember? Ralph did remember something, but he was damned if he knew exactly what. Nor did he care. He was tired, and he had already had to listen to a fair amount of tiresome proselytizing on the subject of Susan Day from Ham Davenport. He had no urge to go round and round with Dorrance Marstellar on top of that, no matter how beautiful this Saturday morning was. Well then, just give me the message, he said, and Ill toddle along upstairs how would that be? Oh, sure, good, fine. But then Dorrance stopped, looking across the street as a fresh gust of wind sent a funnel of leaves storming into the bright October sky. His faded eyes were wide, and something in them made Ralph think of the Exalted Revered Baby again of the way she had snatched at the grayblue marks left by his fingers, and the way she had looked at the flowers sizzling in the vase by the sink. Ralph had seen Dor stand watching airplanes take off and land on Runway 3 with that same slackjawed expression, sometimes for an hour or more. Dor? he prompted. Dorrances sparse eyelashes fluttered. Oh! Right! The message! The message is . . . He frowned slightly and looked down at the book which he was now bending back and forth in his hands. Then his face cleared and he looked up at Ralph again. The message is,Cancel the appointment. It was Ralphs turn to frown. What appointment? You shouldnt have messed in, Dorrance repeated, then heaved a big sigh. But its too late now. Donebuncantbeundone. Just cancel the appointment. Dont let that fellow stick any pins in you. Ralph had been turning to the porch steps; now he turned back to Dorrance. Hong? Are you talking about Hong? How would I know? Dorrance asked in an irritated tone of voice. I dont mess in, I told you that. Every now and then I carry a message, is all, like now. I was supposed to tell you to cancel the appointment with the pinsticker man, and I done it. The rest is up to you. Dorrance was looking up at the trees across the street again, his odd, lineless face wearing an expression of mild exaltation. The strong fall wind rippled his hair like seaweed. When Ralph touched his shoulder the old man turned to him willingly enough, and Ralph suddenly realized that what Faye Chapin and the others saw as foolishness might actually be joy. If so, the mistake probably said more about them than it did about Old Dor. Dorrance? What, Ralph? This message who gave it to you? Dorrance thought it over or perhaps only appeared to think it over and then held out his copy of Cemetery Nights. Take it. No, Ill pass, Ralph said. Im not much on poetry, Dor. Youll like these. Theyre like stories Ralph restrained a strong urge to reach out and shake the old man until his bones rattled like castanets. I just picked up a couple oat operas downtown, at Back Pages. What I want to know is who gave you the message about Dorrance thrust the book of poems into Ralphs right hand the one not holding the Westerns with surprising force. One of them starts, Each thing I do I rush through so I can do something else. |
And before Ralph could say another word, Old Dor cut across the lawn to the sidewalk. He turned left and started toward the Extension with his face turned dreamily up to the blue sky where the leaves flew wildly, as if to some rendezvous over the horizon. Dorrance! Ralph shouted, suddenly infuriated. Across the street at the Red Apple, Sue was sweeping fallen leaves off the hottop in front of the door. At the sound of Ralphs voice she stopped and looked curiously over at him. Feeling stupid feeling old Ralph manufactured what he hoped looked like a big, cheerful grin and waved to her. Sue waved back and resumed her sweeping. Dorrance, meanwhile, had continued serenely on his way. He was now almost half a block up the street. Ralph decided to let him go. 2 He climbed the steps to the porch, switching the book Dorrance had given him to his left hand so he could grope for his keyring, and then saw he didnt have to bother the door was not only unlocked but standing ajar. Ralph had scolded McGovern repeatedly for his carelessness about locking the front door, and had thought he was finally having some success in getting the message through his downstairs tenants thick skull. Now, however, it seemed that McGovern had backslid. Dammit, Bill, he said under his breath, pushing his way into the shadowy lower hall and looking nervously up the stairs. It was all too easy to imagine Ed Deepneau lurking up there, broad daylight or not. Still, he could not stay here in the foyer all day. He turned the thumbbolt on the front door and started up the stairs. There was nothing to worry about, of course. He had one bad moment when he thought he saw someone standing in the far corner of the living room, but it was only his own old gray jacket. He had actually hung it on the coattree for a change instead of just slinging it onto a chair or draping it over the arm of the sofa; no wonder it had given him a turn. He went into the kitchen and, with his hands poked into his back pockets, stood looking at the calendar. Monday was circled, and within the circle he had scrawled HONG 1000. I was supposed to tell you to cancel the appointment with the pinsticker man, and I done it. The rest is up to you. For a moment Ralph felt himself step back from his life so he was able to look at the latest section of the mural it made instead of just the detail which was this day. What he saw frightened him an unknown road heading into a lightless tunnel where anything might be waiting. Anything at all. Then turn back, Ralph! But he had an idea he couldnt do that. He had an idea he was for the tunnel, whether he wanted to go in there or not. The feeling was not one of being led so much as it was one of being shoved forward by powerful, invisible hands. Never mind, he muttered, rubbing his temples nervously with the tips of his fingers and still looking at the circled date two days from now on the calendar. Its the insomnia. Thats when things really started to . . . Really started to what? To get weird, he told the empty apartment. Thats when things started to get really weird. Yes, weird. Lots of weird things, but the auras he was seeing were clearly the weirdest of them all. Cold gray light it had looked like living frost creeping over the man reading the paper in Day Break, Sun Down. The mother and son walking toward the supermarket, their entwined auras rising from their clasped hands like a pigtail. Helen and Nat buried in gorgeous clouds of ivory light; Natalie snatching at the marks left by his moving fingers, ghostly contrails which only she and Ralph had been able to see. And now Old Dor, turning up on his doorstep like some peculiar Old Testament prophet . . . only instead of telling him to repent, Dor had told him to cancel his appointment with the acupuncturist Joe Wyzer had recommended. It should have been funny, but it wasnt. The mouth of that tunnel. Looming closer every day. Was there really a tunnel? And if so, where did it lead? Im more interested in what might be waiting for me in there, Ralph thought. Waiting in the dark. You shouldnt have messed in, Dorrance had said. Anyway, its too late now. Donebuncantbeundone, Ralph murmured, and suddenly decided he didnt want to take the wide view anymore; it was unsettling. Better to move in close again and consider things a detail at a time, beginning with his appointment for acupuncture treatment. Was he going to keep it, or follow the advice of Old Dor, alias the Ghost of Hamlets Father? It really wasnt a question that needed much thought, Ralph decided. Joe Wyzer had sweettalked Hongs secretary into finding him an appointment in early October, and Ralph intended to keep it. If there was a path out of this thicket, starting to sleep through the night was probably it. And that made Hong the next logical step. Donebuncantbeundone, he repeated, and went into the living room to read one of his Westerns. Instead he found himself paging through the book of poetry Dorrance had given him Cemetery Nights, by Stephen Dobyns. Dorrance had been right on both counts the majority of the poems were like stories, and Ralph discovered that he liked them just fine. The poem from which Old Dor had quoted was called Pursuit, and it began Each thing I do I rush through so I can do something else. In such a way do the days pass a blend of stock car racing and the never ending building of a gothic cathedral. Through the windows of my speeding car, I see all that I love falling away books unread, jokes untold, landscapes unvisited . . . Ralph read the poem twice, completely absorbed, thinking he would have to read it to Carolyn. Carolyn would like it, which was good, and she would like him (who usually stuck to Westerns and historical novels) even more for finding it and bringing it to her like a bouquet of flowers. He was actually getting up to find a scrap of paper he could mark the page with when he remembered that Carolyn had been dead for half a year now and burst into tears. He sat in the wingchair for almost fifteen minutes, holding Cemetery Nights in his lap and wiping at his eyes with the heel of his left hand. At last he went into the bedroom, lay down, and tried to sleep. After an hour of staring at the ceiling, he got up, made himself a cup of coffee, and found a college football game on TV. 3 The Public Library was open on Sunday afternoons from one until six, and on the day after Dorrances visit, Ralph went down there, mostly because he had nothing better to do. The highceilinged reading room would ordinarily have contained a scattering of other old men like himself, most of them leafing through the various Sunday papers they now had time to read, but when Ralph emerged from the stacks where he had spent forty minutes browsing, he discovered he had the whole room to himself. Yesterdays gorgeous blue skies had been replaced by driving rain that pasted the newfallen leaves to the sidewalks or sent them flooding down the gutters and into Derrys peculiar and unpleasantly tangled system of stormdrains. The wind was still blowing, but it had shifted into the north and now had a nasty cutting edge. Old folks with any sense (or any luck) were at home where it was warm, possibly watching the last game of another dismal Red Sox season, possibly playing Old Maid or Candyland with the grandkids, possibly napping off a big chicken dinner. Ralph, on the other hand, did not care for the Red Sox, had no children or grandchildren, and seemed to have completely lost any capacity for napping he might once have had. So he had taken the one oclock Green Route bus down to the library, and here he was, wishing he had worn something heavier than his old scuffed gray jacket the reading room was chilly. Gloomy, as well. The fireplace was empty, and the clankless radiators strongly suggested that the furnace had yet to be fired up. The Sunday librarian hadnt bothered flipping the switches that turned on the hanging overhead globes, either. The light which did manage to find its way in here seemed to fall dead on the floor, and the corners were full of shadows. The loggers and soldiers and drummers and Indians in the old paintings on the walls looked like malevolent ghosts. Cold rain sighed and gusted against the windows. I should have stayed home, Ralph thought, but didnt really believe it; these days the apartment was even worse. Besides, he had found an interesting new book in what he had come to think of as the Mr Sandman Section of the stacks Patterns of Dreaming, by James A. Hall, MD. He turned on the overheads, rendering the room marginally less gruesome, sat down at one of the four long, empty tables, and was soon absorbed in his reading. Prior to the realization that REM sleep and NREM sleep were distinct states [Hall wrote], studies concerned with total deprivation of a particular stage of sleep led to Dements suggestion (1960) that deprivation . . . causes disorganization of the waking personality . . . Boy, you got that right, my friend, Ralph thought. Cant even find a fucking CupASoup packet when you want one. . . . early dreamdeprivation studies also raised the exciting speculation that schizophrenia might be a disorder in which deprivation of dreaming at night led to a breakthrough of the dream process into everyday waking life. Ralph hunched over the book, elbows on the table, fisted hands pressed against his temples, forehead lined and eyebrows drawn together in a clench of concentration. He wondered if Hall could be talking about the auras, maybe without even knowing it. Except he was still having dreams, dammit very vivid ones, for the most part. Just last night hed had one in which he was dancing at the old Derry Pavilion (gone now; destroyed in the big storm which had wiped out most of the downtown area eight years before) with Lois Chasse. He seemed to have taken her out with the intention of proposing to her, but Trigger Vachon, of all people, had kept trying to cut in. He rubbed his eyes with his knuckles, tried to focus his attention, and began to read again. He did not see the man in the baggy gray sweatshirt materialize in the doorway of the reading room and stand there, silently watching him. After about three minutes of this, the man reached beneath the sweatshirt (Charlie Browns dog Snoopy was on the front, wearing his Joe Cool glasses) and produced a hunting knife from the scabbard on his belt. The hanging overhead globes threw a thread of light along the knifes serrated blade as the man turned it this way and that, admiring the edge. Then he moved forward toward the table where Ralph was sitting with his head propped on his hands. He sat down beside Ralph, who noticed that someone was there only in the faintest, most distant way. Tolerance to sleep loss varies somewhat with the age of the subject. Younger subjects show an earlier onset of disturbance and more physical reactions, while older subjects A hand closed lightly on Ralphs shoulder, startling him out of the book. I wonder what theyll look like? an ecstatic voice whispered in his ear, the words flowing on a tide of what smelled like spoiled bacon cooking slowly in a bath of garlic and rancid butter. Your guts, I mean. I wonder what theyll look like when I let them out all over the floor. What do you think, you Godless babykilling Centurion? Do you think theyll be yellow or black or red or what? Something hard and sharp pressed into Ralphs left side and then slowly traced its way down along his ribs. I cant wait to find out, the ecstatic voice whispered. I cant wait. 4 Ralph turned his head very slowly, hearing the tendons in his neck creak. He didnt know the name of the man with the bad breath the man who was sticking something that felt too much like a knife not to be one into his side but he recognized him at once. The hornrimmed glasses helped, but the zany gray hair, standing up in clumps that reminded Ralph simultaneously of Don King and Albert Einstein, was the clincher. It was the man who had been standing with Ed Deepneau in the background of the newspaper photo that had showed Ham Davenport with his fist raised and Dan Dalton wearing Davenports CHOICE, NOT FEAR sign for a hat. Ralph thought he had seen this same guy in some of the TV news stories about the continuing abortion demonstrations. Just another signwaving, chanting face in the crowd; just another spearcarrier. Except it now seemed that this particular spearcarrier intended to kill him. What do you think? the man in the Snoopy sweatshirt asked, still in that ecstatic whisper. The sound of his voice frightened Ralph more than the blade as it slid slowly up and then back down his leather jacket, seeming to map the vulnerable organs on the left side of his body lung, heart, kidney, intestines. What color? His breath was nauseating, but Ralph was afraid to pull back or turn his head, afraid that any gesture might cause the knife to stop tracking and plunge. Now it was moving back up his side again. Behind the thick lenses of his hornrims, the mans brown eyes floated like strange fish. The expression in them was disconnected and oddly frightened, Ralph thought. The eyes of a man who would see signs in the sky and perhaps hear voices whispering from deep in the closet late at night. I dont know, Ralph said. I dont know why youd want to hurt me in the first place. He shot his eyes quickly around, still not moving his head, hoping to see someone, anyone, but the reading room remained empty. Outside, the wind gusted and rain racketed against the windows. Because youre a fucking Centurion! the grayhaired man spat. A fucking babykiller! Stealing the fetal unborn! Selling them to the highest bidder! I know all about you! Ralph dropped his right hand slowly from the side of his head. He was righthanded, and all the stuff he happened to pick up in the course of the day generally went into the handiest righthand pocket of whatever he was wearing. The old gray jacket had big flap pockets, but he was afraid that even if he could sneak his hand in there unnoticed, the most lethal thing he would find was apt to be a crumpledup Dentyne wrapper. He doubted that he even had a nailclipper. Ed Deepneau told you that, didnt he? Ralph asked, then grunted as the knife poked painfully into his side just below the place where his ribs stopped. Dont speak his name, the man in the Snoopy sweatshirt whispered. Dont you even speak his name! Stealer of infants! Cowardly murderer! Centurion! He thrust forward with the blade again, and this time there was real pain as the tip punched through the leather jacket. Ralph didnt think he was cut yet, anyway but he was quite sure the nut had already applied enough pressure to leave a nasty bruise. That was okay, though; if he got out of this with no more than a bruise, he would count himself lucky. All right, he said. I wont mention his name. Say youre sorry! the man in the Snoopy sweatshirt hissed, prodding with the knife again. This time it went through Ralphs shirt, and he felt the first warm trickle of blood down his side. Whats under the point of the blade right now? he wondered. Liver? Gall bladder? Whats under there on the lefthand side? He either couldnt remember or didnt want to. A picture had come into his mind, and it was trying to get in the way of any organized thought a deer hung headdown from a set of scales outside some country store during hunting season. Glazed eyes, lolling tongue, and a dark slit up the belly where a man with a knife a knife just like this one had opened it up and yanked its works out, leaving just head, meat, and hide. Im sorry, Ralph said in a voice which was no longer steady. I am, really. Yeah, right! You ought to be, but you arent! You arent! Another prod. A bright lance of pain. More wet heat trickling down his side. And suddenly the room was brighter, as if two or three of the camera crews which had been wandering around Derry since the abortion protests began had crowded in here and turned on the floods they mounted over their videocams. There were no cameras, of course; the lights had gone on inside of him. He turned toward the man with the knife the man who was actually pressing the blade into him now and saw he was surrounded by a shifting green and black aura that made Ralph think of (swampfire) the dim phosphorescence he had sometimes seen in marshy woods after dark. Twisting through it were spiky brambles of purest black. He looked at his assailants aura with mounting dismay, hardly feeling the tip of the knife sink a sixteenth of an inch deeper into him. He was distantly aware that blood was puddling at the bottom of his shirt, along the line of his belt, but that was all. Hes crazy, and he really does mean to kill me it isnt just talk. Hes not quite ready to do it yet, he hasnt quite worked himself up to it, but hes almost there. And if I try to run if I try to move even an inch away from the knife hes got in me hell do it right away. I think hes hoping I will decide to move . . . then he can tell himself I brought it on myself, that it was my own fault. You and your kind, oh boy, the man with the zany shock of gray hair was saying. We know all about you. Ralphs hand had reached the right pocket . . . and felt a largish something inside he didnt recognize or remember putting there. Not that that meant much; when you could no longer remember if the last four digits of the cinema center phone number were 1317 or 1713, anything was possible. You guys, oh boy! the man with the zany hair said. Ohboy ohboy ohBOY! This time Ralph had no trouble feeling the pain when the man pushed with the knife; the tip spread a thin red net all the way across the curve of his chest wall and up the nape of his neck. He uttered a low moan, and his right hand clamped tight on the gray jackets righthand pocket, moulding the leather to the curved side of the object inside. Dont scream, the man with the zany hair said in that low, ecstatic whisper. Oh jeepers jeezly crow, you dont want to do that! His brown eyes peered at Ralphs face, and the lenses of his glasses so magnified them that the tiny flakes of dandruff caught in his lashes looked almost as big as pebbles. Ralph could see the mans aura even in his eyes it went sliding across his pupils like green smoke across black water. The snakelike twists running through the green light were thicker now, twining together, and Ralph understood that when the knife sank all the way in, the part of this mans personality which was generating those black swirls would be what pushed it. The green was confusion and paranoia; the black was something else. Something (from outside) much worse. No, he gasped. I wont. I wont scream. Good. I can feel your heart, you know. Its coming right up the blade of the knife and into the palm of my hand. It must be beating really hard. The mans mouth pulled up in a jerky, humorless smile. Flecks of spittle clung to the corners of his lips. Maybe youll just keel over and die of a heart attack, save me the trouble of killing you. Another gust of that sickening breath washed over Ralphs face. Youre awful old. Blood was now running down his side in what felt like two streams, maybe even three. The pain of the knifepoint gouging into him was maddening like the stinger of a gigantic bee. Or a pin, Ralph thought, and discovered that this idea was funny in spite of the fix he was in . . . or perhaps because of it. This was the real pinsticker man; James Roy Hong could be only a pale imitation. And I never had a chance to cancel this appointment, Ralph thought. But then again, he had an idea that nuts like the guy in the Snoopy sweatshirt didnt take cancellations. Nuts like this had their own agenda and they stuck to it, come hell or high water. Whatever else might happen, Ralph knew he couldnt stand that knifetip boring into him much longer. He used his thumb to lift the flap of his coat pocket and slipped his hand inside. He knew what the object was the minute his fingertips touched it the aerosol can Gretchen had taken out of her purse and put on his kitchen table. A little present from all your grateful friends at WomanCare, she had said. Ralph had no idea how it had gotten from the top of the kitchen cabinet where he had put it into the pocket of his battered old fall jacket, and he didnt care. His hand closed around it, and he used his thumb again, this time to pop off the cans plastic top. He never took his eyes away from the twitching, frightened, exhilarated face of the man with the zany hair as he did this. I know something, Ralph said. If you promise not to kill me, Ill tell you. What? the man with the zany hair asked. Jeepers, what could a scum like you know? What could a scum like me know? Ralph asked himself, and the answer came at once, popping into his mind like jackpot bars in the windows of a slot machine. He forced himself to lean into the green aura swirling around the man, into the terrible cloud of stink coming from his disturbed guts. At the same time he eased the small can from his pocket, held it against his thigh, and settled his index finger on the button which triggered the spray. I know who the Crimson King is, he murmured. The eyes widened behind the dirty hornrims not just in surprise but in shock and the man with the zany hair recoiled a little. For a moment the terrible pressure high on Ralphs left side eased. It was his chance, the only one he was apt to have, and he took it, throwing himself to the right, falling off his chair and tumbling to the floor. The back of his head smacked the tiles, but the pain seemed distant and unimportant compared to the relief at the removal of the knifepoint. The man with the zany hair squawked a sound of mingled rage and resignation, as if he had become used to such setbacks over his long and difficult life. He leaned over Ralphs nowempty chair, his twitching face thrust forward, his eyes looking like the sort of fantastic, glowing creatures which live in the oceans deepest trenches. Ralph raised the spraycan and had just a moment to realize he hadnt had time to check which direction the pinhole in the nozzle was pointing he might very well succeed only in giving himself a faceful of Bodyguard. No time to worry about that now. He pressed the nozzle as the man with the zany hair thrust his knife forward. The mans face was enveloped in a thin haze of droplets that looked like the stuff that came out of the pinescented airfreshener Ralph kept on the bathroom toilet tank. The lenses of his glasses fogged over. The result was immediate and all Ralph could have wished for. The man with the zany hair screamed in pain, dropped his knife (it landed on Ralphs left knee and came to rest between his legs), and clutched at his face, pulling his glasses off. They landed on the table. At the same time the thin, somehow greasy aura around him flashed a brilliant red and then winked out out of Ralphs view, at least. Im blind! the man with the zany hair cried in a high, shrieky voice. Im blind, Im blind! No, youre not, Ralph said, getting shakily to his feet. Youre just The man with the zany hair screamed again and fell to the floor. He rolled back and forth on the black and white tiles with his hands over his face, howling like a child who has gotten his hand caught in a door. Ralph could see little piewedges of cheeks between his splayed fingers. The skin there was turning an alarming shade of red. Ralph told himself to leave the guy alone, that he was crazy as a loon and dangerous as a rattlesnake, but he found himself too horrified and ashamed of what he had done to take this no doubt excellent advice. The idea that it had been a matter of survival, of disabling his assailant or dying, had already begun to seem unreal. He bent down and put a tentative hand on the mans arm. The nut rolled away from him and began to drum his dirty lowtop sneakers on the floor like a child having a tantrum. Oh you son of a bitch! he was screaming. You shot me with something! And then, incredibly Ill sue the pants off you! Youll have to explain about the knife before youre able to progress much with your lawsuit, I think, Ralph said. He saw the knife lying on the floor, reached for it, then thought again. It would be better if his fingerprints werent on it. As he straightened, a wave of dizziness rushed through his head and for a moment the rain beating against the window sounded hollow and distant. He kicked the knife away, then tottered on his feet and had to grab the back of the chair hed been sitting in to keep from falling over. Things steadied again. He heard approaching footsteps from the main lobby and murmuring, questioning voices. Now you come, Ralph thought wearily. Where were you three minutes ago, when this guy was on the verge of popping my left lung like a balloon? Mike Hanlon, looking slim and no more than thirty despite his tight cap of gray hair, appeared in the doorway. Behind him was the teenage boy Ralph recognized as the weekend desk assistant, and behind the teenager were four or five gawkers, probably from the periodicals room. Mr Roberts! Mike exclaimed. Christ, how bad are you hurt? Im fine, its him thats hurt, Ralph said. But he happened to look down at himself as he pointed at the man on the floor and saw he wasnt fine. His coat had pulled up when he pointed, and the left side of the plaid shirt beneath had gone a deep, sodden red in a teardrop shape that started just below the armpit and spread out from there. Shit, he said faintly, and sat down in his chair again. He bumped the hornrimmed glasses with his elbow and they skittered almost all the way across the table. The mist of droplets on their lenses made them look like eyes which had been blinded by cataracts. He shot me with acid! the man on the floor screamed. I cant see and my skin is melting! I can feel it melting! To Ralph, he sounded like an almost conscious parody of the Wicked Witch of the West. Mike tossed a quick glance at the man on the floor, then sat down in the chair next to Ralph. What happened? Well, it sure wasnt acid, Ralph said, and held up the can of Bodyguard. He set it on the table beside Patterns of Dreaming. The lady who gave it to me said its not as strong as Mace, it just irritates your eyes and makes you sick to your Its not whats wrong with him that Im worried about, Mike said impatiently. Anyone who can yell that loud probably isnt going to die in the next three minutes. Its you Im worried about, Mr Roberts any idea how bad he stabbed you? He didnt actually stab me at all, Ralph said. He . . . sort of poked me. With that. He pointed at the knife lying on the tile floor. At the sight of the red tip, he felt another wave of faintness track through his head. It felt like an express train made of feather pillows. That was stupid, of course, made no sense at all, but he wasnt in a very sensible frame of mind. The assistant was looking cautiously down at the man on the floor. Uhoh, he said. We know this guy, Mike its Charlie Pickering. Goodnessgracious, great balls of fire, Mike said. Now why arent I surprised? He looked at the teenage assistant and sighed. Better call the cops, Justin. It looks like weve got us a situation here. 5 Am I in trouble for using that? Ralph asked an hour later, and pointed to one of the two sealed plastic bags sitting on the cluttered surface of the desk in Mike Hanlons office. A strip of yellow tape, marked EVIDENCE Aerosol can DATE 3 October 93 and SITE Derry Public Library ran across the front. Not as much as our old pal Charlies going to be in for using this, John Leydecker said, and pointed to the other sealed bag. The hunting knife was inside, the blood on the tip now dried to a tacky maroon. Leydecker was wearing a University of Maine football sweater today. It made him look approximately the size of a dairy barn. We still pretty much believe in the concept of selfdefense out here in the sticks. We dont talk it up much, though its sort of like admitting you believe the world is flat. Mike Hanlon, who was leaning in the doorway, laughed. Ralph hoped his face didnt show how deeply relieved he felt. As a paramedic (one of the guys who had run Helen Deepneau to the hospital back in August, for all he knew) worked on him first photographing, then disinfecting, finally butterflyclamping and bandaging he had sat with his teeth gritted, imagining a judge sentencing him to six months in the county clink for assault with a semideadly weapon. Hopefully, Mr Roberts, this will serve as an example and a warning to any other old farts in this vicinity who may feel justified in carrying around spraycans of disabling nerve gas . . . Leydecker looked once more at the six Polaroid photographs lined up along the side of Hanlons computer terminal. The freshfaced emergency medical technician had taken the first three before patching Ralph up. These showed a small dark circle it looked like the sort of oversized period made by children just learning to print low down on Ralphs side. The EMT had taken the second set of three after applying the butterfly clamp and getting Ralphs signature on a form attesting to the fact that he had been offered hospital service and had refused it. In this latter group of photographs, the beginnings of what was going to be an absolutely spectacular bruise could be seen. God bless Edwin Land and Richard Polaroid, Leydecker said, putting the photographs into another EVIDENCE Baggie. I dont think there ever was a Richard Polaroid, Mike Hanlon said from his spot in the doorway. Probably not, but God bless him just the same. No jury who got a look at these photos would do anything but give you a medal, Ralph, and not even Clarence Darrow could keep em out of evidence. He looked back at Mike. Charlie Pickering. Mike nodded. Charlie Pickering. Fuckhead. Mike nodded again. Fuckhead deluxe. The two of them looked at each other solemnly, then burst into gales of laughter at the same moment. Ralph understood exactly how they felt it was funny because it was awful and awful because it was funny and he had to bite his lips savagely to keep from joining them. The last thing in the world he wanted to do right now was get laughing; it would hurt like a bastard. Leydecker took a handkerchief out of his back pocket, mopped his streaming eyes with it, and began to get himself under control. Pickerings one of the righttolifers, isnt he? Ralph asked. He was remembering how Pickering had looked when Hanlons teenage assistant had helped him sit up. Without his glasses, the man had looked about as dangerous as a bunny in a petshop window. You could say that, Mike agreed dryly. Hes the one they caught last year in the parking garage that services the hospital and WomanCare. He had a can of gasoline in his hand and a knapsack filled with empty bottles on his back. Also strips of sheeting, dont forget those, Leydecker said. Those were going to be his fuses. That was back when Charlie was a member in good standing of Daily Bread. How close did he come to lighting the place up? Ralph asked curiously. Leydecker shrugged. Not very. Someone in the group apparently decided firebombing the local womens clinic might be a little closer to terrorism than politics and made an anonymous phone call to your local police authority. Good deal, Mike said. He snorted another little chuckle, then crossed his arms as if to hold any further outburst inside. Yeah, Leydecker said. He laced his fingers together, stretched out his arms, and popped his knuckles. Instead of prison, a thoughtful, caring judge sent Charlie to Juniper Hill for six months worth of treatment and therapy, and they must have decided he was okay, because hes been back in town since July or so. Yep, Mike agreed. Hes down here just about every day. Kind of improving the tone of the place. |
Buttonholes everyone who comes in, practically, and gives them his little peptalk on how any woman who has an abortion is going to perish in brimstone, and how the real baddies like Susan Day are going to burn forever in a lake of fire. But I cant figure out why hed take after you, Mr Roberts. Just lucky, I guess. Are you okay, Ralph? Leydecker asked. You look pale. Im fine, Ralph said, although he did not feel fine; in fact, he had begun to feel very queasy. I dont know about fine, but youre sure lucky. Lucky those women gave you that can of peppergas, lucky you had it with you, and luckiest of all that Pickering didnt just walk up behind you and stick that knife of his into the nape of your neck. Do you feel like coming down to the station and making a formal statement now, or Ralph abruptly lunged out of Mike Hanlons ancient swivel chair, bolted across the room with his left hand over his mouth, and clawed open the door in the rear right corner of the office, praying it wasnt a closet. If it was, he was probably going to fill up Mikes galoshes with a partially processed grilled cheese sandwich and some slightly used tomato soup. It turned out to be the room he needed. Ralph dropped to his knees in front of the toilet and vomited with his eyes closed and his left arm clamped tightly against the hole Pickering had made in his side. The pain as his muscles first locked and then pushed was still enormous. I take it thats a no, Mike Hanlon said from behind him, and then put a comforting hand on the back of Ralphs neck. Are you okay? Did you get that thing bleeding again? I dont think so, Ralph said. He started to unbutton his shirt, then paused and clamped his arm tight against his side again as his stomach gave another lurch before quieting once more. He raised his arm and looked at the dressing. It was pristine. I appear to be okay. Good, Leydecker said. He was standing just behind the librarian. You done? I think so, yes. Ralph looked at Mike shamefacedly. I apologize for that. Dont be a goof. Mike helped Ralph to his feet. Come on, Leydecker said,Ill give you a ride home. Tomorrow will be time enough for the statement. What you need is to put your feet up the rest of today, and a good nights sleep tonight. Nothing like a good nights sleep, Ralph agreed. They had reached the office door. You want to let go of my arm now, Detective Leydecker? Were not going steady just yet, are we? Leydecker looked startled, then dropped Ralphs arm. Mike started to laugh again. Not going Thats pretty good, Mr Roberts. Leydecker was smiling. I guess were not, but you can call me Jack, if you want. Or John. Just not Johnny. Since my mother died, the only one who calls me Johnny is old Prof McGovern. Old Prof McGovern, Ralph thought. How strange that sounds. Okay John it is. And both of you guys can call me Ralph. As far as Im concerned, Mr Roberts is always going to be a Broadway play starring Henry Fonda. You got it, Mike Hanlon said. And take care of yourself. Ill try, he said, then stopped in his tracks. Listen, I have something to thank you for, quite apart from your help today. Mike raised his eyebrows. Oh? Yes. You hired Helen Deepneau. Shes one of my favorite people, and she desperately needed the job. So thanks. Mike smiled and nodded. Ill be happy to accept the bouquets, but shes the one who did me the favor, really. Shes actually overqualified for the job, but I think she wants to stay in town. So do I, and youve helped make it possible. So thanks again. Mike grinned. My pleasure. 6 As Ralph and Leydecker stepped out behind the circulation desk, Leydecker said I guess that honeycomb must have really turned the trick, huh? Ralph at first had absolutely no idea what the big detective was talking about he might as well have asked a question in Esperanto. Your insomnia, Leydecker said patiently. You got past it, right? Must have you look a gajillion times better than on the day I first met you. I was a little stressed that day, Ralph said. He found himself remembering the old Billy Crystal routine about Fernando the one that went, Listen, dahling, dont be a schnook; its not how you feel, its how you look! And you . . . look . . . MAHVELLOUS! And youre not today? Cmon, Ralph, this is me. So give was it the honeycomb? Ralph appeared to think this over, then nodded. Yes, I guess that must have been what did it. Fantastic! Didnt I tell you? Leydecker said cheerfully as they pushed their way out into the rainy afternoon. 7 They were waiting for the light at the top of UpMile Hill when Ralph turned to Leydecker and asked what the chances were of nailing Ed as Charlie Pickerings accomplice. Because Ed put him up to it, he said. I know that as well as I know thats Strawford Park over there. Youre probably right, Leydecker replied, but dont kid yourself the chances of nailing him as an accomplice are shitty. They wouldnt be very good even if the County Prosecutor wasnt as conservative as Dale Cox. Why not? First of all, I doubt if well be able to show any deep connection between the two men. Second, guys like Pickering tend to be fiercely loyal to the people they identify as friends, because they have so few of them their worlds are mostly made up of enemies. Under interrogation I dont think Pickering will repeat much or any of what he told you while he was tickling your ribs with his hunting knife. Third, Ed Deepneau is no fool. Crazy, yes maybe crazier than Pickering, when you get right down to it but not a fool. He wont admit anything. Ralph nodded. It was exactly his opinion of Ed. If Pickering did say that Deepneau ordered him to find you and waste you on the grounds that you were one of these babykilling, fetussnatching Centurions Ed would just smile at us and nod and say he was sure that poor Charlie had told us that, that poor Charlie might even believe that, but that didnt make it true. The light turned green. Leydecker drove through the intersection, then bent left onto Harris Avenue. The windshield wipers thumped and flapped. Strawford Park, on Ralphs right, looked like a wavery mirage through the rain streaming down the passenger window. And what could we say to that? Leydecker asked. The fact is, Charlie Pickering has got a long history of mental instability when it comes to nuthatches, hes made the grand tour Juniper Hill, Acadia Hospital, Bangor Mental Health Institute . . . if its a place where they have free electrical treatments and jackets that button up the back, Charlies most likely been there. These days his hobbyhorse is abortion. Back in the late sixties he had a bug up his ass about Margaret Chase Smith. He wrote letters to everyone Derry PD, the State Police, the FBI claiming she was a Russian spy. He had the evidence, he said. Good God, thats incredible. Nope; thats Charlie Pickering, and I bet theres a dozen like him in every city this size in the United States. Hell, all over the world. Ralphs hand crept to his left side and touched the square of bandage there. His fingers traced the butterfly shape beneath the gauze. What he kept remembering was Pickerings magnified brown eyes how they had looked terrified and ecstatic at the same time. He was already having trouble believing the man to whom those eyes belonged had almost killed him, and he was afraid that by tomorrow the whole thing would seem like one of the socalled breakthrough dreams James A. Halls book talked about. The bitch of it is, Ralph, a nut like Charlie Pickering makes the perfect tool for a guy like Deepneau. Right now our little wifebeating buddy has got about a ton of deniability. Leydecker turned into the driveway next to Ralphs building and parked behind a large Oldsmobile with blotches of rust on the trunk lid and a very old sticker DUKAKIS 88 on the bumper. Whos that brontosaurus belong to? The Prof? No, Ralph said. Thats my brontosaurus. Leydecker gave him an unbelieving look as he shoved the gearshift lever of his strippedtothebone Police Department Chevy into Park. If you own a car, how come youre out standing around the bus stop in the pouring rain? Doesnt it run? It runs, Ralph said a little stiffly, not wanting to add that he could be wrong about that; he hadnt had the Olds on the road in over two months. And I wasnt standing around in the pouring rain; its a bus shelter, not a bus stop. It has a roof. Even a bench inside. No cable TV, true, but wait till next year. Still . . . Leydecker said, gazing doubtfully at the Olds. I spent the last fifteen years of my working life driving a desk, but before that I was a salesman. For twentyfive years or so I averaged eight hundred miles a week. By the time I settled in at the printshop, I didnt care if I ever sat behind the wheel of a car again. And since my wife died, there hardly ever seems to be any reason to drive. The bus does me just fine for most things. All true enough; Ralph saw no need to add that he had increasingly come to mistrust both his reflexes and his short vision. A year ago, a kid of about seven had chased his football out into Harris Avenue as Ralph was coming back from the movies, and although he had been going only twenty miles an hour, Ralph had thought for two endless, horrifying seconds that he was going to run the little boy down. He hadnt, of course it hadnt even been close, not really but since then he thought he could count the number of times hed driven the Olds on both hands. He saw no need to tell John that, either. Well, whatever does it for you, Leydecker said, giving the Olds a vague wave. How does one oclock tomorrow afternoon sound for that statement, Ralph? I come on at noon, so I could kind of look over your shoulder. Buy you a coffee, if you wanted one. That sounds fine. And thanks for the ride home. No problem. One other thing . . . Ralph had started to open the car door. Now he closed it again and turned back to Leydecker, eyebrows raised. Leydecker looked down at his hands, shifted uncomfortably behind the wheel, cleared his throat, then looked up again. I just wanted to say that I think youre a class act, Leydecker said. Lots of guys forty years younger than you would have finished todays little adventure in the hospital. Or the morgue. My guardian angel was looking out for me, I guess, Ralph said, thinking of how surprised he had been when he realized what the round shape in his jacket pocket was. Well, maybe that was it, but you still want to be sure to lock your door tonight. You hear what Im saying? Ralph smiled and nodded. Warranted or not, Leydeckers praise had made a warm spot in his chest. I will, and if I can just get McGovern to cooperate, everything will be hunkydory. Also, he thought, I can always go down and doublecheck the lock myself when I wake up. That should be just about two and a half hours after I fall asleep, the way things are going. Everything is going to be hunkydory, Leydecker said. No one down where I work was very pleased when Deepneau more or less coopted The Friends of Life, but I cant say we were surprised hes an attractive, charismatic guy. If, that is, you happen to catch him on a day when he hasnt been using his wife for a punchingbag. Ralph nodded. On the other hand, weve seen guys like him before, and they have a way of selfdestructing. That process has already started with Deepneau. Hes lost his wife, hes lost his job . . . did you know that? Uhhuh. Helen told me. Now hes losing his more moderate followers. Theyre peeling off like jet fighters heading back to base because theyre running out of fuel. Not Ed, though hes going on come hell or high water. I imagine hell keep at least some of them with him until the Susan Day speech, but after that I think its gonna be a case of the cheese stands alone. Has it occurred to you that he might try something Friday? That he might try to hurt Susan Day? Oh yes, Leydecker said. Its occurred to us, all right. It certainly has. 8 Ralph was extremely happy to find the porch door locked this time. He unlocked it just long enough to let himself in, then trudged up the front stairs, which seemed longer and gloomier than ever this afternoon. The apartment seemed too silent in spite of the steady beat of the rain on the roof, and the air seemed to smell of too many sleepless nights. Ralph took one of the chairs from the kitchen table over to the counter, stood on it, and looked at the top of the cabinet closest to the sink. It was as if he expected to find another can of Bodyguard the original can, the one hed put up here after seeing Helen and her friend Gretchen off on top of that cabinet, and part of him actually did expect that. There was nothing up there, however, but a toothpick, an old Buss fuse, and a lot of dust. He got carefully down off the chair, saw he had left muddy footprints on the seat, and used a swatch of paper towels to wipe them away. Then he replaced the chair at the table and went into the living room. He stood there, letting his eyes run from the couch with its dingy floral coverlet to the wingchair to the old television sitting on its oak table between the two windows looking out on Harris Avenue. From the TV his gaze moved into the far corner. When he had come into the apartment yesterday, still a little on edge from finding the porch door unlatched, Ralph had briefly mistaken his jacket hanging on the coattree in that corner for an intruder. Well, no need to be coy; he had thought for a moment that Ed had decided to pay him a visit. I never hang my coat up, though. It was one of the things about me one of the few, I think that used to genuinely irritate Carolyn. And if I never managed to get in the habit of hanging it up when she was alive, I sure as shit havent since she died. No, Im not the one who hung this jacket up. Ralph crossed the room, rummaging in the pockets of the gray leather jacket and putting the stuff he found on top of the television. Nothing in the left but an old roll of Life Savers with lint clinging to the top one, but the righthand pocket was a treasuretrove even with the aerosol can gone. There was a lemon Tootsie Pop, still in its wrapper; a crumpled advertising circular from the Derry House of Pizza; a doubleA battery; a small empty carton that had once contained an apple pie from McDonalds; his discount card from Daves Video Stop, just four punches away from a free rental (the card had been MIA for over two weeks and Ralph had been sure it was lost); a book of matches; various scraps of tinfoil . . . and a folded piece of lined blue paper. Ralph unfolded it and read a single sentence, written in a scrawling, slightly unsteady old mans script Each thing I do I rush through so I can do something else. That was all there was, but it was enough to confirm for his brain what his heart already knew Dorrance Marstellar had been on the porch steps when Ralph had returned from Back Pages with his paperbacks, but hed had other stuff to do before sitting down to wait. He had gone up to Ralphs apartment, taken the aerosol can from the top of the kitchen shelf, and put it in the righthand pocket of Ralphs old gray jacket. He had even left his callingcard a bit of poetry scrawled on a piece of paper probably torn from the battered notebook in which he sometimes recorded arrivals and departures along Runway 3. Then, instead of returning the jacket to wherever Ralph had left it, Old Dor had hung it neatly on the coattree. With that accomplished (donebuncantbeundone) he had returned to the porch to wait. Last night Ralph had given McGovern a scolding for leaving the front door unlocked again, and McGovern had borne it as patiently as Ralph himself had borne Carolyns scoldings about tossing his jacket onto the nearest chair when he came in instead of hanging it up, but now Ralph found himself wondering if he hadnt accused Bill unjustly. Perhaps Old Dor had picked the lock . . . or witched it. Under the circumstances, witchery seemed the more likely choice. Because . . . Because look, Ralph said in a low voice, mechanically scooping his pocket litter up from the top of the TV and dumping it back into his pockets. It isnt just like he knew Id need the stuff; he knew where to find it, and he knew where to put it. A chill zigzagged up his back at that, and his mind tried to gavel the whole idea down to label it mad, illogical, just the sort of thing a man with a gradeA case of insomnia would think up. Maybe so. But that didnt explain the scrap of paper, did it? He looked at the scrawled words on the bluelined sheet again Each thing I do I rush through so I can do something else. That wasnt his handwriting any more than Cemetery Nights was his book. Except it is now; Dor gave it to me, Ralph said, and the chill raced up his back again, jagged as a crack in a windshield. And what other explanation comes to mind? That can didnt just fly into your pocket. The sheet of notepaper, either. That sense of being pushed by invisible hands toward the maw of some dark tunnel had returned. Feeling like a man in a dream, Ralph walked back toward the kitchen. On the way he slipped out of the gray jacket and tossed it over the arm of the couch without even thinking about it. He stood in the doorway for some time, looking fixedly at the calendar with its picture of two laughing boys carving a jackolantern. Looking at tomorrows date, which was circled. Cancel the appointment with the pinsticker man, Dorrance had said; that was the message, and today the knifesticker man had more or less underlined it. Hell, lit it in neon. Ralph hunted out a number in the Yellow Pages and dialed it. You have reached the office of Dr James Roy Hong, a pleasant female voice informed him. There is no one available to take your call right now, so please leave a message at the sound of the tone. We will get back to you just as soon as possible. The answering machine beeped. In a voice which surprised him with its steadiness, Ralph saidThis is Ralph Roberts. Im scheduled to come in tomorrow at ten oclock. Im sorry, but I wont be able to make it. Something has come up. Thank you. He paused, then added Ill pay for the appointment, of course. He shut his eyes and groped the phone back into the cradle. Then he leaned his forehead against the wall. What are you doing, Ralph? What in Gods name do you think youre doing? Its a long walk back to Eden, sweetheart. You cant seriously think whatever youre thinking . . . can you? . . . a long walk, so dont sweat the small stuff. What exactly are you thinking, Ralph? He didnt know; he didnt have the slightest idea. Something about fate, he supposed, and appointments in Samarra. He only knew for sure that rings of pain were spreading out from the little hole in his left side, the hole the knifesticker man had made. The EMT had given him half a dozen painpills and he supposed he should take one, but just now he felt too tired to go to the sink and draw a glass of water . . . and if he was too tired to cross one shitty little room, how the hell would he ever make the long walk back to Eden? Ralph didnt know, and for the time being he didnt care. He only wanted to stand where he was, with his forehead against the wall and his eyes shut so he wouldnt have to look at anything. CHAPTER EIGHT 1 The beach was a long white edging, like a flirt of silk slip at the hem of the bright blue sea, and it was totally empty except for a round object about seventy yards away. This round object was about the size of a basketball, and it filled Ralph with a fear that was both deep and for the moment, at least groundless. Dont go near it, he told himself. Theres something bad about it. Something really bad. Its a black dog barking at a blue moon, blood in the sink, a raven perched on a bust of Pallas just inside my chamber door. You dont want to go near it, Ralph, and you dont need to go near it, because this is one of Joe Wyzers lucid dreams. You can just turn and cruise away, if you want. Except his feet began to carry him forward anyway, so maybe this wasnt a lucid dream. Not pleasant, either, not at all. Because the closer he got to that object on the beach, the less it looked like a basketball. It was by far the most realistic dream Ralph had ever experienced, and the fact that he knew he was dreaming actually seemed to heighten that sense of realism. Of lucidity. He could feel the fine, loose sand under his bare feet, warm but not hot; he could hear the grinding, rockthroated roar of the incoming waves as they lost their balance and sprawled their way up the lower beach, where the sand glistened like wet tanned skin; could smell salt and drying seaweed, a strong and tearful smell that reminded him of summer vacations spent at Old Orchard Beach when he was a child. Hey, old buddy, if you cant change this dream, I think maybe you ought to hit the ejection switch and bail out of it wake yourself up, in other words, and right away. He had closed half the distance to the object on the beach and there was no longer any question about what it was not a basketball but a head. Someone had buried a human being up to the chin in the sand . . . and, Ralph suddenly realized, the tide was coming in. He didnt bail out; he began to run. As he did, the frothy edge of a wave touched the head. It opened its mouth and began to scream. Even raised in a shriek, Ralph knew that voice at once. It was Carolyns voice. The froth of another wave ran up the beach and backwashed the hair which had been clinging to the heads wet cheeks. Ralph began to run faster, knowing he was almost certainly going to be too late. The tide was coming in fast. It would drown her long before he could free her buried body from the sand. You dont have to save her, Ralph. Carolyns already dead, and it didnt happen on some deserted beach. It happened in Room 317 of Derry Home Hospital. You were with her at the end, and the sound you heard wasnt surf but sleet hitting the window. Remember? He remembered, but he ran faster nevertheless, sending puffs of sugary sand out behind him. You wont ever get to her, though; you know how it is in dreams, dont you? Each thing you rush toward turns into something else. No, that wasnt how the poem went . . . or was it? Ralph couldnt be sure. All he clearly remembered now was that it had ended with the narrator running blindly from something deadly (Glancing over my shoulder I see its shape) which was hunting him through the woods . . . hunting him and closing in. Yet he was getting closer to the dark shape on the sand. It wasnt changing into anything else, either, and when he fell on his knees before Carolyn, he understood at once why he had not been able to recognize his wife of fortyfive years, even from a distance something was terribly wrong with her aura. It clung to her skin like a filthy drycleaning bag. When Ralphs shadow fell on her, Carolyns eyes rolled up like the eyes of a horse that has shattered its leg going over a high fence. She was breathing in rapid, frightened gasps, and each expulsion of air sent jets of grayblack aura from her nostrils. The tattered balloonstring straggling up from the crown of her head was the purpleblack of a festering wound. When she opened her mouth to scream again, an unpleasant glowing substance flew from her lips in gummy strings which disappeared almost as soon as his eyes had registered their existence. Ill save you, Carol! he shouted. He fell on his knees and began digging at the sand around her like a dog digging up a bone . . . and as the thought occurred to him, he realized that Rosalie, the early morning scavenger of Harris Avenue, was sitting tiredly behind his screaming wife. It was as if the dog had been summoned by the thought. Rosalie, he saw, was also surrounded by one of those filthy black auras. She had Bill McGoverns missing Panama hat between her paws, and it looked as though she had enjoyed many a good chew on it since it had come into her possession. So thats where the damn hat went, Ralph thought, then turned back to Carolyn and began to dig even faster. So far he hadnt managed to uncover so much as a single shoulder. Never mind me! Carolyn screamed at him. Im already dead, remember? Watch for the whiteman tracks, Ralph! The A wave, glassy green on the bottom and the curdled white of soapsuds on top, broke less than ten feet from the beach. It ran up the sand toward them, freezing Ralphs balls with cold water and burying Carolyns head momentarily in a gritfilled surge of foam. When the wave retreated, Ralph raised his own horrorfilled shriek to the indifferent blue sky. The retreating wave had done in seconds what it had taken the radiation treatments almost a month to do; took her hair, washed her bald. And the crown of her head had begun to bulge at the spot where the blackish balloonstring was attached. Carolyn, no! he howled, digging even faster. The sand was now dank and unpleasantly heavy. Never mind, she said. Grayblack puffs came from her mouth with each word, like dirty vapor from an industrial smokestack. Its just the tumor, and its inoperable, so dont lose any sleep over that part of the show. What the hell, its a long walk back to Eden, so dont sweat the small stuff, right? But you have to keep an eye out for those tracks . . . Carolyn, I dont know what youre talking about! Another wave came, wetting Ralph to the waist and inundating Carolyn again. When it withdrew, the swelling on the crown of her head was beginning to split open. Youll find out soon enough, Carolyn replied, and then the swelling on her head popped with a sound like a hammer striking a slab of meat. A haze of blood flew into the clear, saltsmelling air, and a horde of black bugs the size of cockroaches were pouring out of her. Ralph had never seen anything like them before not even in a dream and they filled him with an almost hysterical loathing. He would have fled, Carolyn or not, but he was frozen in place, too stunned to move a single finger, let alone get up and run. Some of the black bugs ran back into Carolyn by way of her screaming mouth, but most of them hurried down her check and shoulder to the wet sand. Their accusing, alien eyes never left Ralph as they went. All this is your fault, the eyes seemed to say. You could have saved her, Ralph, and a better man would have saved her. Carolyn! he screamed. He put his hands out to her, then pulled them back, terrified of the black bugs, which were still spewing out of her head. Behind her, Rosalie sat in her own small pocket of darkness, looking gravely at him and now holding McGoverns misplaced chapeau in her mouth. One of Carolyns eyes popped out and lay on the wet sand like a blob of blueberry jelly. Bugs vomited from the nowempty socket. Carolyn! he screamed. Carolyn! Carolyn! Car 2 olyn! Carolyn! Car Suddenly, in the same instant that he knew the dream was over, Ralph was falling. He barely registered the fact before he thumped to the bedroom floor. He managed to break his fall with one outstretched hand, probably saving himself a nasty rap on the head but provoking a howl of pain from beneath the butterfly bandage taped high up on his left side. For the moment, at least, he barely registered the pain. What he felt was fear, revulsion, a horrible, aching grief . . . and most of all an overwhelming sense of gratitude. The bad dream surely the worst dream hed ever had was over, and he was in the world of real things again. He pulled back his mostly unbuttoned pajama top, checked the bandage for bleeding, saw none, and then sat up. Just doing that much seemed to exhaust him; the thought of getting up, even long enough to fall back into bed, seemed out of the question for the time being. Maybe after his panicky, racing heart slowed down a little. Can people die of bad dreams? he wondered, and in answer he heard Joe Wyzers voice You bet they can, Ralph, although the medical examiner usually ends up writing suicide on the causeofdeath line. In the shaky aftermath of his nightmare, sitting on the floor and hugging his knees with his right arm, Ralph had no real doubt that some dreams were powerful enough to kill. The details of this one were fading out now, but he could still remember the climax all too well that thudding sound, like a hammer hitting a thick cut of beef, and the vile spew of bugs from Carolyns head. Plump they had been, plump and lively, and why not? They had been feasting on his dead wifes brain. Ralph uttered a low, watery moan and swiped at his face with his left hand, provoking another jolt from beneath the bandage. His palm came away slick with sweat. What, exactly, had she been telling him to watch out for? Whiteman traps? No tracks, not traps. Whiteman tracks, whatever they were. Had there been more? Maybe, maybe not. He couldnt remember for sure, and so what? It had been a dream, for Christs sake, just a dream, and outside of the fantasy world described in the tabloid newspapers, dreams meant nothing and proved nothing. When a person went to sleep, his mind seemed to turn into a kind of rathouse bargain hunter, sifting through the discount bins of mostly worthless shortterm memories, looking not for items which were valuable or even useful but only for things that were still bright and shiny. These it put together in freakshow collages which were often striking but had, for the most part, all the sense of Natalie Deepneaus conversation. Rosalie the dog had turned up, even Bills missing Panama had made a cameo appearance, but it all meant nothing . . . except tomorrow night he would not take one of the painpills the EMT had given him even if his arm felt like it was falling off. Not only had the one hed taken during the late news failed to keep him under, as he had hoped and halfexpected; it had probably played its own part in causing the nightmare. Ralph managed to get up off the floor and sit on the edge of the bed. A wave of faintness floated through his head like parachute silk, and he shut his eyes until the feeling passed. While he was sitting there with his head down and his eyes closed, he groped for the lamp on the bedside table and turned it on. When he opened his eyes, the area of the bedroom lit by its warm yellow glow looked very bright and very real. He looked at the clock beside the lamp 148 a.m., and he felt totally awake and totally alert, painpill or no painpill. He got up, walked slowly into the kitchen, and put on the teakettle. Then he leaned against the counter, absently massaging the bandage beneath his left armpit, trying to quiet the throbbing his most recent adventures had awakened there. When the kettle steamed, he poured hot water over a bag of Sleepytime there was a joke for you and then took the cup into the living room. He plopped into the wingback chair without bothering to turn on a light; the streetlamps and the dim glow coming from the bedroom provided all he needed. Well, he thought, here I am again, front row center. Let the play begin. Time passed, just how much he could not have said, but the throbbing beneath his arm had eased and the tea had gone from hot to barely lukewarm when he registered movement at the corner of his eye. Ralph turned his head, expecting to see Rosalie, but it wasnt Rosalie. It was two men stepping out onto the stoop of a house on the other side of Harris Avenue. Ralph couldnt make out the colors of the house the orange arcsodiums the city had installed several years ago provided great visibility but made any perception of true colors almost impossible yet he could see that the color of the trim was radically different from the color of the rest. That, coupled with its location, made Ralph almost positive it was May Lochers house. The two men on May Lochers stoop were very short, probably no more than four feet tall. They appeared to be surrounded by greenish auras. |
They were dressed in identical white smocks, which looked to Ralph like the ones worn by actors in those old TV docoperas black and white melodramas like Ben Casey and Dr Kildare. One of them had something in his hand. Ralph squinted. He couldnt make it out, but it had a sharp and hungry look. He could not have sworn under oath that it was a knife, but he thought it might be. Yes, it might very well be a knife. His first clear evaluative thought about this experience was that the men over there looked like aliens in a movie about UFO abductions Communion, perhaps, or Fire in the Sky. His second was that he had fallen asleep again, right here in his wingchair, without even noticing. Thats right, Ralph its just a little more rummagesale action, probably brought on by the stress of being stabbed and helped along by that frigging painpill. He sensed nothing frightening about the two figures on May Lochers stoop other than the long, sharplooking thing one of them was holding. Ralph supposed that not even your dreaming mind could do much with a couple of short bald guys wearing white tunics which looked left over from Central Casting. Also, there was nothing frightening about their behaviour nothing furtive, nothing menacing. They stood on the stoop as if they had every right to be there in the darkest, stillest hour of the morning. They were facing each other, the attitudes of their bodies and large bald heads suggesting two old friends having a sober, civilized conversation. They looked thoughtful and intelligent the kind of spacetravellers who would be more apt to say We come in peace than kidnap you, stick a probe up your ass, and then take notes on your reaction. All right, so maybe this new dreams not an outandout nightmare. After the last one, are you complaining? No, of course he wasnt. Winding up on the floor once a night was plenty, thanks. Yet there was something very disquieting about this dream just the same; it felt real in a way that his dream of Carolyn had not. This was his own living room, after all, not some weird, deserted beach he had never seen before. He was sitting in the same wingback chair where he sat every morning, holding a cup of tea which was now almost cold in his left hand, and when he raised the fingers of his right hand to his nose, as he was doing now, he could still smell a faint whiff of soap beneath the nails . . . the Irish Spring he liked to use in the shower . . . Ralph suddenly reached beneath his left armpit and pressed his fingers to the bandage there. The pain was immediate and intense . . . but the two small bald men in the white tunics stayed right where they were, on May Lochers doorstep. It doesnt matter what you think you feel, Ralph. It cant matter, because Fuck you! Ralph said in a hoarse, low voice. He rose from the wingchair, putting his cup down on the little table beside it as he did. Sleepytime slopped onto the TV Guide there. Fuck you, this is no dream! 3 He hurried across the living room to the kitchen, pajamas flapping, old worn slippers scuffing and thumping, the place where Charlie Pickering had stuck him sending out hot little bursts of pain. He grabbed a chair and took it into the apartments small foyer. There was a closet here. Ralph opened its door, snapped on the light just inside, positioned the chair so he would be able to reach the closets top shelf, and then stood on it. The shelf was a clutter of lost or forgotten items, most of which had belonged to Carolyn. These were small things, little more than scraps, but looking at them drove away the last lingering conviction that this had to be a dream. There was an ancient bag of MMs her secret snackfood, her comfortfood. There was a lace heart, a single discarded white satin pump with a broken heel, a photo album. These things hurt a lot more than the knifeprick under his arm, but he had no time to hurt just now. Ralph leaned forward, placing his left hand on the high, dusty shelf to balance his weight, then began to shuffle through the junk with his right hand, all the while praying that the kitchen chair wouldnt take a notion to scoot out from under him. The wound below his armpit was now throbbing outrageously, and he knew he was going to get it bleeding again if he didnt stop the athletics soon, but . . . Im sure theyre up here somewhere . . . well . . . almost sure . . . He pushed aside his old flybox and his wicker creel. There was a stack of magazines behind the creel. The one on top was an issue of Look with Andy Williams on the cover. Ralph shoved them aside with the heel of his hand, sending up a flurry of dust. The old bag of MMs fell to the floor and split open, spraying brightly colored bits of candy in every direction. Ralph leaned even farther forward, now almost on his toes. He supposed it was his imagination, but he thought he could sense the kitchen chair he was on getting ready to be evil. The thought had no more than crossed his mind when the chair squawked and began to slide slowly backward on the hardwood floor. Ralph ignored that, ignored his throbbing side, and ignored the voice telling him he ought to stop this, he really ought to, because he was dreaming awake, just as the Hall book said many insomniacs eventually did, and although those little fellows across the street didnt really exist, he could really be standing here on this slowly sliding chair, and he could really break his hip when it went out from under him, and just how the hell was he going to explain what had happened when some smartass doctor in the Emergency Room of Derry Home asked him? Grunting, he reached all the way back, pushed aside a carton from which half a Christmas tree star protruded like a strange spiky periscope (knocking the heelless evening pump to the floor in the process), and saw what he wanted in the far lefthand corner of the shelf the case which contained his old ZeissIkon binoculars. Ralph stepped off the chair just before it could slide all the way out from under him, moved it closer in, then got up on it again. He couldnt reach all the way into the corner where the binocular case stood, so he grabbed the troutnet which had been lying up here next to his creel and flybox for lo these many years and succeeded in bagging the case on his second try. He dragged it forward until he could grab the strap, stepped off the chair, and came down on the fallen evening pump. His ankle twisted painfully. Ralph staggered, flailed his arms for balance, and managed to avoid going facefirst into the wall. As he started back into the living room, however, he felt liquid warmth beneath the bandage on his side. He had managed to open the knifewound again after all. Wonderful. Just a wonderful night chez Roberts . . . and how long had he been away from the window? He didnt know, but it felt like a long time, and he was sure the little bald doctors would be gone when he got back there. The street would be empty, and He stopped dead, the binocular case dangling at the end of its strap and tracking a long slow trapezoidal shadow back and forth across the floor where the orange glow of the streetlights lay like an ugly coat of paint. Little bald doctors? Was that how he had just thought of them? Yes, of course, because that was what they called them the folks who claimed to have been abducted by them . . . examined by them . . . operated on by them in some cases. They were physicians from space, proctologists from the great beyond. But that wasnt the big deal. The big deal was Ed used the phrase, Ralph thought. He used it the night he called me and warned me to stay away from him and his interests. He said it was the doctor who told him about the Crimson King and the Centurions and all the rest. Yes, Ralph whispered. His back was prickling madly with gooseflesh. Yes, thats what he said. The doctor told me. The little bald doctor. When he reached the window, he saw that the strangers were still out there, although they had moved from May Lochers stoop to the sidewalk while he had been fishing for the binoculars. They were standing directly beneath one of those damned orange streetlights, in fact. Ralphs feeling that Harris Avenue looked like a deserted stage set after the evening performance returned with weird, declamatory force . . . but with a different significance. For one thing, the set was no longer deserted, was it? Some ominous, longpastmidnight play had commenced in what the two odd creatures below no doubt assumed was a totally empty theater. What would they do if they knew they had an audience? Ralph wondered. What would they do to me? The bald doctors now had the shared demeanor of men who have nearly reached agreement. In that instant they did not look like doctors at all to Ralph, in spite of their smocks they looked like bluecollar workers coming offshift at some plant or factory. These two guys, clearly buddies, have stopped outside the main gate for a moment or two to finish off some subject that cant wait even long enough for them to walk down the block to the nearest bar, knowing it will only take a minute or so in any case; total agreement is only a conversational exchange or two away. Ralph uncased the binoculars, raised them to his eyes, and wasted a moment or two in puzzled fiddling with the focus knob before realizing he had forgotten to take off the lens caps. He did so, then raised the glasses again. This time the two figures standing under the streetlamp jumped into his field of vision at once, large and perfectly lit, but fuzzed out. He turned the little knob between the barrels again, and the two men popped into focus almost immediately. Ralphs breath stopped in his throat. The look he got was extremely brief; no more than three seconds passed before one of the men (if they were men) nodded and clapped a hand on his companions shoulder. Then they both turned away, leaving Ralph with nothing to look at but their bald heads and smooth, whiteclad backs. Only three seconds at most, but Ralph saw enough in that brief space of time to make him profoundly uneasy. He had run to get the binoculars for two reasons, both predicated on his inability to go on believing that this was a dream. First, he wanted to be sure he could identify the two men if he was ever called upon to do so. Second (this one was less admissible to his conscious mind but every bit as urgent), he had wanted to dispel the unsettling notion that he was having his own close encounter of the third kind. Instead of dispelling it, his brief look through the binoculars intensified it. The little bald doctors did not actually seem to have features. They had faces, yes eyes, noses, mouths but they seemed as interchangeable as the chrome trim on the same make and model of a car. They could have been identical twins, but that wasnt the impression Ralph got, either. To him they looked more like department store mannequins with their Arnel wigs whisked off for the night, their eerie resemblance not the result of genetics but of mass production. The only peculiar quality he could isolate and name was the preternaturally smooth quality of their skin neither of them had so much as a single visible line or wrinkle. No moles, blotches, or scars, either, although Ralph supposed those were things you might miss with even a great pair of binoculars. Beyond the smooth and strangely linefree quality of their skin, everything became subjective. And his only look had been so goddam brief ! If he had been able to get to the binoculars more quickly, without the rigmarole of the chair and the fishing net, and if he had realized that the lens caps were on right away instead of wasting more time fiddling with the focusing knob, he might have saved himself some or all of the unease he was now feeling. They look sketched, he thought in the instant before they turned their backs on him. Thats whats really bothering me, I think. Not the identical bald heads, the identical white smocks, or even the lack of wrinkles. Its how they look sketched the eyes just circles, the small pink ears just squiggles made with a felttip pen, the mouths a pair of quick, almost careless strokes of pale pink watercolor. They dont really look like either people or aliens; they look like hasty representations of . . . well, of I dont know what. He was sure of one thing Docs 1 and 2 were both immersed in bright auras which in the binoculars appeared to be greengold and filled with deep reddishorange flecks that looked like sparks swirling up from a campfire. These auras conveyed a feeling of power and vitality to Ralph that their featureless, uninteresting faces did not. The faces? Im not sure I could pick them out again even if someone held a gun to my head. Its as if they were made to be forgotten. If they were still bald, sure no problem. But if they were wearing wigs and maybe sitting down, so I couldnt see how short they are? Maybe . . . the lack of lines might do the trick . . . but then again, maybe not. The auras, though . . . those greengold auras with the red flecks swirling through them . . . Id know them anywhere. But theres something wrong with them, isnt there? What is it? The answer popped into Ralphs mind as suddenly and easily as the two creatures had popped into view when he had finally remembered to remove the lens caps from the binoculars. Both of the little doctors were swaddled in brilliant auras . . . but neither had a balloonstring floating up from his hairless head. Not even a sign of one. They went strolling down Harris Avenue in the direction of Strawford Park, moving with the ease of two friends out for a Sunday stroll. Just before they left the bright circle of light thrown by the streetlamp in front of May Lochers house, Ralph dropped the angle of the binoculars so they picked up the item in Doc 1s right hand. It wasnt a knife, as he had surmised, but it still wasnt the sort of object you felt comfortable seeing in the hand of a departing stranger in the wee hours of the morning. It was a pair of longbladed, stainlesssteel scissors. 4 That sense of being pushed relentlessly toward the mouth of a tunnel where all sorts of unpleasant things were waiting was with him again, only now it was accompanied by a feeling of panic, because it seemed that the latest big shove had taken place while he had been asleep and dreaming of his dead wife. Something inside him wanted to shriek with terror, and Ralph understood that if he didnt do something to soothe it immediately, he would soon be shrieking out loud. He closed his eyes and began to take deep breaths, trying to picture a different item of food with each one a tomato, a potato, an icecream sandwich, a Brussels sprout. Dr Jamal had taught Carolyn this simple relaxation technique, and it had frequently staved off her headaches before they could get up a full head of steam even in the last six weeks, when the tumor had been out of control, the technique had sometimes worked, and it controlled Ralphs panic now. His heartbeat began to slow, and that feeling that he needed to scream began to pass. Continuing to take deep breaths and to think (apple pear slice of lemon pie) of food, Ralph carefully snapped the lens caps back on the binoculars. His hands were still trembling, but not so badly he couldnt use them. Once the binoculars were capped and returned to their case, Ralph gingerly raised his left arm and looked at the bandage. There was a red spot in the center of it the size of an aspirin tablet, but it did not appear to be spreading. Good. There isnt anything good about this, Ralph. Fair enough, but that wasnt going to help him decide exactly what had happened, or what he was going to do about it. Step one was to push his dreadful dream of Carolyn to one side for the time being and decide what had actually happened. Ive been awake ever since I hit the floor, Ralph told the empty room. I know that, and I know I saw those men. Yes. He had really seen them, and the greengold auras around them. He wasnt alone, either; Ed Deepneau had seen at least one of them, too. Ralph would have bet the farm on it, if hed had a farm to bet. It didnt ease his mind much, however, to know that he and the wifebeating paranoid from up the street were seeing the same little bald guys. And the auras, Ralph didnt he say something about those, too? Well, he hadnt used that exact word, but Ralph was quite sure he had spoken of the auras at least twice, just the same. Ralph, sometimes the world is full of colors. That had been August, shortly before John Leydecker had arrested Ed on a charge of domestic abuse, a misdemeanor. Then, almost a month later, when he had called Ralph on the phone Are you seeing the colors yet? First the colors, now the little bald doctors; surely the Crimson King himself would be along any time. And all that aside, what was he supposed to do about what he had just seen? The answer came in an unexpected but welcome burst of clarity. The issue, he saw, was not his own sanity, not the auras, not the little bald doctors, but May Locher. He had just seen two strangers step out of Mrs Lochers house in the dead of night . . . and one of them had been carrying a potentially lethal weapon. Ralph reached past the cased binoculars, took the telephone, and dialed 911. 5 This is Officer Hagen. A womans voice. How may I help you? By listening carefully and acting fast, Ralph said crisply. The look of dazed indecision which he had worn so frequently since midsummer was gone now; sitting erect in the wingback chair with the phone in his lap he looked not seventy but a healthy and capable fiftyfive. You may be able to save a womans life. Sir, would you please give me your name and Dont interrupt me, please, Officer Hagen, said the man who could no longer remember the last four digits of the Derry Cinema Center. I woke up a short time ago, couldnt go back to sleep, and decided to sit up for a while. My living room looks out on upper Harris Avenue. I just saw Here Ralph paused for the barest moment, thinking not about what he had seen but what he wanted to tell Officer Hagen he had seen. The answer came as quickly and effortlessly as the decision to call 911 in the first place. I saw two men coming out of a house up the street from the Red Apple store. The house belongs to a woman named May Locher. Thats LOCHER, first letter L as in Lexington. Mrs Locher is severely ill. Ive never seen these two men before. He paused again, but this time consciously, wanting to achieve maximum effect. One of them had a pair of scissors in his hand. Site address? Officer Hagen asked. She was calm enough, but Ralph sensed he had turned on a lot of her lights. I dont know, he said. Get it out of the phone book, Officer Hagen, or just tell the responding officers to look for the yellow house with the pink trim half a block or so up from the Red Apple. Theyll probably have to use a flashlight to pick it out because of the damned orange streetlights, but theyll find it. Yes, sir, Im sure they will, but I still need your name and telephone number for our rec Ralph replaced the phone gently in its cradle. He sat looking at it for almost a full minute, expecting it to ring. When it didnt, he decided they either didnt have the fancy traceback equipment he saw on the TV truecrime shows, or it hadnt been turned on. That was good. It didnt solve the problem of what he was going to do or say if they hauled May Locher out of her hideous yellowandpink house in pieces, but it did buy a little more thinking time. Below, Harris Avenue remained still and silent, lit only by the hiintensity lamps which marched off in both directions like some surrealist dream of perspective. The play short, but full of drama appeared to be over. The stage was empty again. It No, not quite empty after all. Rosalie came limping out of the alley between the Red Apple and the TrueValue Hardware next door. The faded bandanna flapped around her neck. This wasnt a Thursday, there were no garbage cans set out for Rosalie to investigate, and she moved briskly up the sidewalk until she got to May Lochers house. There she stopped and lowered her nose (looking at that long and rather pretty nose, Ralph had thought on occasion that there must be a collie somewhere in Rosalies woodpile). Something was glimmering there, Ralph realized. He got the binoculars out of their case once more and trained them on Rosalie. As he did, he found his mind returning to September 10th again this time to his meeting with Bill and Lois just outside the entrance to Strawford Park. He remembered how Bill had put his arm around Loiss waist and led her up the street; how the two of them together had made Ralph think of Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire. Most of all he remembered the spectral tracks the two of them had left behind. Loiss had been gray; Bills olive green. Hallucinations, he had thought them at the time, back in the good old days before hed started attracting the attention of nuts like Charlie Pickering and seeing little bald doctors in the middle of the night. Rosalie was sniffing at a similar track. It was the same greengold as the auras which had surrounded Bald Doc 1 and Bald Doc 2. Ralph panned the binoculars slowly away from the dog and saw more tracks, two sets of them, leading down the sidewalk in the direction of the park. They were fading he could almost see them fading as he looked at them but they were there. Ralph panned the binoculars back to Rosalie, suddenly feeling an enormous wave of affection for the mangy old stray . . . and why not? If he had needed final, absolute proof that he had actually seen the things he thought he had seen, Rosalie was it. If baby Natalie was here, shed see them too, Ralph thought . . . and then all his doubts tried to crowd back in. Would she? Would she really? He thought he had seen the baby grab at the faint auras left by his fingers, and he had been sure she was gawking at the spectral green smoke sizzling off the flowers in the kitchen, but how could he be sure? How could anyone be sure what a baby was looking at or reaching for? But Rosalie . . . look, right down there, see her? The only trouble with that, Ralph realized, was that he hadnt seen the tracks until Rosalie had begun to sniff the sidewalk. Maybe she was sniffing at an entrancing remnant of leftover postman, and what he was seeing had been created by nothing more than his tired, sleepstarved mind . . . like the little bald doctors themselves. In the magnified field of the binoculars, Rosalie now began to make her way down Harris Avenue with her nose to the sidewalk and her ragged tail waving slowly back and forth. She was moving from the greengold tracks left by Doc 1 to those left by Doc 2, and then back to Doc 1s trail again. So now why dont you tell me what that stray bitch is following, Ralph? Do you think its possible for a dog to track a fucking hallucination? Its not a hallucination; its tracks. Real tracks. The whiteman tracks that Carolyn told you to watch out for. You know that. You see that. Its crazy, though, he told himself. Crazy! But was it? Was it really? The dream might have been more than a dream. If there was such a thing as hyperreality and he could now testify that there was then maybe there was such a thing as precognition, too. Or ghosts which came in dreams and foretold the future. Who knew? It was as if a door in the wall of reality had come ajar . . . and now all sorts of unwelcome things were flying through. Of one thing he was sure the tracks were really there. He saw them, Rosalie smelled them, and that was all there was to it. Ralph had discovered a number of strange and interesting things during his six months of premature waking, and one of them was that a human beings capacity for selfdeception seemed to be at its lowest ebb between three and six in the morning, and it was now . . . Ralph leaned forward so he could see the clock on the kitchen wall. Just past threethirty. Uhhuh. He raised the binoculars again and saw Rosalie still moving up the bald docs backtrail. If someone came strolling along Harris Avenue right now unlikely, given the hour, but not impossible they would see nothing but a stray mutt with a dirty coat, sniffing at the sidewalk in the aimless fashion of untrained, unowned dogs everywhere. But Ralph could see what Rosalie was sniffing at, and had finally given himself permission to believe his eyes. It was a permission he might revoke once the sun was up, but for now he knew exactly what he was seeing. Rosalies head came up suddenly. Her ears cocked forward. For one moment she was almost beautiful, the way a hunting dog on point is beautiful. Then, moments before the headlights of a car approaching the Harris AvenueWitcham Street intersection splashed the street, she was gone back the way she had come, running in a corkscrewing, limping gait that made Ralph feel sorry for her. When you came right down to it, what was Rosalie but another Harris Avenue Old Crock, one that didnt even have the comfort of the occasional game of gin rummy or pennyante poker with others of her kind? She darted back into the alley between the Red Apple and the hardware store an instant before a Derry police cruiser turned the corner and floated slowly up the street. Its siren was off, but the revolving flashers were on. They painted the sleeping houses and small businesses ranged along this part of Harris Avenue with alternating pulses of red and blue light. Ralph put the binoculars back in his lap and leaned forward in the wingchair, forearms on his thighs, watching intently. His heart was beating hard enough for him to be able to feel it in his temples. The cruiser slowed to a crawl as it passed the Red Apple. The spotlight mounted on its righthand side snapped on, and the beam began to slide across the fronts of the sleeping houses on the far side of the street. In most cases it also slid across the street numbers mounted beside doors or on porch columns. When it lit on the number of May Lochers house (86, Ralph saw, and he didnt need the binoculars to read it, either), the cruisers taillights flashed and the car came to a stop. Two uniformed policemen got out and approached the walk leading up to the house, oblivious of both the man watching from a darkened secondfloor window across the street and the fading greengold footprints over which they were walking. They conferred, and Ralph raised the binoculars again to get a closer look. He was almost positive that the younger of the two men was the uniformed cop who had shown up with Leydecker at Eds house on the day Ed had been arrested. Knoll? Had that been his name? No, Ralph murmured. Nell. Chris Nell. Or maybe it was Jess. Nell and his partner seemed to be having a serious discussion about something much more serious than the one the little bald doctors had been having before they strolled away. This one ended with the cops drawing their sidearms and then climbing the narrow steps to Mrs Lochers stoop in single file, with Nell in front. He pressed the doorbell, waited, then pressed it again. This time he leaned on the button for a good five seconds. They waited a little more, and then the second cop brushed past Nell and had a go at the button himself. Maybe that one knows The Secret Art of DoorbellRinging, Ralph thought. Probably learned it by answering a Rosicrucians ad. If so, the technique failed him this time. There was still no response, and Ralph wasnt surprised. Strange bald men with scissors notwithstanding, he doubted May Locher could even get out of bed. But if shes bedridden, she might have a companion, someone to get her her meals, help her to the toilet or give her the bedpan Chris Nell or maybe it was Jess stepped up to the plate again. This time he forwent the doorbell in favor of the old whamwhamwham, openinthenameofthelaw technique. He used his left fist to do this. He was still holding his gun in his right, the barrel pressed against the leg of his uniform pants. A terrible image, every bit as clear and persuasive as the auras he had been seeing, suddenly filled Ralphs mind. He saw a woman with a clear plastic oxygen mask over her mouth and nose lying in bed. Above the mask, her glazed eyes bulged sightlessly from their sockets. Below it, her throat had been opened in a wide, ragged smile. The bedclothes and the bosom of the womans nightgown were drenched with blood. Not far away, lying on the floor, was the facedown corpse of another woman the companion. Marching up the back of this second womans pink flannel nightgown were half a dozen stabwounds made by the points of Doc 1s scissors. And, Ralph knew, if you raised the nightgown for a closer look, each would look a lot like the wound under his own arm . . . like the sort of oversized period made by children just learning to print. Ralph tried to blink the grisly vision away. It wouldnt go. He felt dull pain in his hands and saw he had closed them into tight fists; the nails were digging into his palms. He forced his hands open and clamped them on his thighs. Now the eye in his mind saw the woman in the pink nightgown twitching slightly she was still alive. But maybe not for long. Almost certainly not for long unless these two oafs decided to try something a little more productive than just standing on the stoop and taking turns knocking or jazzing the doorbell. Come on, you guys, Ralph said, squeezing at his thighs. Come on, come on, lets get with it, what do you say? You know the things youre seeing are all in your head, dont you? he asked himself uneasily. I mean, there might be a couple of women lying dead over there, sure, there might be, but you dont know that, right? Its not like the auras, or the tracks . . . No, it wasnt like the auras or the tracks, and yes, he did know that. He also knew that no one was answering the door over there at 86 Harris Avenue, and that did not bode well for Bill McGoverns old Cardville schoolmate. He hadnt seen any blood on the scissors in Doc 1s hand, but given the iffy quality of the old ZeissIkon binocs, that didnt prove much. Also, the guy could have wiped them clean before leaving the house. The thought had no more than crossed Ralphs mind before his imagination added a bloody handtowel lying beside the dead companion in the pink nightgown. Come on, you two! Ralph cried in a low voice. Jesus Christ, you gonna stand there all night? More headlights splashed up Harris Avenue. The new arrival was an unmarked Ford sedan with a flashing red dashboard bubble. The man who got out was wearing plain clothes gray poplin windbreaker and blue knitted watchcap. Ralph had maintained momentary hopes that the newcomer would turn out to be John Leydecker, even though Leydecker had told him he wouldnt be coming on until noon, but he didnt have to check with the binoculars to make sure it wasnt. This man was much slimmer, and wearing a dark mustache. Cop 2 went down the walk to meet him while ChrisorJess Nell went around the corner of Mrs Lochers house. One of those pauses which the movies so conveniently edit out then ensued. Cop 2 reholstered his gun. He and the newly arrived detective stood at the foot of Mrs Lochers stoop, apparently talking and glancing at the closed door every now and then. Once the uniformed cop took a step or two in the direction Nell had gone. The detective reached out, grasped his arm, detained him. They talked some more. Ralph clutched his upper thighs tighter and made a small, frustrated noise in his throat. A few minutes crawled by, and then everything happened at once in that confusing, overlapping, inconclusive way with which emergency situations seem to develop. Another police car arrived (Mrs Lochers house and those neighboring it on the right and left were now bathed in streaks of conflicting red and yellow light). |
Two more uniformed cops got out of it, opened the trunk, and removed a bulky contraption that looked to Ralph like a portable torture device. He believed this gadget was known as the Jaws of Life. Following the huge storm in the spring of 1985, a storm which had resulted in the deaths of more than two hundred people many of whom had been trapped and drowned in their cars Derrys schoolchildren had mounted a pennydrive to buy one. As the two new cops were carrying the Jaws of Life across the sidewalk, the front door of the house on the uphill side of Mrs Lochers opened and the Eberlys, Stan and Georgina, stepped out onto their stoop. They wore matching his n hers bathrobes, and Stans gray hair was standing up in wild tufts that made Ralph think of Charlie Pickering. He raised the binoculars, scanned their curious, excited faces briefly, then put them back in his lap again. The next vehicle to appear was an ambulance from Derry Home Hospital. Like the police cars which had already arrived, its howler was off in deference to the hour, but it had a full roofrack of red lights, and they were strobing wildly. To Ralph, the developments across the street looked like a scene from one of his beloved Dirty Harry movies, only with the sound turned off. The two cops got the Jaws of Life halfway across the lawn and then dropped it. The detective in the windbreaker and the watchcap turned to them and raised his hands to shoulderlevel, palms out, as if to say What did you think you were going to do with that thing? Break down the goddam door with it? At the same second, Officer Nell came back around the house. He was shaking his head. The detective in the watchcap abruptly turned, brushed past Nell and his partner, mounted the steps, raised one foot, and kicked in May Lochers front door. He paused to unzip his jacket, probably to free access to his gun, and then walked in without looking back. Ralph felt like applauding. Nell and his partner looked at each other uncertainly, then followed the detective up the steps and through the door. Ralph leaned forward even farther in his chair, now close enough to the window for his nostrils to make little fogroses on the glass. Three men, their white hospital pants looking orange in the glare of the hiintensity streetlamps, got out of the ambulance. One of them opened the rear doors and then all three of them simply stood there, hands in jacket pockets, waiting to see if they would be needed. The two cops who had carried the Jaws of Life halfway across Mrs Lochers lawn looked at each other, shrugged, picked it up, and began carrying it back toward their cruiser again. There were several large divots in the lawn where they had dropped it. Just let her be okay, thats all, Ralph thought. Just let her and anyone who was in the house with her be okay. The detective appeared in the doorway again, and Ralphs heart sank as he motioned to the men standing at the rear of the ambulance. Two of them removed a stretcher with a collapsible undercarriage; the third remained where he was. The men with the stretcher went up the walk and into the house at a smart pace, but they did not run, and when the orderly who had remained behind produced a pack of cigarettes and lit one, Ralph knew suddenly, completely, and with no doubts that May Locher was dead. 6 Stan and Georgina Eberly walked to the low line of hedge which separated their front yard from Mrs Lochers. They had put their arms around each others waists, and to Ralph they looked like the Bobbsey Twins grown old and fat and frightened. Other neighbors were also coming out, either awakened by the silent convergence of emergency lights or because the telephone network along this little stretch of Harris Avenue was already beginning to operate. Most of the people Ralph saw were old (We goldenagers, Bill McGovern liked to call them . . . always with that small satirical lift of the eyebrow, of course), men and women whose rest was fragile and easily broken at the best of times. He suddenly realized that Ed, Helen, and Baby Natalie had been the youngest people between here and the Extension . . . and now the Deepneaus were gone. I could go down there, he thought. Id fit right in. Just another one of Bills goldenagers. Except he couldnt. His legs felt like bunches of teabags held together by weak twists of string, and he was quite sure that if he tried to get up, he would go flopping bonelessly to the floor. So he sat and watched from his window, watched the play develop below him on the stage which had always been empty at this hour before . . . except for the occasional walkthrough by Rosalie, that was. It was a play he had produced himself, with a single anonymous telephone call. He watched the orderlies reemerge with the stretcher, this time moving more slowly because of the sheeted figure which had been strapped to it. Warring streaks of blue and red light flickered over that sheet, and the shapes of legs, hips, arms, neck, and head beneath it. Ralph was suddenly plunged back into his dream. He saw his wife under the sheet not May Locher but Carolyn Roberts, and at any moment her head would split open and the black bugs, the ones which had grown fat on the meat of her diseased brain, would begin to boil out. Ralph raised the heels of his palms to his eyes. Some sound some inarticulate sound of grief and rage, horror and weariness escaped him. He sat that way for a long time, wishing he had never seen any of this and hoping blindly that if there really was a tunnel, he would not be required to enter it after all. The auras were strange and beautiful, but there was not enough beauty in all of them to make up for one moment of that terrible dream in which he had discovered his wife buried below the hightide line, not enough beauty to make up for the dreary horror of his lost, wakeful nights, or the sight of that sheeted figure being rolled out of the house across the street. It was a lot more than just wishing that the play was over; as he sat there with the heels of his palms pressing against the lids of his closed eyes, he wanted all of it to be over all of it. For the first time in his twentyfive thousand days of life, Ralph Roberts found himself wishing he were dead. CHAPTER NINE 1 There was a movie poster, probably picked up at one of the local video stores for a buck or three, on the wall of the cubbyhole which served Detective John Leydecker as an office. It showed Dumbo the elephant cruising along with his magical ears outstretched. A headshot of Susan Day had been pasted over Dumbos face, carefully cut to allow for the trunk. On the cartoon landscape below, someone had drawn a signpost which read DERRY 250. Oh, charming, Ralph said. Leydecker laughed. Not very politically correct, is it? I think thats an understatement, Ralph said, wondering what Carolyn would have made of the poster wondering what Helen would make of it, for that matter. It was quarter of two on an overcast, chilly Monday afternoon, and he and Leydecker had just come across from the Derry County Courthouse, where Ralph had given his statement about his encounter with Charlie Pickering the day before. He had been questioned by an assistant district attorney who looked to Ralph as if he might be ready to start shaving in another year or two. Leydecker had accompanied him as promised, sitting in the corner of the assistant DAs office and saying nothing. His promise to buy Ralph a cup of coffee turned out to be mostly a figure of speech the evillooking brew had come from the Silex in the corner of the cluttered secondfloor Police Department dayroom. Ralph sipped cautiously at his and was relieved to find it tasted a little better than it looked. Sugar? Cream? Leydecker asked. Gun to shoot it with? Ralph smiled and shook his head. Tastes fine . . . although itd probably be a mistake to trust my judgement. I cut back to two cups a day last summer, and now it all tastes pretty good to me. Like me with cigarettes the less I smoke, the better they taste. Sins a bitch. Leydecker took out his little tube of toothpicks, shook one out, and stuck it in the corner of his mouth. Then he put his own cup on top of his computer terminal, went over to the Dumbo poster, and began to lever out the thumbtacks which held the corners. Dont do it on my account, Ralph said. Its your office. Wrong. Leydecker pulled the carefully scissored photo of Susan Day off the poster, balled it up, tossed it in the wastebasket. Then he began to roll the poster itself into a tight little cylinder. Oh? Then how come your names on the door? Its my name, but the office belongs to you and your fellow taxpayers, Ralph. Also to any news vidiot with a Minicam who happens to wander in here, and if this poster happened to show up on News at Noon, Id be in a world of hurt. I forgot to take it down when I left Friday night, and I had most of the weekend off a rare occurrence around here, let me tell you. You didnt put it up, I take it. Ralph moved some papers off the tiny offices one extra chair and sat down. Nope. Some of the fellows had a party for me Friday afternoon. Complete with cake, ice cream, and presents. Leydecker rummaged in his desk and came up with a rubber band. He slipped it around the poster so it wouldnt spring open again, peeked one amused eye through it at Ralph, then tossed it into the wastebasket. I got a set of those daysoftheweek panties with the crotches snipped out, a can of strawberryscented vaginal douche, a packet of Friends of Life antiabortion literature said literature including a comicbook called Denises Unwanted Pregnancy and that poster. I guess it wasnt a birthday party, huh? Nope. Leydecker cracked his knuckles and sighed at the ceiling. The boys were celebrating my appointment to a special detail. Ralph could see faint flickers of blue aura around Leydeckers face and shoulders, but in this case he didnt have to try and read them. Its Susan Day, isnt it? You got the job of protecting her while shes in town. Hole in one. Of course the State Police will be around, but they stick pretty much to traffic control in situations like this. There may be some FBI, too, but what they do mostly is hang back, take pictures, and give each other the secret Club Sign. Shes got her own security people, doesnt she? Yes, but I dont know how many or how good. I talked to the head guy this morning and hes at least coherent, but we have to put in our own guys. Five of them, according to the orders I got on Friday. Thats me plus four guys wholl volunteer as soon as I tell em to. The object is . . . wait a minute . . . youll like this . . . Leydecker shuffled through the papers on his desk, found the one he was looking for, and held it up. . . . to maintain a strong presence and high visibility. He dropped the paper again and grinned at Ralph. The grin did not have a lot of humor in it. In other words, if someone tries to shoot the bitch or give her an acid shampoo, we want Lisette Benson and the other vidiots to at least record the fact that we were there. Leydecker looked at the rolledup poster leaning in his wastebasket and flipped it the bird. How can you dislike someone so much when youve never even met her? I dont just dislike her, Ralph; I fucking hate her. Listen Im a Catholic, my lovin mother was a Catholic, my kids if I ever have any are all gonna be altarboys at St Joes. Great. Being a Catholics great. They even let you eat meat on Fridays now. But if you think being Catholic means Im in favor of making abortions illegal again, you got the wrong puppy. See, Im the Catholic who gets to question the guys who beat their kids with rubber hoses or push them downstairs after a night of drinking good Irish whiskey and getting all sentimental about their mothers. Leydecker fished inside his shirt and brought out a small gold medallion. He placed it on his fingers and tilted it toward Ralph. Mary, mother of Jesus. Ive worn this since I was thirteen. Five years ago I arrested a man wearing one just like it. He had just boiled his twoyearold stepson. This is a true thing Im telling you. Guy put on a great big pot of water, and when it was boiling, he picked the kid up by the ankles and dropped him into the pot like he was a lobster. Why? Because the kid wouldnt stop wetting the bed, he told us. I saw the body, and Ill tell you what, after youve seen something like that, the photos the righttolife assholes like to show of vacuum abortions dont look so bad. Leydeckers voice had picked up a slight tremor. What I remember most of all is how the guy was crying, and how he kept holding onto that Mary medallion around his neck and saying he wanted to go to confession. Made me proud to be a Catholic, Ralph, let me tell you . . . and as far as the Pope goes, I dont think he should be allowed to have an opinion until hes had a kid himself, or at least spent a year or so taking care of crackbabies. Okay, Ralph said. Whats your problem with Susan Day? Shes stirring the motherfucking pot! Leydecker cried. She comes into my town and I have to protect her. Fine. Ive got good men, and with just a pinch of luck, I think we can probably see her out of town with her head still on and her tits pointing the right way, but what about what happens before? And what happens after? Do you think she cares about any of that? Do you think the people who run WomanCare give much of a shit about the sideeffects, as far as that goes? I dont know. The WomanCare advocates are a little less prone to violence than The Friends of Life, but in terms of the allimportant assache quotient, theyre not much different. Do you know what this was all about when it started? Ralph cast his memory back to his first conversation about Susan Day, the one hed had with Ham Davenport. For a moment he almost had it, but then it squiggled away. The insomnia had won again. He shook his head. Zoning, Leydecker said, and laughed with disgusted amazement. Plain old gardenvariety zoning regulations. Great, huh? Early this summer, two of our more conservative City Councillors, George Tandy and Emma Wheaton, petitioned the Zoning Committee to reconsider the zone with WomanCare in it, the idea being to kind of gerrymander the place out of existence. I doubt if thats exactly the right word, but you get the gist, dont you? Sure. Uhhuh. So the prochoicers ask Susan Day to come to town and make a speech, help them to raise a warchest to combat the prolife grinches. The only problem is, the grinches never had a chance of rezoning District 7, and the WomanCare people knew it! Hell, one of their directors, June Halliday, is on the City Council. She and the Wheaton bitch just about spit at each other when they pass in the hall. Rezoning District 7 was a pipedream from the start, because WomanCare is technically a hospital, just like Derry Home, which is only a stones throw away. If you change the zoning laws to make WomanCare illegal, you do the same to one of only three hospitals in Derry County the thirdlargest county in the state of Maine. So it was never going to happen, but thats okay, because it was never about that in the first place. It was about being pissy and inyourface. About being an assache. And for most of the prochoicers one of the guys I work with calls em the Whale People its about being right. Right? I dont get you. It isnt enough that a woman can walk in there and get rid of the troublesome little fishie growing inside her any time she wants; the prochoicers want the argument to end. What they want, down deep, is for people like Dan Dalton to admit theyre right, and thatll never happen. Its more likely that the Arabs and the Jews will decide it was all a mistake and throw down their weapons. I support the right of a woman to have an abortion if she really needs to have one, but the prochoicers holierthanthou attitude makes me want to puke. Theyre the new Puritans, as far as Im concerned, people who believe that if you dont think the way they do, youre going to hell . . . only their version is a place where all you get on the radio is hillbilly music and all you can find to eat is chickenfried steak. You sound pretty bitter. Try sitting on a powderkeg for three months and see how it makes you feel. Tell me this do you think Pickering would have stuck a knife in your armpit yesterday if it hadnt been for WomanCare, The Friends of Life, and Susan LeaveMySacredTwatAlone Day? Ralph appeared to give the question serious thought, but what he was really doing was watching John Leydeckers aura. It was a healthy dark blue, but the edges were tinged with rapidly shifting greenish light. It was this edging which interested Ralph; he had an idea he knew what it meant. Finally he said, No. I guess not. Me either. You got wounded in a war thats already been decided, Ralph, and you wont be the last. But if you went to the Whale People or to Susan Day and opened your shirt and pointed at the bandage and said This is partly your fault, so own the part thats yours, theyd raise their hands and say, Oh no, goodness no, were sorry you got hurt, Ralph, we whale watchers abhor violence, but it wasnt our fault, we have to keep WomanCare open, we have to man and woman the barricades, and if a little spilled blood is what it takes to do that, then so be it. But its not about WomanCare, and thats what drives me absolutely bugfuck. Its about abortion. Shit, no! Abortion rights are safe in Maine and in Derry, no matter what Susan Day says at the Civic Center Friday night. This is about whose team is the best team. About whose side Gods on. Its about whos right. I wish theyd all just sing We Are the Champions and go get drunk. Ralph threw back his head and laughed. Leydecker laughed with him. So theyre assholes, he finished with a shrug. But theyre our assholes. Does that sounds like Im joking? Im not. WomanCare, Friends of Life, Body Watch, Daily Bread . . . theyre our assholes, Derry assholes, and I really dont mind watching out for our own. Thats why I took this job, and why I stay with it. But youll have to forgive me if Im less than crazy about being tapped to watch out for some longstemmed American Beauty from New York whos going to fly in here and give an incendiary speech and then fly out with a few more pressclippings and enough material for chapter five of her new book. To our faces shell talk about what a wonderful little grassroots community we are, and when she gets back to her duplex on Park Avenue, shell tell her friends about how she hasnt managed to shampoo the stink of our paper mills out of her hair yet. She is woman; hear her roar . . . and if were lucky, the whole thing will quiet down with no one dead or disabled. Ralph had become sure of what those greenish flickers meant. But youre scared, arent you? he asked. Leydecker looked at him, surprised. Shows, does it? Only a little, Ralph said, and thought Just in your aura, John, thats all. Just in your aura. Yeah, Im scared. On a personal level Im scared of fucking up the assignment, which has absolutely no upside to compensate for all the things that can go wrong. On a professional level Im scared of something happening to her on my watch. On a community level Im fucking terrified of what happens if theres some sort of confrontation and the genie comes out of the bottle . . . more coffee, Ralph? Ill pass. I ought to be going soon, anyway. Whats going to happen to Pickering? He didnt actually care much about Charlie Pickerings fate, but the big cop would probably think it strange if he asked about May Locher before he asked about Pickering. Suspicious, maybe. Steve Anderson the ADA who questioned you and Pickerings courtappointed attorney are probably horsetrading even as we speak. Pickerings guy will be saying he might be able to get his client the thought of Charlie Pickering being anyones client for anything, sort of blows my mind, by the way to plead out to seconddegree assault. Anderson will say the time has come to put Pickering away for good and hes going for attempted murder. Pickerings lawyer will pretend to be shocked, and tomorrow your buddy is going to be charged with firstdegree assault with a deadly weapon and bound over for trial. Then, possibly in December but more likely early next year, youll be called as the star witness. Bail? Itll probably be set in the fortythousanddollar range. You can get out on ten per cent if the rest can be secured in event of flight, but Charlie Pickering doesnt have a house, a car, or even a Timex watch. In the end, hes liable to go back to Juniper Hill, but thats really not the object of the game. Were going to be able to keep him off the street for quite a while this time, and with people like Charlie, thats the object of the game. Any chance The Friends of Life might go his bail? Nah. Ed Deepneau spent a lot of last week with him, the two of them drinking coffee in the Bagel Shop. I imagine Ed was giving Charlie the lowdown on the Centurions and the King of Diamonds Crimson King is what Ed Whatever, Leydecker agreed, waving a hand. But most of all I imagine he spent the time explaining how you were the devils righthand man and how only a smart, brave, and dedicated fellow like Charlie Pickering could take you out of the picture. You make him sound like such a calculating shit, Ralph said. He was remembering the Ed Deepneau hed played chess with before Carolyn had fallen ill. That Ed had been an intelligent, wellspoken, civilized man with a deep capacity for kindness. Ralph still found it all but impossible to reconcile that Ed with the one hed first glimpsed in July of 1992. He had come to think of the more recent arrival as rooster Ed. Not just a calculating shit, a dangerous calculating shit, Leydecker said. For him Charlie was just a tool, like a paring knife youd use to peel an apple with. If the blade snaps off a paring knife, you dont run to the knifegrinders to get a new one put on; thats too much trouble. You toss it in the wastebasket and get a new paring knife instead. Thats the way guys like Ed treat guys like Charlie, and since Ed is The Friends of Life for the time being, at least I dont think you have to worry about Charlie making bail. In the next few days, hes going to be lonelier than a Maytag repairman. Okay? Okay, Ralph said. He was a little appalled to realize he felt sorry for Pickering. I want to thank you for keeping my name out of the paper, too . . . if you were the one who did it, that is. There had been a brief mention of the incident in the Derry Newss Police Beat column, but it said only that Charles H. Pickering had been arrested on a weapons charge at the Derry Public Library. Sometimes we ask them for a favor, sometimes they ask us for one, Leydecker said, standing up. Its how things work in the real world. If the nuts in The Friends of Life and the prigs in The Friends of WomanCare ever discover that, my job is going to get a lot easier. Ralph plucked the rolledup Dumbo poster from the wastebasket, then stood up on his side of Leydeckers desk. Could I have this? I know a little girl who might really like it, in a year or so. Leydecker held out his hands expansively. Be my guest think of it as a little premium for being a good citizen. Just dont ask for my crotchless panties. Ralph laughed. Wouldnt think of it. Seriously, I appreciate you coming in. Thanks, Ralph. No problem. He reached across the desk, shook Leydeckers hand, then headed for the door. He felt absurdly like Lieutenant Columbo on TV all he needed was the cigar and the ratty trenchcoat. He put his hand on the knob, then paused and turned back. Can I ask you about something totally unrelated to Charlie Pickering? Fire away. This morning in the Red Apple Store I heard that Mrs Locher, my neighbor up the street, died in the night. Nothing so surprising about that; she had emphysema. But there are policeline tapes up between the sidewalk and her front yard, plus a sign on the door saying the site has been sealed by the Derry PD. Do you know what its about? Leydecker looked at him so long and hard that Ralph would have felt acutely uncomfortable . . . if not for the mans aura. There was nothing in it which communicated suspicion. God, Ralph, youre taking these things a little too seriously, arent you? Well, maybe yes and maybe no. Either way he was glad that the green flickers at the edges of Leydeckers aura had not reappeared. Why are you looking at me that way? Ralph asked. If I presumed or spoke out of turn, Im sorry. Not at all, Leydecker said. Its a little weird, thats all. If I tell you about it, can you keep it quiet? Yes. Its your downstairs tenant Im chiefly worried about. When the word discretion is mentioned, its not the Prof I think of. Ralph laughed heartily. I wont say a word to him Scouts Honor but its interesting youd mention him; Bill went to school with Mrs Locher, way back when. Grammar school. Man, I cant imagine the Prof in grammar school, Leydecker said. Can you? Sort of, Ralph said, but the picture which rose in his mind was an exceedingly peculiar one Bill McGovern looking like a cross between Little Lord Fauntleroy and Tom Sawyer in a pair of knickers, long white socks . . . and a Panama hat. Were not sure what happened to Mrs Locher, Leydecker said. What we do know is that shortly after three a.m., 911 logged an anonymous call from someone a male who claimed to have just seen two men, one carrying a pair of scissors, come out of Mrs Lochers house. She was killed? Ralph exclaimed, realizing two things simultaneously that he sounded more believable than he ever would have expected, and that he had just crossed a bridge. He hadnt burned it behind him not yet, anyway but he would not be able to go back to the other side without a lot of explanations. Leydecker turned his hands palms up and shrugged. If she was, it wasnt with a pair of scissors or any other sharp object. There wasnt a mark on her. That, at least, was something of a relief. On the other hand, its possible to scare someone to death especially someone whos old and sick during the commission of a crime, Leydecker said. Anyway, thisll be easier to explain if you let me just tell you what I know. It wont take long, believe me. Of course. Sorry. Want to hear something funny? The first person I thought of when I looked over the 911 callsheet was you. Because of the insomnia, right? Ralph asked. His voice was steady. That and the fact that the caller claimed to have seen these men from his living room. Your living room looks out on the Avenue, doesnt it? Yes. Uhhuh. I even thought of listening to the tape, then I remembered that you were coming in today . . . and that youre sleeping through again. Thats right, isnt it? Without an instant of pause or consideration, Ralph set fire to the bridge he had just crossed. Well, Im not sleeping like I did when I was sixteen and working two afterschool jobs, I wont kid you about that, but if I was the guy who called 911 last night, I did it in my sleep. Exactly what I figured. Besides, if you saw something a little offkilter on the street, why would you make the call anonymously? I dont know, Ralph said, and thought, But suppose it was a little more than offkilter, John? Suppose it was completely unbelievable? Me, neither, Leydecker said. Your place has a view of Harris Avenue, yes, but so do about three dozen others . . . and just because the guy who made the call said he was inside, that doesnt mean he really was, does it? I guess not. Theres a payphone outside the Red Apple he could have called from, plus one outside the liquor store. A couple in Strawford Park, too, if they work. Actually there are four in the park, and they all work. We checked. Why would he lie about where he was calling from? The most likely reason is because he was lying about the rest of what he had to say, too. Anyway, Donna Hagen said the guy sounded very young and sure of himself. The words were barely out of his mouth before Leydecker winced and put a hand on top of his head. That didnt come out just the way I meant it, Ralph. Sorry. Its okay the idea that I sound like an old fart on a pension is not exactly a new concept to me. I am an old fart on a pension. Go on. Chris Nell was the responding officer first on the scene. Do you remember him from the day we arrested Ed? I remember the name. Uhhuh. Steve Utterback was the responding detective and the OIC officer in charge. Hes a good man. The guy in the watchcap, Ralph thought. The lady was dead in bed, but there was no sign of violence. Nothing obvious taken, either, although old ladies like May Locher arent usually into a lot of real hockable stuff no VCR, no big fancy stereo, nothing like that. She did have one of those Bose Waves, though, and two or three pretty nice pieces of jewelry. This is not to say that there wasnt other jewelry as nice or nicer, but But why would a burglar take some and not all? Exactly. Whats more interesting in this case is that the front door the one the 911 caller said he saw the two men coming out of was locked from the inside. Not just a springlock, either; there was a thumbbolt and a chain. Same with the back door, by the way. So if the 911 caller was on the up and up, and if May Locher was dead when the two guys left, who locked the doors? Maybe it was the Crimson King, Ralph thought . . . and to his horror, almost said aloud. I dont know. What about the windows? Locked. Thumblatches turned. And, just in case thats not Agatha Christie enough for you, Steve says the storms were on. One of the neighbors told him Mrs Locher hired a kid to put them on just last week. Sure she did, Ralph said. Pete Sullivan, the same kid who delivers the newspaper. Now that I think of it, I saw him doing it. Mysterynovel bullshit, Leydecker said, but Ralph thought Leydecker would have swapped Susan Day for May Locher in about three seconds. The prelim medical came in just before I left for the courthouse to meet you. I had a glance at it. Myocardial this, thrombosis that . . . heartfailures what it comes down to. Right now were treating the 911 call as a crank we get em all the time, all cities do and the ladys death as a heartattack brought on by her emphysema. Just a coincidence, in other words. That conclusion might save him a lot of trouble if it flew, that was but Ralph could hear the disbelief in his own voice. Yeah, I dont like it, either. Neither does Steve, which is why the house has been sealed. State Forensics will give it a complete toptobottom, probably starting tomorrow morning. Meanwhile, Mrs Locher has taken a little ride down to Augusta for a more comprehensive postmortem. Who knows what itll show? Sometimes they do show things. Youd be surprised. I suppose I would, Ralph said. Leydecker tossed his toothpick into the trash, appeared to brood for a moment, then brightened up. Hey, heres an idea maybe Ill get someone in clerical to make a dupe of that 911 call. I could bring it over and play it for you. Maybe youll recognize the voice. Who knows? Stranger things have happened. I suppose they have, Ralph said, smiling uneasily. Anyway, its Utterbacks case. Come on, Ill see you out. In the hall, Leydecker gave Ralph another searching look. This one made Ralph feel a good deal more uncomfortable, because he had no idea what it meant. The auras had disappeared again. He tried on a smile that felt lame. Something hanging out of my nose that shouldnt be? Nope. Im just amazed at how good you look for someone who went through what you did yesterday. And compared to how you looked last summer . . . if thats what honeycomb can do, Im going to buy myself a beehive. Ralph laughed as though this were the funniest thing he had ever heard. 2 142 a.m., Tuesday morning. Ralph sat in the wingchair, watching wheels of fine mist revolve around the streetlights. Up the street, the policeline tapes hung dispiritedly in front of May Lochers house. |
Barely two hours sleep tonight, and he found himself again thinking that dead might be better. No more insomnia then. No more long waits for dawn in this hateful chair. No more days when he seemed to be looking at the world through the Gardol Invisible Shield they used to prattle about on the toothpaste commercials. Back when TV had been almost brandnew, that had been, in the days when he had yet to find the first strands of gray in his hair and he was always asleep five minutes after he and Carol had finished making love. And people keep talking about how good I look. Thats the weirdest part of it. Except it wasnt. Considering some of the things hed seen just lately, a few people saying he looked like a new man was far, far down on his list of oddities. Ralphs eyes returned to May Lochers house. The place had been locked up, according to Leydecker, but Ralph had seen the two little bald doctors come out the front door, he had seen them, goddammit But had he? Had he really? Ralph cast his mind back to the previous morning. Sitting down in this same chair with a cup of tea and thinking Let the play begin. And then he had seen those two little bald bastards come out, damn it, he had seen them come out of May Lochers house! Except maybe that was wrong, because he hadnt really been looking at Mrs Lochers house; he had been pointed more in the direction of the Red Apple. Hed thought the flicker of movement in the corner of his eye was probably Rosalie, and had turned his head to check. That was when hed seen the little bald doctors on the stoop of May Lochers house. He was no longer entirely sure he had seen the front door open; maybe he had just assumed that part, and why not? They sure as hell hadnt come up Mrs Lochers walk. You cant be sure of that, Ralph. Except he could. At three in the morning, Harris Avenue was as still as the mountains of the moon the slightest movement anywhere within the range of his vision registered. Had Doc 1 and Doc 2 come out the front door? The longer Ralph thought about it, the more he doubted it. Then what happened, Ralph? Did they maybe step out from behind the Gardol Invisible Shield? Or hows this? maybe they walked through the door, like those ghosts that used to haunt Cosmo Topper in that old TV show! And the craziest thing of all was that felt just about right. What? That they walked through the fucking DOOR? Oh, Ralph, you need help. You need to talk to someone about whats happening to you. Yes. That was the one thing of which he was sure he needed to spill all this to someone before it drove him crazy. But who? Carolyn would have been best, but she was dead. Leydecker? The problem there was that Ralph had already lied to him about the 911 call. Why? Because the truth would have sounded insane. It would have sounded, in fact, as if he had caught Ed Deepneaus paranoia like a cold. And wasnt that really the most likely explanation, when you looked at the situation dead on? But thats not it, he whispered. They were real. The auras, too. Its a long walk back to Eden, sweetheart . . . and watch out for those greengold whiteman tracks while youre on the way. Tell someone. Lay it all out. Yes. And he ought to do it before John Leydecker listened to that 911 tape and showed up asking for an explanation. Wanting to know, basically, why Ralph had lied, and what Ralph actually knew about the death of May Locher. Tell someone. Lay it all out. But Carolyn was dead, Leydecker was still too new, Helen was lying low at the WomanCare shelter somewhere out in the willywags, and Lois Chasse might gossip to her girlfriends. Who did that leave? The answer became clear once he put it to himself that way, but Ralph still felt a surprising reluctance to talk to McGovern about the things which had been happening to him. He remembered the day he had found Bill sitting on a bench by the softball field, crying over his old friend and mentor, Bob Polhurst. Ralph had tried to tell Bill about the auras, and it had been as if McGovern couldnt hear him; he had been too busy running through his wellthumbed script on the subject of how shitty it was to grow old. Ralph thought of the satiric raised eyebrow. The unfailing cynicism. The long face, always so gloomy. The literary allusions, which usually made Ralph smile but often left him feeling a tad inferior, as well. And then there was McGoverns attitude toward Lois condescending, even a touch cruel. Yet this was a long way from being fair, and Ralph knew it. Bill McGovern was capable of kindness, and perhaps far more important in this case understanding. He and Ralph had known each other for over twenty years; for the last ten of those years they had lived in the same building. He had been one of Carolyns pallbearers, and if Ralph couldnt talk to Bill about what had been happening to him, who could he talk to? The answer seemed to be no one. CHAPTER TEN 1 The misty rings around the streetlamps were gone by the time daylight began to brighten the sky in the east, and by nine oclock the day was clear and warm the beginning of Indian summers final brief passage, perhaps. Ralph went downstairs as soon as Good Morning America was over, determined to tell McGovern what had been happening to him (or as much as he dared, anyway) before he could lose his nerve. Standing outside the door of the downstairs apartment, however, he could hear the shower running and the mercifully distant sound of William D. McGovern singing I Left My Heart in San Francisco. Ralph went out to the porch, stuck his hands in his back pockets, and read the day like a catalogue. There was nothing, he reflected, really nothing in the world like October sunshine; he could almost feel his nightmiseries draining away. They would undoubtedly be back, but for now he felt all right tired and muzzyheaded, yes, but still pretty much all right. The day was more than pretty; it was downright gorgeous, and Ralph doubted if there would be another as good before next May. He decided he would be a fool not to take advantage of it. A walk up to the Harris Avenue Extension and back again would take half an hour, fortyfive minutes if there happened to be someone up there worth batting a little breeze with, and by then Bill would be showered, shaved, combed, and dressed. Also ready to lend a sympathetic ear, if Ralph was lucky. He walked as far as the picnic area outside the County Airport fence without quite admitting to himself that he was hoping to come across Old Dor. If he did, perhaps the two of them could talk a little poetry Stephen Dobyns, for instance or maybe even a bit of philosophy. They might start that part of their conversation with Dorrance explaining what longtime business was, and why he believed Ralph shouldnt mess in with it. Except Dorrance wasnt at the picnic area; no one was there but Don Veazie, who wanted to explain to Ralph why Bill Clinton was doing such a horrible job as President, and why it would have been better for the good old US of A if the American people had elected that fiscal genius Ross Perot. Ralph (who had voted for Clinton and actually thought the man was doing a pretty good job) listened long enough to be polite, then said he had an appointment to have his hair cut. It was the only thing he could think of on short notice. Something else, too! Don blared after him. That uppity wife of his! Womans a lesbian! I can always tell! You know how? I look at their shoes! Shoes is like a secret code with em! They always wear those ones with the square toes and See you, Don! Ralph called back, and beat a hasty retreat. He had gone about a quarter of a mile back down the hill when the day exploded silently all around him. 2 He was opposite May Lochers house when it happened. He stopped dead in his tracks, staring down Harris Avenue with wide, unbelieving eyes. His right hand was pressed against the base of his throat and his mouth hung open. He looked like a man having a heart attack, and while his heart seemed all right for the time being, anyway he certainly felt as if he were having some kind of an attack. Nothing he had seen this fall had prepared him for this. Ralph didnt think anything could have prepared him for this. That other world the secret world of auras had come into view again, and this time there was more of it than Ralph had ever dreamed . . . so much that he wondered fleetingly if it was possible for a person to die of perceptual overload. Upper Harris Avenue was a fiercely glowing wonderland filled with overlapping spheres and cones and crescents of color. The trees, which were still a week or more away from the climax of their fall transformation, none the less burned like torches in Ralphs eyes and mind. The sky had gone past color; it was a vast blue sonic boom. The telephone lines on Derrys west side were still above ground, and Ralph stared fixedly at them, vaguely aware that he had stopped breathing and should probably start again soon if he didnt want to pass out. Jagged yellow spirals were running briskly up and down the black wires, reminding Ralph of how barberpoles had looked when he was a kid. Every now and then this bumblebee pattern was broken by a spiky red vertical stroke or a green flash that seemed to spread both ways at once, obliterating the yellow rings for a moment before fading out. Youre watching people talk, he thought numbly. Do you know that, Ralph? Aunt Sadie in Dallas is chatting with her favorite nephew, who lives in Derry; a farmer in Haven is jawing with the dealer he buys his tractor parts from; a minister is trying to help a troubled parishioner. Those are voices, and I think the bright strokes and flashes are coming from people in the grip of some strong emotion love or hate, happiness or jealousy. And Ralph sensed that all he was seeing and all he was feeling was not all; that there was a whole world still waiting just beyond the current reach of his senses. Enough, perhaps, to make even what he was seeing now seem faint and faded. And if there was more, how could he possibly bear it without going mad? Not even putting his eyes out would help; he understood somehow that his sense of seeing these things came mostly from his lifelong acceptance of sight as his primary sense. But there was, in fact, a lot more than seeing going on here. In order to prove this to himself he closed his eyes . . . and went right on seeing Harris Avenue. It was as if his eyelids had turned to glass. The only difference was that all the usual colors had reversed themselves, creating a world that looked like the negative of a color photograph. The trees were no longer orange and yellow but the bright, unnatural green of lime Gatorade. The surface of Harris Avenue, repaved with fresh asphalt in June, had become a great white way, and the sky was an amazing red lake. He opened his eyes again, almost positive that the auras would be gone, but they werent; the world still boomed and rolled with color and movement and deep, resonating sound. When do I start seeing them? Ralph wondered as he began to walk slowly down the hill again. When do the little bald doctors start coming out of the woodwork? There were no doctors in evidence, however, bald or otherwise; no angels in the architecture; no devils peering up from the sewer gratings. There was only Look out, Roberts, watch where youre going, cant you? The words, harsh and a little alarmed, seemed to have actual physical texture; it was like running a hand over oak panelling in some ancient abbey or ancestral hall. Ralph stopped short and saw Mrs Perrine from down the street. She had stepped off the sidewalk into the gutter to keep from being bowled over like a tenpin, and now she stood ankledeep in fallen leaves, holding her net shopping bag in one hand and glaring at Ralph from beneath her thick saltandpepper eyebrows. The aura which surrounded her was the firm, nononsense gray of a West Point uniform. Are you drunk, Roberts? she asked in a clipped voice, and suddenly the riot of color and sensation fell out of the world and it was just Harris Avenue again, drowsing its way through a lovely weekday morning in midautumn. Drunk? Me? Not at all. Sober as a judge, honest. He held out his hand to her. Mrs Perrine, over eighty but not giving in to it so much as a single inch, looked at it as if she believed Ralph might have a joybuzzer hidden in his palm. Wouldnt put it past you, Roberts, her cool gray eyes said. Wouldnt put it past you at all. She stepped back onto the sidewalk without Ralphs aid. Im sorry, Mrs Perrine. I wasnt watching where I was going. No, you certainly werent. Lollygagging along with your mouth hanging open is what you were doing. You looked like the village idiot. Sorry, he repeated, and then had to bite his tongue to stifle a bray of laughter. Hmmp. Mrs Perrine looked him slowly up and down, like a Marine drillsergeant inspecting a raw recruit. Theres a rip under the arm of that shirt, Roberts. Ralph raised his left arm and looked. There was indeed a large rip in his favorite plaid shirt. He could look through it and see the bandage with its dried spot of blood; also an unsightly tangle of oldman armpit hair. He lowered his arm hurriedly, feeling a blush rising in his cheeks. Hmmp, Mrs Perrine said again, expressing everything she needed to express on the subject of Ralph Roberts without recourse to a single vowel. Drop it off at the house, if you like. Any other mending you might have, as well. I can still run a needle, you know. Oh yes, Ill bet you can, Mrs Perrine. Mrs Perrine now gave him a look which said, Youre a driedup old asskisser, Ralph Roberts, but I suppose you cant help it. Not in the afternoon, she said. I help make dinner at the homeless shelter in the afternoons, and help serve it out at five. Its Gods work. Yes, Im sure it Therell be no homeless in heaven, Roberts. You can count on that. No ripped shirts, either, Im sure. But while were here, we have to get along and make do. Its our job. And I, for one, am doing spectacularly well at it, Mrs Perrines face proclaimed. Bring your mending in the morning or in the evening, Roberts. Dont stand on ceremony, but dont you show up on my doorstep after eightthirty. I go to bed at nine. Thats very kind of you, Mrs Perrine, Ralph said, and had to bite his tongue again. He was aware that very soon this trick would cease to work; soon it was going to be a case of laugh or die. Not at all. Christian duty. Also, Carolyn was a friend of mine. Thank you, Ralph said. Terrible about May Locher, wasnt it? No, Mrs Perrine said. Gods mercy. And she glided upon her way before Ralph could say another word. Her spine was so excruciatingly straight that it hurt him to look at it. He walked on a dozen steps, then could hold it no longer. He leaned a forearm against a telephone pole, pressed his mouth to his arm, and laughed as quietly as he could laughed until tears poured down his cheeks. When the fit (and that was what it really felt like; a kind of hysterical seizure) had passed, Ralph raised his head and looked around with attentive, curious, slightly teary eyes. He saw nothing that anyone else couldnt see as well, and that was a relief. But it will come back, Ralph. You know it will. All of it. Yes, he supposed he did know it, but that was for later. Right now he had some talking to do. 3 When Ralph finally arrived back from his amazing journey up the street, McGovern was sitting in his chair on the porch and idling through the morning paper. As Ralph turned up the walk, he came to a sudden decision. He would tell Bill a lot, but not everything. One of the things he would definitely leave out was how much the two guys hed seen coming out of Mrs Lochers house had looked like the aliens in the tabloids for sale at the Red Apple. McGovern looked up as he climbed the steps. Hello, Ralph. Hi, Bill. Can I talk to you about something? Of course. He closed the paper and folded it carefully. They finally took my old friend Bob Polhurst to the hospital yesterday. Oh? I thought you expected that to happen sooner. I did. Everybody did. He fooled us. In fact, he seemed to be getting better of the pneumonia, at least and then he relapsed. He had a breathing arrest yesterday around noon, and his niece thought he was going to die before the ambulance got there. He didnt, though, and now he seems to have stabilized again. McGovern looked up the street and sighed. May Locher pops off in the middle of the night and Bob just keeps chugging along. What a world, huh? I guess so. What did you want to talk about? Have you finally decided to pop the question to Lois? Want a little fatherly advice on how to handle it? I need advice, all right, but not about my lovelife. Spill it, McGovern said tersely. Ralph did, gratified and more than a little relieved by McGoverns silent attentiveness. He began by sketching in things Bill already knew about the incident between Ed and the truckdriver in the summer of 92, and how similar Eds rantings on that occasion had been to the things he had said on the day he had beaten Helen for signing the petition. As Ralph spoke, he began to feel more strongly than ever that there were connections between all the odd things which had been happening to him, connections he could almost see. He told McGovern about the auras, although not about the silent cataclysm he had experienced less than half an hour before that was also further than he was willing to go, at least for the time being. McGovern knew about Charlie Pickerings attack on Ralph, of course, and that Ralph had averted a much more serious injury by using the spray Helen and her friend had given him, but now Ralph told him something he had held back on Sunday night, when hed told McGovern about the attack over a scratch dinner how the spraycan had magically appeared in his jacket pocket. Except, he said, he suspected that the magician had been Old Dor. Holy shit! McGovern exclaimed. Youve been living dangerously, Ralph! I guess so. How much of this have you told Johnny Leydecker? Very little, Ralph started to say, then realized that even that would be an exaggeration. Almost none of it. And theres something else I havent told him. Something a lot more . . . well, a lot more substantive, I guess. To do with what happened up there. He pointed toward May Lochers house, where a couple of blue and white vans had just pulled up. MAINE STATE POLICE was written on the sides. Ralph assumed they were the forensics people Leydecker had mentioned. May? McGovern leaned a little further forward in his chair. You know something about what happened to May? I think I do. Speaking carefully, moving from word to word like a man using steppingstones to cross a treacherous brook, Ralph told McGovern about waking up, going into the living room, and seeing two men come out of Mrs Lochers house. He recounted his successful rummage for the binoculars, and told McGovern about the scissors he had seen one of the men carrying. He did not mention his nightmare of Carolyn or the glowing tracks, and he most certainly did not mention his belated impression that the two men might have come right through the door; that would have finished off any remaining tatters of credibility he might still possess. He ended with his anonymous call to 911 and then sat in his chair, looking at McGovern anxiously. McGovern shook his head as if to clear it. Auras, oracles, mysterious housebreakers with scissors . . . you have been living dangerously. What do you think, Bill? McGovern sat quietly for several moments. He had rolled his newspaper up while Ralph was talking, and now he began to tap it absently against his leg. Ralph felt an urge to phrase his question even more bluntly Do you think Im crazy, Bill? and quashed it. Did he really believe that was the sort of question to which people gave honest answers . . . at least without a healthy shot of sodium pentothal first? That Bill might say Oh yes, I think youre just as crazy as a bedbug, Ralphiebaby, so why dont we call Juniper Hill right away and see if they have a bed for you? Not very likely . . . and since any answer Bill gave would mean nothing, it was better to forgo the question. I dont exactly know what I think, Bill said at last. Not yet, at least. What did they look like? Their faces were hard to make out, even with the binoculars, Ralph said. His voice was as steady as it had been yesterday, when he had denied making the 911 call. You probably dont have any idea of how old they were, either? No. Could either of them have been our old pal from up the street? Ed Deepneau? Ralph looked at McGovern in surprise. No, neither one was Ed. What about Pickering? No. Not Ed, not Charlie Pickering. I would have known either of them. What are you driving at? That my mind just sort of buckled and put the two guys whove caused me the most stress in the last few months on May Lochers front stoop? Of course not, McGovern replied, but the steady taptaptap of the newspaper against his leg paused and his eyes flickered. Ralph felt a sinking in the pit of his stomach. Yes; that was in fact exactly what McGovern had been driving at, and it wasnt really so surprising, was it? Maybe not, but it didnt change that sinking feeling. And Johnny said all the doors were locked. Yes. From the inside. Uhhuh, but McGovern got up from his chair so suddenly that for one crazy moment Ralph had the idea that he was going to run away, perhaps screaming Watch out for Roberts! Hes gone crazy! as he went. But instead of bolting down the steps, he turned toward the door leading back into the house. In some ways Ralph found this even more alarming. What are you going to do? Call Larry Perrault, McGovern said. Mays younger brother. He still lives out in Cardville. Shell be buried in Cardville, I imagine. McGovern gave Ralph a strange, speculative look. What did you think I was going to do? I dont know, Ralph said uneasily. For a second there I thought you were going to run away like the Gingerbread Man. Nope. McGovern reached out and patted him on the shoulder, but to Ralph the gesture felt cold and comfortless. Perfunctory. What does Mrs Lochers brother have to do with any of this? Johnny said they sent Mays body down to Augusta for a more comprehensive autopsy, right? Well, I think the word he actually used was postmortem McGovern waved this away. Same difference, believe me. If anything odd does crop up anything suggesting that she was murdered Larry would have to be informed. Hes her only close living relative. Yes, but wont he wonder what your interest is? Oh, I dont think we have to worry about that, McGovern said, speaking in a soothing tone Ralph didnt care for at all. Ill say the police have sealed off the house and that the old Harris Avenue rumor mill is turning briskly. He knows May and I were school chums, and that I visited her regularly over the last couple of years. Larry and I arent crazy about each other, but we get along reasonably well. Hell tell me what I want to know if for no other reason than that were both Cardville survivors. Get it? I guess so, but I hope so, McGovern said, and suddenly he looked like a very old and very ugly reptile a gila monster, or perhaps a basilisk lizard. He pointed a finger at Ralph. Im not a stupid man, and I do know how to respect a confidence. Your face just now said you werent sure about that, and I resent it. I resent the hell out of it. Im sorry, Ralph said. He was stunned by McGoverns outburst. McGovern looked at him a moment longer with his leathery lips pulled back against his toolarge dentures, then nodded. Yeah, okay, apology accepted. Youve been sleeping like shit, I have to factor that into the equation, and as for me, I cant seem to get Bob Polhurst off my mind. He heaved one of his weightiest pooroldBill sighs. Listen if youd prefer me not to try calling Mays brother No, no, Ralph said, thinking that what hed like to do was roll the clock back ten minutes or so and cancel this entire conversation. And then a sentiment he was sure Bill McGovern would appreciate floated into his mind, fully constructed and ready for use. Im sorry if I impugned your discretion. McGovern smiled, reluctantly at first and then with his whole face. Now I know what keeps you awake thinking up crap like that. Sit still, Ralph, and think good thoughts about a hippopotamus, as my mother used to say. Ill be right back. Probably wont even catch him in, you know; funeral arrangements and all that. Want to look at the paper while you wait? Sure. Thanks. McGovern handed him the paper, which still retained the tube shape into which it had been rolled, then went inside. Ralph glanced at the front page. The headline read PROCHOICE, PROLIFE ADVOCATES READY FOR ACTIVISTS ARRIVAL. The story was flanked by two news photographs. One showed half a dozen young women making signs which said things like OUR BODIES, OUR CHOICE and ITS A BRANDNEW DAY IN DERRY! The other showed picketers marching in front of WomanCare. They carried no signs and needed none; the hooded black robes they wore and the scythes they carried said it all. Ralph heaved a sigh of his own, dropped the paper onto the seat of the rocking chair beside him, and watched Tuesday morning unfold along Harris Avenue. It occurred to him that McGovern might well be on the phone with John Leydecker rather than Larry Perrault, and that the two of them might at this very moment be having a little studentteacher conference about that nutty old insomniac Ralph Roberts. Just thought youd like to know who really made that 911 call, Johnny. Thanks, Prof. We were pretty sure, anyway, but its good to get confirmation. I imagine hes harmless. I actually sort of like him. Ralph pushed away his speculations about who Bill might or might not be calling. It was easier just to sit here and not think at all, not even good thoughts about a hippopotamus. Easier to watch the Budweiser truck lumber into the Red Apple parking lot, pausing to give courtesy to the Magazines Incorporated van which had dropped off this weeks ration of tabloids, magazines, and paperbacks and was now leaving. Easier to watch old Harriet Bennigan, who made Mrs Perrine look like a spring chicken, bent over her walker in her bright red fall coat, out for her morning lurch. Easier to watch the young girl, who was wearing jeans, an oversized white teeshirt, and a mans hat about four sizes too big for her, jumping rope in the weedy vacant lot between Franks Bakery and Vicky Moons Tanning Saloon (Body Wraps Our Specialty). Easier to watch the girls small hands penduluming up and down. Easier to listen as she chanted her endless, shuttling rhyme. Threesixnine, the goose drank wine . . . Some distant part of Ralphs mind realized, with great astonishment, that he was on the verge of going to sleep as he sat here on the porch steps. At the same time this was happening, the auras were creeping into the world again, filling it with fabulous colors and motions. It was wonderful, but . . . . . . but something was wrong with it. Something. What? The girl jumping rope in the vacant lot. She was wrong. Her denimclad legs pumped up and down like the bobbin of a sewing machine. Her shadow jumped next to her on the jumbled pavement of an ancient alley overgrown with weeds and sunflowers. The rope whirled up and down . . . all around . . . up and down and all around . . . Not an oversized teeshirt, though, hed been wrong about that. The figure was wearing a smock. A white smock, like the kind worn by actors in the old TV docoperas. Threesixnine, hon, the goose drank wine, The monkey chewed tobacco on the streetcar line . . . A cloud blocked the sun and a grim green light sailed across the day, driving it underwater. Ralphs skin first chilled, then broke out in goosebumps. The girls pumping shadow disappeared. She looked up at Ralph and he saw she wasnt a little girl at all. The creature looking at him was a man about four feet tall. Ralph had first taken the hatshadowed face for that of a child because it was utterly smooth, unmarked by so much as a single line. And yet despite that, it conveyed a clear feeling to Ralph a sense of evil, of malignity beyond the comprehension of a sane mind. Thats it, Ralph thought numbly, staring at the skipping creature. Thats exactly it. Whatever the thing over there is, its insane. Totally gone. The creature might have read Ralphs thought, for at that moment its lips skinned back in a grin that was both coy and nasty, as if the two of them shared some unpleasant secret. And he was sure yes, quite sure, almost positive that it was somehow chanting through its grin, doing it without moving its lips in the slightest [The line BROKE! The monkey got CHOKED! And they all died together in a little rowBOAT!] It was neither of the two little bald doctors Ralph had seen coming out of Mrs Lochers, he was almost positive of that. Related to them, maybe, but not the same. It was The creature threw its jumprope away. The rope turned first yellow and then red, seeming to give off sparks as it flew through the air. The small figure Doc 3 stared at Ralph, grinning, and Ralph suddenly realized something else, something which filled him with horror. He finally recognized the hat the creature was wearing. It was Bill McGoverns missing Panama. 4 Again it was as if the creature had read his mind. It dragged the hat from its head, revealing the round, hairless skull beneath, and waved McGoverns Panama in the air as if it were a cowpoke astride a bucking bronco. It continued to grin its unspeakable grin as it waved the hat. Suddenly it pointed at Ralph, as if marking him. Then it clapped the hat back on its head and darted into the narrow, weedchoked opening between the tanning salon and the bakery. The sun sailed free of the cloud which had covered it, and the shifting brightness of the auras began to fade once more. A moment or two after the creature had disappeared it was just Harris Avenue in front of him again boring old Harris Avenue, the same as always. Ralph pulled a shuddering breath, remembering the madness in that small, grinning face. Remembering the way it had pointed (the monkey got CHOKED) at him, as if (they all died together in a little rowBOAT! ) marking him. Tell me I fell asleep, he whispered hoarsely. Tell me I fell asleep and dreamed that little bugger. The door opened behind him. Oh my, talking to yourself, McGovern said. Must have money in the bank, Ralphie. Yeah, about enough to cover my burial expenses, Ralph said. To himself he sounded like a man who has just suffered a terrible shock and is still trying to cope with the residual fright; he half expected Bill to dart forward, face filling with concern (or maybe just suspicion), to ask what was wrong. McGovern did nothing of the sort. He plumped into the rocking chair, crossed his arms over his narrow chest in a brooding X, and looked out at Harris Avenue, the stage upon which he and Ralph and Lois and Dorrance Marstellar and so many other old folks we goldenagers, in McGovernese were destined to play out their often boring and sometimes painful last acts. Suppose I told him about his hat? Ralph thought. Suppose I just opened the conversation by saying, Bill, I also know what happened to your Panama. Some badass relation to the guys I saw last night has got it. He wears it when he jumps rope between the bakery and the tanning salon. If Bill had any lingering doubts about his sanity, that little newsflash would certainly set them to rest. Yep. Ralph kept his mouth shut. Sorry I was gone so long, McGovern said. Larry claimed I just caught him going out the door to the funeral parlor, but before I could ask my questions and get away hed rehashed half of Mays life and damned near all of his own. Talked nonstop for fortyfive minutes. |
Positive this was an exaggeration McGovern had surely been gone five minutes, tops Ralph glanced at his watch and was astounded to see it was elevenfifteen. He looked up the street and saw that Mrs Bennigan had disappeared. So had the Budweiser truck. Had he been asleep? It seemed that he must have been . . . but he could not for the life of him find the break in his conscious perceptions. Oh, come on, dont be dense. You were sleeping when you saw the little bald guy. Dreamed the little bald guy. That made perfect sense. Even the fact that it had been wearing Bills Panama made sense. The same hat had shown up in his nightmare about Carolyn. It had been between Rosalies paws in that one. Except this time he hadnt been dreaming. He was sure of it. Well . . . almost sure. Arent you going to ask me what Mays brother said? McGovern sounded slightly piqued. Sorry, Ralph said. I was woolgathering, I guess. Forgiven, my son . . . provided you listen closely from here on out, that is. The detective in charge of the case, Funderburke Im pretty sure its Utterback. Steve Utterback. McGovern waved his hand airily, his most common response to being corrected on some point. Whatever. Anyway, he called Larry and said the autopsy showed nothing but natural causes. The thing they were most concerned about, in light of your call, was that May had been scared into a heart attack literally frightened to death by housebreakers. The doors being locked from the inside and the lack of missing valuables militated against that, of course, but they took your call seriously enough to investigate the possibility. His halfreproachful tone as if Ralph had wantonly poured glue into the gears of some usually smoothrunning machine made Ralph feel impatient. Of course they took it seriously. I saw two guys leaving her house and reported it to the authorities. When they got there, they found the lady dead. How could they not take it seriously? Why didnt you give your name when you made the call? I dont know. What difference does it make? And how in Gods name can they be sure she wasnt scared into a heart attack? I dont know if they can be a hundred per cent sure, McGovern said, now sounding a bit testy himself, but I guess it must be close to that if theyre turning Mays body over to her brother for burial. Its probably a bloodtest of some kind. All I know is that this guy Funderburke Utterback told Larry that May probably died in her sleep. McGovern crossed his legs, fiddled with the creases in his blue slacks, then gave Ralph a clear and piercing look. Im going to give you some advice, so listen up. Go to the doctor. Now. Today. Do not pass Go, do not collect two hundred dollars, go directly to Litchfield. This is getting heavy. The ones I saw coming out of Mrs Lochers didnt see me, but this one did, Ralph thought. It saw me and it pointed at me. For all I know, it might actually have been looking for me. Now there was a nice paranoid thought. Ralph? Did you hear what I said? Yes. I take it you dont believe I actually saw anyone coming out of Mrs Lochers house. You take it right. I saw the look on your face just now when I told you Id been gone fortyfive minutes, and I also saw the way you looked at your watch. You didnt believe so much time had passed, did you? And the reason you didnt believe it is because you dozed off without even being aware of it. Had yourself a little pocket nap. Thats probably what happened to you the other night, Ralph. Only the other night you dreamed up those two guys, and the dream was so real you called 911 when you woke up. Doesnt that make sense? Threesixnine, Ralph thought. The goose drank wine. What about the binoculars? he asked. Theyre still sitting on the table beside my chair in the living room. Dont they prove I was awake? I dont see how. Maybe you were sleepwalking, have you thought of that? You say you saw these intruders, but you cant really describe them. Those orange hiintensity lights All the doors locked from the inside Just the same I And these auras you talked about. The insomnia is causing them Im almost sure of it. Still, it could be more serious than that. Ralph got up, walked down the porch steps, and stood at the head of the walk with his back to McGovern. There was a throbbing at his temples and his heart was beating hard. Too hard. He didnt just point. I was right the first time, the little sonofabitch marked me. And he was no dream. Neither were the ones I saw coming out of Mrs Lochers. Im sure of it. Of course you are, Ralph, another voice replied. Crazy people are always sure of the crazy things they see and hear. Thats what makes them crazy, not the hallucinations themselves. If you really saw what you saw, what happened to Mrs Bennigan? What happened to the Budweiser truck? How did you lose the fortyfive minutes McGovern spent on the phone with Larry Perrault? Youre experiencing very serious symptoms, McGovern said from behind him, and Ralph thought he heard something terrible in the mans voice. Satisfaction? Could it possibly be satisfaction? One of them had a pair of scissors, Ralph said without turning around. I saw them. Oh, come on, Ralph! Think! Use that brain of yours and think! On Sunday afternoon, less than twentyfour hours before youre due to have acupuncture treatment, a lunatic nearly sticks a knife into you. Is it any wonder that your mind serves up a nightmare featuring a sharp object that night? Hongs pins and Pickerings hunting knife become scissors, thats all. Dont you see that this hypothesis covers all the bases while what you claim to have seen covers none of them? And I was sleepwalking when I got the binoculars? Thats what you think? Its possible. Even likely. Same thing with the spraycan in my jacket pocket, right? Old Dor didnt have a thing to do with it. I dont care about the spraycan or Old Dor! McGovern cried. I care about you! Youve been suffering from insomnia since April or May, youve been depressed and disturbed ever since Carolyn died I have not been depressed! Ralph shouted. Across the street, the mailman paused and looked in their direction before going on down the block toward the park. Have it your own way, McGovern said. You havent been depressed. You also havent been sleeping, youre seeing auras, guys creeping out of locked houses in the middle of the night . . . And then, in a deceptively light voice, McGovern said the thing Ralph had been dreading all along You want to watch out, old son. Youre starting to sound too much like Ed Deepneau for comfort. Ralph turned around. Dull hot blood pounded behind his face. Why are you being this way? Why are you taking after me this way? Im not taking after you, Ralph, Im trying to help you. To be your friend. Thats not how it feels. Well, sometimes the truth hurts a little, McGovern said calmly. You need to at least consider the idea that your mind and body are trying to tell you something. Let me ask you a question is this the only disturbing dream youve had lately? Ralph thought fleetingly of Carol, buried up to her neck in the sand and screaming about whiteman tracks. Thought of the bugs which had flooded out of her head. I havent had any bad dreams lately, he said stiffly. I suppose you dont believe that because it doesnt fit into the little scenario youve created. Ralph Let me ask you something. Do you really believe that my seeing those two men and May Locher turning up dead was just a coincidence? Maybe not. Maybe your physical and emotional upset created conditions favorable to a brief but perfectly genuine psychic event. Ralph was silenced. I believe such things do happen from time to time, McGovern said, standing up. Probably sounds funny, coming from a rational old bird like me, but I do. Im not outandout saying that is what happened here, but it could have been. What I am sure of is that the two men you think you saw did not in fact exist in the real world. Ralph stood looking up at McGovern with his hands jammed deep into his pockets and clenched into fists so hard and tight they felt like rocks. He could feel the muscles in his arms thrumming. McGovern came down the porch steps and took him by the arm, gently, just above the elbow. I only think Ralph pulled his arm away so sharply that McGovern grunted with surprise and stumbled a little on his feet. I know what you think. Youre not hearing what I Oh, Ive heard plenty. More than enough. Believe me. And excuse me I think Im going for another walk. I need to clear my head. He could feel dull hot blood pounding away in his cheeks and brow. He tried to throw his brain into some forward gear that would allow it to leave this senseless, impotent rage behind and couldnt do it. He felt a lot as he had when he had awakened from the dream of Carolyn; his thoughts roared with terror and confusion, and as he started his legs moving the sense he got was not one of walking but of falling, as he had fallen out of bed yesterday morning. Still, he kept going. Sometimes that was all you could do. Ralph, you need to see a doctor! McGovern called after him, and Ralph could no longer tell himself that he didnt hear a weird, shrewish pleasure in McGoverns voice. The concern which overlaid it was probably genuine enough but it was like sweet icing on a sour cake. Not a pharmacist, not a hypnotist, not an acupuncturist! You need to see your own family doctor! Yeah, the guy who buried my wife below the hightide line! he thought in a kind of mental scream. The guy who stuck her in sand up to her neck and then told her she didnt have to worry about drowning as long as she kept taking her Valium and Tylenol3! Aloud he said, I need to take a walk! Thats what I need and thats all I need. His heartbeat was now slamming into his temples like the short, hard blows of a sledgehammer, and it occurred to him that this was how strokes must happen; if he didnt control himself soon, he was apt to fall down with what his father had called a badtemper apoplexy. He could hear McGovern coming down the walk after him. Dont touch me, Bill, Ralph thought. Dont even put your hand on my shoulder, because Im probably going to turn around and slug you if you do. Im trying to help you, dont you see that? McGovern shouted. The mailman on the other side of the street had stopped again to watch them, and outside the Red Apple, Karl, the guy who worked mornings, and Sue, the young woman who worked afternoons, were gawking frankly across the street at them. Karl, he saw, had a bag of hamburger buns in one hand. It was really sort of amazing, the things you saw at a time like this . . . although not as amazing as some of the things he had already seen that morning. The things you thought you saw, Ralph, a traitor voice whispered softly from deep inside his head. Walk, Ralph muttered desperately. Just a damn walk. A mindmovie had begun to play in his head. It was an unpleasant one, the sort of film he rarely went to see even if he had seen everything else that was playing at the cinema center. The soundtrack to this mental horror flick seemed to be Pop Goes the Weasel, of all things. Let me tell you something, Ralph at our age, mental illness is common! At our age its common as hell, so GO SEE YOUR DOCTOR! Mrs Bennigan was now standing on her stoop, her walker abandoned at the foot of the front steps. She was still wearing her bright red fall coat, and her mouth appeared to be hanging open as she stared down the street at them. Do you hear me, Ralph? I hope you do! I just hope you do! Ralph walked faster, hunching his shoulders as if against a cold wind. Suppose he just keeps on yelling, louder and louder? Suppose he follows me right up the street? If he does that, people will think hes the one whos gone crazy, he told himself, but this idea had no power to soothe him. In his mind he continued to hear a piano playing a childrens tune no, not really playing; picking it out in nurseryschool plinks and plonks All around the mulberry bush The monkey chased the weasel, The monkey thought twas all in fun, Pop! Goes the weasel! And now Ralph began to see the old people of Harris Avenue, the ones who bought their insurance from companies that advertised on cable TV, the ones with the gallstones and the skin tumors, the ones whose memories were diminishing even as their prostates enlarged, the ones who were living on Social Security and peering at the world through thickening cataracts instead of rosecolored glasses. These were the people who now read all the mail which came addressed to Occupant and scanned the supermarket advertising circulars for specials on canned goods and generic frozen dinners. He saw them dressed in grotesque short pants and fluffy short skirts, saw them wearing beanies and teeshirts which showcased such characters as Beavis and ButtHead and Rude Dog. He saw them, in short, as the worlds oldest preschoolers. They were marching around a double row of chairs as a small bald man in a white smock played Pop Goes the Weasel on the piano. Another baldy filched the chairs one by one, and when the music stopped and everyone sat down, one person this time it had been May Locher, next time it would probably be McGoverns old department head was left standing. That person would have to leave the room, of course. And Ralph heard McGovern laughing. Laughing because hed found a seat again. Maybe May Locher was dead, Bob Polhurst dying, Ralph Roberts losing his marbles, but he was still all right, William D. McGovern, Esq was still fine, still dandy, still vertical and taking nourishment, still able to find a chair when the music stopped. Ralph walked faster still, shoulders hunched even higher, anticipating another fusillade of advice and admonition. He thought it unlikely that McGovern would actually follow him up the street, but not entirely out of the question. If McGovern was angry enough he might do just that remonstrating, telling Ralph to stop fooling around and go to the doctor, reminding him that the piano could stop anytime, any old time at all, and if he didnt find a chair while the finding was good, he might be out of luck forever. No more shouts came, however. He thought of looking back to see where McGovern was, then thought better of it. If he saw Ralph looking back, it might set him off all over again. Best to just keep going. So Ralph lengthened his stride, heading back in the direction of the airport again without even thinking about it, walking with his head down, trying not to hear the relentless piano, trying not to see the old children marching around the chairs, trying not to see the terrified eyes above their makebelieve smiles. It came to him as he walked that his hopes had been denied. He had been pushed into the tunnel after all, and the dark was all around him. PART 2 THE SECRET CITY Old men ought to be explorers. T.S. Eliot Four Quartets CHAPTER ELEVEN 1 The Derry of the Old Crocks was not the only secret city existing quietly within the place Ralph Roberts had always thought of as home; as a boy growing up in Mary Mead, where the various Old Cape housing developments stood today, Ralph had discovered there was, in addition to the Derry that belonged to the grownups, one that belonged strictly to the children. There were the abandoned hobo jungles near the railroad depot on Neibolt Street, where one could sometimes find tomato soup cans halffull of mulligatawny stew and bottles with a swallow or two of beer left in them; there was the alley behind the Aladdin Theater, where Bull Durham cigarettes were smoked and Black Cat firecrackers sometimes set off; there was the big old elm which overhung the river, where scores of boys and girls had learned to dive; there were the hundred (or perhaps it was closer to two hundred) tangled trails winding through the Barrens, an overgrown valley which slashed through the center of town like a badly healed scar. These secret streets and highways in hiding were all below the adult plane of vision and were consequently overlooked by them . . . although there had been exceptions. One of them had been a cop named Aloysius Nell Mr Nell to generations of Derry children and it was only now, as he walked up toward the picnic area near the place where Harris Avenue became the Harris Avenue Extension, that it occurred to Ralph that Chris Nell was probably old Mr Nells son . . . except that couldnt be quite right, because the cop Ralph had first seen in the company of John Leydecker wasnt old enough to be old Mr Nells son. Grandson, more like it. Ralph had become aware of a second secret city one that belonged to the old folks around the time he retired, but he hadnt fully realized that he himself was a citizen of it until after Carols death. What he had discovered then was a submerged geography eerily similar to the one he had known as a child, a place largely ignored by the hurrytowork, hurrytoplay world which thumped and hustled all around it. The Derry of the Old Crocks overlapped yet a third secret city the Derry of the Damned, a terrible place inhabited mostly by winos, runaways, and lunatics who could not be kept locked up. It was in the picnic area that Lafayette Chapin had introduced Ralph to one of lifes most important considerations . . . once youd become a bona fide Old Crock, that was. This consideration had to do with ones real life. The subject had come up while the two men were just getting to know one another. Ralph had asked Faye what he had done before he started coming out to the picnic area. Well, in my real life I was a carpenter n fancy cabinetmaker, Chapin had replied, exposing his remaining teeth in a wide grin, but all that ended almost ten year ago. As if, Ralph remembered thinking, retirement was something like a vampires kiss, pulling those who survived it into the world of the undead. And when you got right down to cases, was that really so far off the mark? 2 Now, with McGovern safely behind him (at least he hoped so), Ralph stepped through the screen of mixed oak and maple which shielded the picnic area from the Extension. He saw that eight or nine people had drifted in since his earlier walk, most with bag lunches or Coffee Pot sandwiches. The Eberlys and Zells were playing hearts with the greasy deck of Top Hole cards which was kept stashed in a knothole of a nearby oak; Faye and Doc Mulhare, a retired vet, were playing chess; a couple of kibbitzers wandered back and forth between the two games. Games were what the picnic area was about what most of the places in the Derry of the Old Crocks were about but Ralph thought the games were really just framework. What people actually came here for was to touch base, to report in, to confirm (if only to themselves) that they were still living some kind of life, real or otherwise. Ralph sat on an empty bench near the Cyclone fence and traced one finger absently over the engraved carvings names, initials, lots of FUCKS YOUS as he watched planes land at orderly twominute intervals a Cessna, a Piper, an Apache, a Twin Bonanza, the eleven fortyfive Air Express out of Boston. He kept one ear cocked to the ebb and flow of conversation behind him. May Lochers name was mentioned more than once. She had been known by several of these people, and the general opinion seemed to be Mrs Perrines that God had finally shown mercy and ended her suffering. Most of the talk today, however, concerned the impending visit of Susan Day. As a rule, politics wasnt much of a conversational draw with the Old Crocks, who preferred a good bowel cancer or stroke any day, but even out here the abortion issue exercised its singular ability to engage, inflame, and divide. She picked a bad town to come to, and the hell of it is, I doubt she knows it, Doc Mulhare said, watching the chessboard with glum concentration as Faye Chapin blitzkrieged his kings remaining defenders. Things have a way of happening here. Remember the fire at the Black Spot, Faye? Faye grunted and captured the docs remaining bishop. What I dont understand is these cootiebugs, Lisa Zell said, picking up the front section of the News from the picnic table and slapping the photograph of the hooded figures marching in front of WomanCare. Its like they want to go back to the days when women gave themselves abortions with coathangers. Thats what they do want, Georgina Eberly said. They figure if a womans scared enough of dying, shell have the baby. It never seems to cross their minds that a woman can be more scared of having a kid than using a coathanger to get rid of it. What does bein afraid have to do with it? one of the kibbitzers a shovelfaced oldster named Pedersen asked truculently. Murder is murder whether the babys inside or outside, thats the way I look at it. Even when theyre so small you need a microscope to see em, its still murder. Because theyd be kids if you let em alone. I guess that just about makes you Adolf Eichmann every time you jerk off, Faye said, and moved his queen. Check. Lafayette Chapin! Lisa Zell cried. Playin with yourself aint the same at all, Pedersen said, glowering. Oh no? Wasnt there some guy in the Bible got cursed by God for hammerin the old haddock? the other kibbitzer asked. Youre probably thinking of Onan, said a voice from behind Ralph. He turned, startled, and saw Old Dor standing there. In one hand he held a paperback with a large number 5 on the cover. Where the hell did you come from? Ralph wondered. He could almost have sworn there had been no one standing behind him a minute or so before. Onan, Shmonan, Pedersen said. Those sperms arent the same as a baby No? Faye asked. Then why aint the Catholic Church sellin rubbers at Bingo games? Tell me that. Thats just ignorant, Pedersen said. And if you dont see But it wasnt masturbation Onan was punished for, Dorrance said in his high, penetrating old mans voice. He was punished for refusing to impregnate his brothers widow, so his brothers line could continue. Theres a poem, by Allen Ginsberg, I think Shut up, you old fool! Pedersen yelled, and then glowered at Faye Chapin. And if you dont see that theres a big difference between a man beating his meat and a woman flushing the baby God put in her belly down the toilet, youre as big a fool as he is. This is a disgusting conversation, Lisa Zell said, sounding more fascinated than disgusted. Ralph looked over her shoulder and saw a section of chainlink fencing had been torn loose from its post and bent backward, probably by the kids who took this place over at night. That solved one mystery, anyway. He hadnt noticed Dorrance because the old man hadnt been in the picnic area at all; hed been wandering around the airport grounds. It occurred to Ralph that this was his chance to grab Dorrance and maybe get some answers out of him . . . except that Ralph would likely end up more confused than ever. Old Dor was too much like the Cheshire Cat in Alice in Wonderland more smile than substance. Big difference, huh? Faye was asking Pedersen. Yeah! Red patches glowered in Pedersens chapped cheeks. Doc Mulhare shifted uneasily on his seat. Look, lets just forget it and finish the game, Faye, all right? Faye took no notice; his attention was still fixed on Pedersen. Maybe you ought to think again about all the little spermies that died in the palm of your hand every time you sat on the toilet seat thinkin about how nice itd be to have Marilyn Monroe cop your Pedersen reached out and slapped the remaining chesspieces off the board. Doc Mulhare winced backward, mouth trembling, eyes wide and frightened behind pinkrimmed glasses which had been mended in two places with electrical tape. Yeah, good! Faye shouted. Thats a very reasonable fuckin argument, you geek! Pedersen raised his fists in an exaggerated John L. Sullivan pose. Want to do somethin about it? he asked. Come on, lets go! Faye got slowly to his feet. He stood easily a foot taller than the shovelfaced Pedersen and outweighed him by at least sixty pounds. Ralph could hardly believe what he was seeing. And if the poison had seeped this far, what about the rest of the city? It seemed to him that Doc Mulhare was right; Susan Day must not have the slightest idea of how bad an idea bringing her act to Derry really was. In some ways in a lot of ways, actually Derry wasnt like other places. He was moving before he was consciously aware of what he meant to do, and he was relieved to see Stan Eberly doing the same thing. They exchanged a glance as they approached the two men standing nose to nose, and Stan nodded slightly. Ralph slipped an arm around Fayes shoulders a bare second before Stan gripped Pedersens upper left arm. You aint doing none of that, Stan said, speaking directly into one of Pedersens tufted ears. Well end up taking the both of you over to Derry Home with heart attacks, and you dont need another one of those, Harley you had two already. Or is it three? I aint letting him make jokes about wimmin murderin babies! Pedersen said, and Ralph saw there were tears rolling down the mans cheeks. My wife died havin our second daughter! Sepsis carried her off back in 46! So I aint havin that talk about murderin babies! Christ, Faye said in a different voice. I didnt know that, Harley. Im sorry Ah, frig your sorry! Pedersen cried, and ripped his arm out of Stan Eberlys grip. He lunged toward Faye, who raised his fists and then lowered them again as Pedersen went blundering past without looking at him. He took the path through the trees which led back out to the Extension and was gone. What followed his departure was thirty seconds of pure shocked silence, broken only by the waspwhine of an incoming Piper Cub. 3 Jesus, Faye said at last. You see a guy every few days over five, ten years, and you start to think you know everything. Christ, Ralphie, I didnt know how his wife died. I feel like a fool. Dont let it get you down, Stan said. Hes probly just havin his monthlies. Shut up, Georgina said. Weve had enough dirty talk for one morning. Ill be glad when that Day woman comes n goes n things can get back to normal, Fred Zell said. Doc Mulhare was down on his hands and knees, collecting chesspieces. Do you want to finish, Faye? he asked. I think I remember where they all were. No, Faye said. His voice, which had remained steady during the confrontation with Pedersen, now sounded trembly. Think Ive had enough for awhile. Maybe Ralphll give you a little tourney prelim. Think Im going to pass, Ralph said. He was looking around for Dorrance, and at last spotted him. He had gone back through the hole in the fence. He was standing in kneehigh grass at the edge of the service road over there, bending his book back and forth in his hands as he watched the Piper Cub taxi toward the General Aviation terminal. Ralph found himself remembering how Ed had come tearing along that service road in his old brown Datsun, and how he had sworn (Hurry up! Hurry up and lick shit! ) at the slowness of the gate. For the first time in over a year he found himself wondering what Ed had been doing in there to begin with. than you did. Huh? He made an effort and focused on Faye again. I said you must be sleepin again, because you look a hell of a lot better than you did. But now your hearins goin to hell, I guess. I guess so, Ralph said, and tried a little smile. Think Ill go grab myself a little lunch. You want to come, Faye? My treat. Nah, I already had a Coffee Pot, Faye said. Its sittin in my gut like a piece of lead right now, to tell you the truth. Cheez, Ralph, the old fart was crying, did you see that? Yes, but I wouldnt make it into a big deal if I were you, Ralph said. He started walking toward the Extension, and Faye ambled along beside him. With his broad shoulders slumped and his head lowered, Faye looked quite a lot like a trained bear in a mansuit. Guys our age cry over just about anything. You know that. I spose. He gave Ralph a grateful smile. Anyway, thanks for stoppin me before I could make it worse. You know how I am, sometimes. I only wish someone had been there when Bill and I got into it, Ralph thought. Out loud he said, No problem. Its me that should be thanking you, actually. Its something else to put on my rsum when I apply for that highpaying job at the UN. Faye laughed, delighted, and clapped Ralph on the shoulder. Yeah, SecretaryGeneral! Peacemaker Number One! You could do it, Ralph, no shit! No question about it. Take care of yourself, Faye. He started to turn away and Faye touched his arm. Youre still up for the tournament next week, arent you? The Runway 3 Classic? It took a moment for Ralph to figure out what he was talking about, although it had been the retired carpenters main topic of conversation ever since the leaves had begun to show color. Faye had been putting on the chess tournament he called The Runway 3 Classic ever since the end of his real life in 1984. The trophy was an oversized chrome hubcap with a fancy crown and scepter engraved on it. Faye, easily the best player among the Old Crocks (on the west side of town, at least), had awarded the trophy to himself on six of the nine occasions it had been given out, and Ralph had a suspicion that he had gone in the tank the other three times, just to keep the rest of the tourney participants interested. Ralph hadnt thought much about chess this fall; hed had other things on his mind. Sure, he said, I guess Ill be playing. Faye grinned. Good. We should have had it last weekend that was the schedule but I was hopin that if I put it off, Jimmy V would be able to play. Hes still in the hospital, though, and if I put it off much longer itll be too cold to play outdoor and well end up in the back of Duffy Spragues barber shop, like we did in 90. Whats wrong with Jimmy V? Cancer come back on him again, Faye said, then added in a lower tone I dont think hes got a snowballs chance in hell of beatin it this time. Ralph felt a sudden and surprisingly sharp pang of sorrow at this news. He and Jimmy Vandermeer had known each other well during their own real lives. Both had been on the road back then, Jimmy in candy and greeting cards, Ralph in printing supplies and paper products, and the two of them had gotten on well enough to team up on several New England tours, splitting the driving and sharing rather more luxurious accommodations than either could have afforded alone. They had also shared the lonely, unremarkable secrets of travelling men. Jimmy told Ralph about the whore whod stolen his wallet in 1958, and how hed lied to his wife about it, telling her that a hitchhiker had robbed him. Ralph told Jimmy about his realization, at the age of fortythree, that he had become a terpin hydrate junkie, and about his painful, ultimately successful struggle to kick the habit. He had no more told Carolyn about his bizarre coughsyrup addiction than Jimmy V had told his wife about his last Bgirl. A lot of trips; a lot of changed tires; a lot of jokes about the travelling salesman and the farmers beautiful daughter; a lot of latenight talks which had gone on until the small hours of the morning. Sometimes it was God they had talked about, sometimes the IRS. All in all, Jimmy Vandermeer had been a damned good pal. Then Ralph had gotten his deskjob with the printing company and fallen out of touch with Jimmy. Hed only begun to reconnect out here, and at a few of the other dim landmarks which dotted the Derry of the Old Crocks the library, the poolhall, the back room of Duffy Spragues barber shop, four or five others. When Jimmy told him shortly after Carolyns death that he had come through a bout with cancer a lung shy but otherwise okay, what Ralph had remembered was the man talking baseball or fishing as he fed smoldering Camel stubs into the slipstream rushing by the wingwindow of the car, one after another. I got lucky was what he had said. Me and the Duke, we both got lucky. Except neither of them had stayed lucky, it seemed. Not that anyone did, in the end. |
Oh, man, Ralph said. Im sorry to hear that. Hes been in Derry Home almost three weeks now, Faye said. Havin those radiation treatments and gettin injects of poison thats supposed to kill the cancer while its half killing you. Im surprised you didnt know, Ralph. I suppose you are, but Im not. The insomnia keeps swallowing stuff, you see. One day its the last CupASoup envelope you lose track of; next day its your sense of time; the day after that its your old friends. Faye shook his head. Fucking cancer. Its spooky, how it waits. Ralph nodded, now thinking of Carolyn. What rooms Jimmy in, do you know? Maybe Ill go visit him. Just so happens I do. 315. Think you can remember it? Ralph grinned. For awhile, anyway. Go see him if you can, sure they got him pretty doped up, but he still knows who comes in, and I bet hed love to see you. Him and you had a lot of high old times together, he told me once. Well, you know, Ralph said. Couple of guys on the road, thats all. If we flipped for the check in some diner, Jimmy V always called tails. Suddenly he felt like crying. Lousy, isnt it? Faye said quietly. Yes. Well, you go see him. Hell be glad, and youll feel better. Thats how its supposed to work, anyway. And dont you go and forget the damn chess tournament! Faye finished, straightening up and making a heroic effort to look and sound cheerful. If you step out now youll fuck up the seedings. Ill do my best. Yeah, I know you will. He made a fist and punched Ralphs upper arm lightly. And thanks again for stopping me before I could do something Id, you know, feel bad about later. Sure. Peacemaker Number One, thats me. Ralph started down the path which led to the Extension, then turned back. You see that service road over there? The one that goes from General Aviation out to the street? He pointed. A catering truck was currently driving away from the private terminal, its windshield reflecting bright darts of sunlight into their eyes. The truck stopped just short of the gate, breaking the electriceye beam. The gate began to trundle open. Sure I do, Faye said. Last summer I saw Ed Deepneau using that road, which means he had a keycard to the gate. Any idea how he would have come by a thing like that? You mean The Friends of Life guy? Lab scientist who did a little research in wifebeating last summer? Ralph nodded. But its the summer of 92 Im talking about. He was driving an old brown Datsun. Faye laughed. I wouldnt know a Datsun from a Toyota from a Honda, Ralph I stopped bein able to tell cars apart around the time Chevrolet gave up the gullwing tailfins. But I can tell you who mostly uses that road caterers, mechanics, pilots, crew, and flight controllers. Some passengers have keycards, I think, if they fly private a lot. The only scientists over there are the ones who work at the airtesting station. Is that the kind of scientist he is? Nope, a chemist. He worked at Hawking Labs until just a little while ago. Played with the white rats, did he? Well there arent any rats over at the airport that I know of, anyway but now that I think of it, there is one other bunch of people who use that gate. Oh? Who? Faye pointed at a prefab building with a corrugated roof standing about seventy yards from the General Aviation terminal. See that building? Thats SoloTech. Whats SoloTech? A school, Faye said. They teach people to fly. 4 Ralph walked back down Harris Avenue with his big hands stuffed into his pockets and his head lowered so he did not see much more than the cracks in the sidewalk passing beneath his sneakers. His mind was fixed on Ed Deepneau again . . . and on SoloTech. He had no way of knowing if SoloTech was the reason Ed had been out at the airport on the day he had run into Mr West Side Gardeners, but all of a sudden that was a question to which Ralph very much wanted an answer. He was also curious as to just where Ed was living these days. He wondered if John Leydecker might share his curiosity on these two points, and decided to find out. He was passing the unpretentious double storefront which housed George Lyford, CPA, on one side and Maritime Jewelry (WE BUY YOUR OLD GOLD AT TOP PRICES) on the other, when he was pulled out of his thoughts by a short, strangled bark. He looked up and saw Rosalie sitting on the sidewalk just outside the upper entrance to Strawford Park. The old dog was panting rapidly; saliva drizzled off her lolling tongue, building up a dark puddle on the concrete between her paws. Her fur was stuck together in dark clumps, as if she had been running, and the faded blue bandanna around her neck seemed to shiver with her rapid respiration. As Ralph looked at her, she gave another bark, this one closer to a yelp. He glanced across the street to see what she was barking at and saw nothing but the BuffyBuffy Laundromat. There were a few women moving around inside, but Ralph found it impossible to believe Rosalie was barking at them. No one at all was currently passing on the sidewalk in front of the coinop laundry. Ralph looked back and suddenly realized that Rosalie wasnt just sitting on the sidewalk but crouching there . . . cowering there. She looked scared almost to death. Until that moment, Ralph had never thought much about how eerily human the expressions and body language of dogs were they grinned when they were happy, hung their heads when they were ashamed, registered anxiety in their eyes and tension in the set of their shoulders all things that people did. And, like people, they registered abject, total fear in every quivering line of the body. He looked across the street again, at the spot where Rosalies attention seemed focused, and once again saw nothing but the laundry and the empty sidewalk in front of it. Then, suddenly, he remembered Natalie, the Exalted Revered Baby, snatching at the grayblue contrails his fingers left behind as he reached out with them to wipe the milk from her chin. To anyone else she would have looked as if she were grabbing at nothing, the way babies always appeared to be grabbing at nothing . . . but Ralph had known better. He had seen better. Rosalie uttered a string of panicky yelps that grated on Ralphs ear like the sound of unoiled hinges. So far its only happened on its own . . . but maybe I can make it happen. Maybe I can make myself see See what? Well, the auras. Them, of course. And maybe whatever Rosalie (threesixnine hon) was looking at, as well. Ralph already had a pretty good idea (the goose drank wine) of what it was, but he wanted to be sure. The question was how to do it. How does a person see in the first place? By looking, of course. Ralph looked at Rosalie. Looked at her carefully, trying to see everything there was to see the faded pattern on the blue bandanna which served as her collar, the dusty clumps and tangles in her uncaredfor coat, the sprinkle of gray around her long muzzle. After a few moments of this she seemed to feel his gaze, for she turned, looked at him, and whined uneasily. As she did, Ralph felt something turn over in his mind it felt like the startermotor of a car. There was a brief but very clear sense of being suddenly lighter, and then brightness flooded into the day. He had found his way back into that more vivid, more deeply textured world. He saw a murky membrane it made him think of spoiled eggwhite swim into existence around Rosalie, and saw a dark gray balloonstring rising from her. Its point of origin wasnt the skull, however, as had been the case in all the people Ralph had seen while in this heightened state of awareness; Rosalies balloonstring rose from her muzzle. Now you know the most essential difference between dogs and men, he thought. Their souls reside in different places. [Doggy! Here, doggy, cmere!] Ralph winced and drew back from that voice, which was like chalk squeaking on a blackboard. The heels of his palms rose most of the way to his ears before he realized that wouldnt help; he wasnt really hearing it with his ears, and the part that the voice hurt the worst was deep inside his head, where his hands couldnt reach. [Hey, you fucking flea suitcase! You think Ive got all day? Get your raggedy ass over here!] Rosalie whined and switched her gaze from Ralph back toward whatever she had been looking at before. She started to get up, then shrank back down on her haunches again. The bandanna she wore was shaking harder than ever, and Ralph saw a dark crescent begin to spread around her left flank as her bladder let go. He looked across the street and there was Doc 3, standing between the laundromat and the elderly apartment house next door, Doc 3 in his white smock (it was badly stained, Ralph noticed, as if he had been wearing it for a long time) and his midgetsized blue jeans. He still had McGoverns Panama on his head. The hat now appeared to balance on the creatures ears; it was so big for him that the top half of his head seemed submerged in it. He was grinning ferociously at the dog, and Ralph saw a double row of pointed white teeth the teeth of a cannibal. In his left hand he was holding something which was either an old scalpel or a straightrazor. Part of Ralphs mind tried to convince him that it was blood he saw on the blade, but he was pretty sure it was just rust. Doc 3 slipped the first two fingers of his right hand into the corners of his mouth and blew a piercing whistle that went through Ralphs head like a drillbit. Down the sidewalk, Rosalie flinched backward and then voiced a brief howl. [Get your fucking ass over, Rover! Do it now!] Rosalie got up, tail between her legs, and began to slink toward the street. She whined as she went, and her fear had worsened her limp to the point where she was barely able to stagger; her hindquarters threatened to slide out from under her at each reluctant, lurching step. [Hey!] Ralph only realized that he had yelled when he saw the small blue cloud float up in front of his face. It was etched with gossamer silver lines that made it look like a snowflake. The bald dwarf wheeled toward the sound of Ralphs shout, instinctively raising the weapon he held as he did. His expression was one of snarling surprise. Rosalie had stopped with her front paws in the gutter and was looking at Ralph with wide, anxious brown eyes. [What do you want, Shorts?] There was fury at being interrupted in that voice, fury at being challenged . . . but Ralph thought there were other emotions underneath. Fear? He wished he could believe it. Perplexity and surprise seemed surer bets. Whatever this creature was, it wasnt used to being seen by the likes of Ralph, let alone challenged. [Whats the matter, ShortTime, cat got your tongue? Or have you already forgotten what you wanted?] [I want you to leave that dog alone!] Ralph heard himself in two different ways. He was fairly sure he was speaking aloud, but the sound of his actual voice was distant and tinny, like music drifting up from a pair of Walkman headphones which have been temporarily laid aside. Someone standing right beside him might have heard what he said, but Ralph knew the words would have sounded like a weak, outofbreath gasp talk from a man who has just been gutpunched. Inside his head, however, he sounded as he hadnt in years young, strong, and confident. Doc 3 must have heard it that second way, for he recoiled momentarily, again raising his weapon (Ralph was now almost certain it was a scalpel) for a moment, as if in selfdefense. Then he seemed to regroup. He left the sidewalk and strode to the edge of Harris Avenue, standing on the leafdrifted strip of grass between the sidewalk and the street. He hitched at the waistband of his jeans, yanking it through the dirty smock, and stared grimly at Ralph for several moments. Then he raised the rusty scalpel in the air and made an unpleasantly suggestive sawing gesture with it. [You can see me big deal! Dont poke your nose into what doesnt concern you, ShortTime! The mutt belongs to me!] The bald doc turned back to the cringing dog. [Im done fooling with you, Rover! Get over here! Right now! ] Rosalie gave Ralph a beseeching, despairing look and then began to cross the street. I dont mess in with longtime business, Old Dor had told him on the day hed given him the book of Stephen Dobyns poems. I told you not to, either. Yes, he had, yes indeed, but Ralph had a feeling it was too late now. Even if it wasnt, he had no intention of leaving Rosalie to the unpleasant little gnome standing in front of the coinop laundry across the street. Not if he could help it, that was. [Rosalie! Over here, girl! Heel!] Rosalie gave a single bark and trotted over to where Ralph stood. She placed herself behind his right leg and then sat down, panting and looking up at him. And here was another expression Ralph found he could read with ease one part relief, two parts gratitude. The face of Doc 3 was twisted into a grimace of hate so severe it was almost a cartoon. [Better send her across, Shorts! Im warning you!] [No.] [Ill fuck you over, Shorts. Ill fuck you over bigtime. And Ill fuck your friends over. Do you get me? Do you] Ralph suddenly raised one hand to shoulder height with the palm turned inward toward the side of his head, as if he meant to administer a karate chop. He brought it down and watched, amazed, as a tight blue wedge of light flew off the tips of his fingers and sliced across the street like a thrown spear. Doc 3 ducked just in time, clapping one hand to McGoverns Panama to keep it from flying off. The blue wedge skimmed two or three inches over that small, clutching hand and struck the front window of the BuffyBuffy. There it spread like some supernatural liquid, and for a moment the dusty glass became the brilliant, perfect blue of todays sky. It faded after only a moment and Ralph could see the women inside the laundromat again, folding their clothes and loading their washers exactly as if nothing had happened. The bald dwarf straightened, rolled his hands into fists, and shook them at Ralph. Then he snatched McGoverns hat off his head, stuck the brim in his mouth, and tore a bite out of it. As he performed this bizarre equivalent of a childs tantrum, the sun struck splinters of fire from the lobes of his small, neatly made ears. He spat out the chunk of splintery straw and then clapped the hat back on his head. [That dog was mine, Shorts! I was gonna play with her! I guess maybe Ill have to play with you instead, huh? You and your asshole friends!] [Get out of here.] [Cuntlicker! Fucked your mother and licked her cunt! ] Ralph knew where he had heard that charming sentiment before Ed Deepneau, out at the airport, in the summer of 92. It wasnt the sort of thing you forgot, and all at once he was terrified. What in Gods name had he stumbled into? 5 Ralph lifted his hand to the side of his head again, but something inside had changed. He could bring it down in that chopping gesture again, but he was almost positive that this time no bright blue flying wedge would result. The doc apparently didnt know he was being threatened with an empty gun, however. He shrank back, raising the hand holding the scalpel in a shielding gesture. The grotesquely bitten hat slipped down over his eyes, and for a moment he looked like a stagemelodrama version of Jack the Ripper . . . one who might have been working out pathologic inadequacies caused by extreme shortness. [Gonna get you for this, Shorts! You wait! You just wait! No ShortTimer runs the game on me!] But for the time being, the little bald doctor had had enough. He wheeled around and ran into the weedy lane between the laundromat and the apartment house with his dirty, toolong smock flapping and snapping at the legs of his jeans. The brightness slipped out of the day with him. Ralph marked its passage to a large extent with senses he had never before even suspected. He felt totally awake, totally energized, and almost exploding with delighted excitement. I drove it off, by God! I drove the little sonofawhore off! He had no idea what the creature in the white smock really was, but he knew he had saved Rosalie from it, and for now that was enough. Nagging questions about his sanity might creep back tomorrow morning as he sat in the wingchair looking down at the deserted street below . . . but for the time being, he felt like a million bucks. You saw him, didnt you, Rosalie? You saw the nasty little He looked down, saw that Rosalie was no longer sitting by his heel, and looked up in time to see her limping into the park, head down, right leg slueing stiffly off to the side with every pained stride. Rosalie! he shouted. Hey, girl! And, without really knowing why except that they had just gone through something extraordinary together Ralph started after her, first just jogging, then running, finally sprinting all out. He didnt sprint for long. A stitch that felt like a hot chrome needle buried itself in his left side, then spread rapidly across the left half of his chest wall. He stopped just inside the park, standing bent over at the intersection of two paths, hands clamped on his legs just above the knees. Sweat ran into his eyes and stung like tears. He panted harshly, wondering if it was just the ordinary sort of stitch he remembered from the last lap of the mile run in highschool track, or if this was how the onset of a fatal heart attack felt. After thirty or forty seconds the pain began to abate, so maybe it had just been a stitch, after all. Still, it went a good piece toward supporting McGoverns thesis, didnt it? Let me tell you something, Ralph at our age, mental illness is common! At our age its common as hell! Ralph didnt know if that was true or not, but he did know that the year he had made AllState Track was now over half a century in the past, and sprinting after Rosalie the way hed done was stupid and probably dangerous. If his heart had seized up, he supposed he wouldnt have been the first old guy to be punished with a coronary thrombosis for getting excited and forgetting that when eighteen went, it went forever. The pain was almost gone and he was getting his wind back, but his legs still felt untrustworthy, as if they might unlock at the knees and spill him onto the gravel path without the slightest warning. Ralph lifted his head, looking for the nearest park bench, and saw something that made him forget stray dogs, shaky legs, even possible heart attacks. The nearest bench was forty feet farther along the lefthand path, at the top of a gentle, sloping hill. Lois Chasse was sitting on that bench in her good blue fall coat. Her gloved hands were folded together in her lap, and she was sobbing as if her heart would break. CHAPTER TWELVE 1 Whats wrong, Lois? She looked up at him, and the first thought to cross Ralphs mind was actually a memory a play he had taken Carolyn to see at the Penobscot Theater in Bangor eight or nine years ago. Some of the characters in it had supposedly been dead, and their makeup had consisted of clownwhite greasepaint with dark circles around the eyes to give the impression of huge empty sockets. His second thought was much simpler Raccoon. She either saw some of his thoughts on his face or simply realized how she must look, because she turned away, fumbled briefly at the clasp of her purse, then simply raised her hands and used them to shield her face from his view. Go away, Ralph, would you? she asked in a thick, choked voice. I dont feel very well today. Under ordinary circumstances, Ralph would have done as she asked, hurrying away without looking back, feeling nothing but a vague shame at having come across her with her mascara smeared and her defenses down. But these werent ordinary circumstances, and Ralph decided he wasnt leaving not yet, anyway. He still retained some of that strange lightness, and still felt that other world, that other Derry, was very close. And there was something else, something perfectly simple and straightforward. He hated to see Lois, whose happy nature he had never even questioned, sitting here by herself and bawling her eyes out. Whats the matter, Lois? I just dont feel well! she cried. Cant you leave me alone? Lois buried her face in her gloved hands. Her back shook, the sleeves of her blue coat trembled, and Ralph thought of how Rosalie had looked when the bald doctor had been yelling at her to get her ass across the street miserable, scared to death. Ralph sat down next to Lois on the bench, slipped an arm around her, and pulled her to him. She came, but stiffly . . . as if her body were full of wires. Dont you look at me! she cried in that same wild voice. Dont you dare! My makeups a mess! I put it on special for my son and daughterinlaw . . . they came for breakfast . . . we were going to spend the morning . . . Well have a nice time, Ma, Harold said . . . but the reason they came . . . you see, the real reason . . . Communication broke down in a fresh spate of weeping. Ralph groped in his back pocket, came up with a handkerchief which was wrinkled but clean, and put it in one of Loiss hands. She took it without looking at him. Go on,he said. Scrub up a little if you want, although you dont look bad, Lois; honest you dont. A little raccoony is all, he thought. He began to smile, and then the smile died. He remembered the day in September when he had set off for the Rite Aid to check out the overthecounter sleep aids and had encountered Bill and Lois standing outside the park, talking about the dollthrowing demonstration which Ed had orchestrated at WomanCare. She had been clearly distressed that day Ralph remembered thinking that she looked tired in spite of her excitement and concern but she had also been close to beautiful her considerable bosom heaving, her eyes flashing, her cheeks flushed with a maids high color. That all but irresistible beauty was hardly more than a memory today; in her melting mascara Lois Chasse looked like a sad and elderly clown, and Ralph felt a quick hot spark of fury for whatever or whoever had wrought the change. I look horrible! Lois said, applying Ralphs handkerchief vigorously. Im a fright! No, maam. Just a little smeary. Lois at last turned to face him. It clearly took a lot of effort with her rouge and eye makeup now mostly on Ralphs handkerchief. How bad am I? she breathed. Tell the truth, Ralph Roberts, or your eyesll cross. He bent forward and kissed one moist cheek. Only lovely, Lois. Youll have to save ethereal for another day, I guess. She gave him an uncertain smile, and the upward movement of her face caused two fresh tears to spill from her eyes. Ralph took the crumpled handkerchief from her and gently wiped them away. Im so glad it was you who came along and not Bill, she told him. I would have died of shame if Bill had seen me crying in public. Ralph looked around. He saw Rosalie, safe and sound at the bottom of the hill she was lying between the two Portosans that stood down there, her muzzle resting on one paw but otherwise this part of the park was empty. I think weve got the place pretty much to ourselves, at least for now, he said. Thank God for small favors. Lois took the handkerchief back and went to work on her makeup again, this time in a rather more businesslike manner. Speaking of Bill, I stopped into the Red Apple on my way down here that was before I got feeling sorry for myself and started to bawl my silly head off and Sue said you two had a big argument just a little while ago. Yelling and everything, right out in your front yard. Nah, not that big, Ralph said, smiling uneasily. Can I be nosy and ask what it was about? Chess, Ralph said. It was the first thing to pop into his mind. The Runway 3 Tournament Faye Chapin has every year. Only it really wasnt about anything. You know how it is sometimes people get out of bed on the wrong side and just grab the first excuse. I wish that was all it was with me, Lois said. She opened her purse, managing the clasp effortlessly this time, and took out her compact. Then she sighed and stuffed it back into the bag again without opening it. I cant. I know Im being a baby, but I just cant. Ralph darted his hand into her purse before she could close it, removed the compact, opened it, and held the mirror up in front of her. See? Thats not so bad, is it? She averted her face like a vampire turning away from a crucifix. Ugh, she said. Put it away. If you promise to tell me what happened. Anything, just put it away. He did. For a little while Lois said nothing but only sat and watched her hands fiddle restlessly with the clasp of her purse. He was about to prod her when she looked up at him with a pitiful expression of defiance. It just so happens youre not the only one who cant get a decent nights sleep, Ralph. What are you talking ab Insomnia! she snapped. I go to sleep at about the same time I always did, but I dont sleep through anymore. And its worse than that. I wake up earlier every morning, it seems. Ralph tried to remember if he had told Lois about that aspect of his own problem. He didnt think he had. Why are you looking so surprised? Lois asked. You didnt really think you were the only person in the world to ever have a sleepless night, did you? Of course not! Ralph responded with some indignation . . . but hadnt it often felt as if he were the only person in the world to have that particular kind of sleepless night? Standing helplessly by as his good sleeptime was eroded minute by minute and quarter hour by quarter hour? It was like a weird variant of the Chinese watertorture. When did yours start? he asked. A month or two before Carol died. How much sleep are you getting? Barely an hour a night since the start of October. Her voice was calm, but Ralph heard a tremor which might have been panic just below the surface. The way things are going, Ill have entirely quit sleeping by Christmas, and if that really happens, I dont know how Ill survive it. Im barely surviving now. Ralph struggled for speech and asked the first question to come into his mind How come Ive never seen your light? For the same reason I hardly ever see yours, I imagine, she said. Ive been living in the same place for almost thirtyfive years, and I dont need to turn on the lights to find my way around. Also, I like to keep my troubles to myself. You keep turning on the lights at two in the morning and sooner or later someone sees them. It gets around, and then the nosybirds start asking questions. I dont like nosybird questions, and Im not one of those people who feel like they have to take an ad out in the paper every time they have a little constipation. Ralph burst out laughing. Lois looked at him in roundeyed perplexity for a moment, then joined in. His arm was still around her (or had it crept back on its own after he had taken it away? Ralph didnt know and didnt really care), and he hugged her tightly. This time she pressed against him easily; those stiff little wires had gone out of her body. Ralph was glad. Youre not laughing at me, are you, Ralph? Nope. Absolutely not. She nodded, still smiling. Thats all right, then. You never even saw me moving around in my living room, did you? No. Thats because theres no streetlamp in front of my house. But theres one in front of yours. Ive seen you in that ratty old wingchair of yours many times, sitting and looking out and drinking tea. I always assumed I was the only one, he thought, and suddenly a question both comic and embarrassing popped into his head. How many times had she seen him sitting there and picking his nose? Or picking at his crotch? Either reading his mind or the color in his cheeks, Lois said,I really couldnt make out much more than your shape, you know, and you were always wearing your robe, perfectly decent. So you dont have to worry about that. Also, I hope you know that if youd ever started doing anything you wouldnt want people to see you doing, I wouldnt have looked. I wasnt exactly raised in a barn, you know. He smiled and patted her hand. I do know that, Lois. Its just . . . you know, a surprise. To find out that while I was sitting there and watching the street, somebody was watching me. She fixed him with an enigmatic smile that might have said, Dont worry, Ralph you were just another part of the scenery to me. He considered this smile for a moment, then groped his way back to the main point. So what happened, Lois? Why were you sitting here and crying? Just sleeplessness? If thats what it was, I certainly sympathize. Theres really no just about it, is there? Her smile slipped away. Her gloved hands folded together again in her lap and she looked somberly down at them. There are worse things than insomnia. Betrayal, for instance. Especially when the people doing the betraying are the people you love. 2 She fell quiet. Ralph didnt prompt her. He was looking down the hill at Rosalie, who appeared to be looking up at him. At both of them, maybe. Did you know we share the same doctor as well as the same problem, Ralph? You go to Litchfield, too? Used to go to Litchfield. He was Carolyns recommendation. Ill never go to him again, though. He and I are quits. Her upper lip drew back. Doublecrossing son of a bitch! What happened? I went along for the best part of a year, waiting for things to get better by themselves for nature to take her course, as they say. Not that I didnt try to help nature along every now and then. We probably tried a lot of the same things. Honeycomb? Ralph asked, smiling again. He couldnt help it. What an amazing day this has been, he thought. What a perfectly amazing day . . . and its not even one in the afternoon yet. Honeycomb? What about it? Does that help? No, Ralph said, grinning more widely than ever, doesnt help a bit, but it tastes wonderful. She laughed and squeezed his bare left hand in both of her gloved ones. Ralph squeezed back. You never went to see Dr Litchfield about it, did you, Ralph? Nope. Made an appointment once, but cancelled it. Did you put it off because you didnt trust him? Because you felt he missed the boat on Carolyn? Ralph looked at her, surprised. Never mind, Lois said. I had no right to ask that. No, its okay. I guess Im just surprised to hear the idea from someone else. That he . . . you know . . . that he might have misdiagnosed her. Huh! Loiss pretty eyes flashed. It crossed all our minds! Bill used to say he couldnt believe you didnt have that fumblefingered bastard in district court the day after Carolyns funeral. Of course back then I was on the other side of the fence, defending Litchfield like mad. Did you ever think of suing him? No. Im seventy, and I dont want to spend whatever time I have left flogging a malpractice suit. Besides would it bring Carol back? She shook her head. Ralph said,What happened to Carolyn was the reason I didnt go see him, though. I guess it was, at least. I just couldnt seem to trust him, or maybe . . . I dont know . . . No, he didnt really know, that was the devil of it. All he knew for sure was that he had cancelled the appointment with Dr Litchfield, as he had cancelled his appointment with James Roy Hong, known in some quarters as the pinsticker man. That latter appointment had been scratched on the advice of a ninetytwo or threeyearold man who could probably no longer remember his own middle name. His mind slipped to the book Old Dor had given him, and to the poem Old Dor had quoted from Pursuit, it had been called, and Ralph couldnt seem to get it out of his head . . . especially the part where the poet talked about all the things he saw falling away behind him the unread books, the untold jokes, the trips that would never be taken. Ralph? Are you there? Yeah just thinking about Litchfield. Wondering why I cancelled that appointment. She patted his hand. Just be glad you did. I kept mine. Tell me. Lois shrugged. When it got so bad I felt I couldnt stand it anymore, I went to him and told him everything. |
I thought hed give me a prescription for sleeping pills, but he said he couldnt even do that I sometimes have an irregular heartbeat, and sleeping pills can make that worse. When did you see him? Early last week. Then, yesterday, my son Harold called me out of a clear blue sky and said he and Janet wanted to take me out to breakfast. Nonsense, I said. I can still get around the kitchen. If youre coming all the way down from Bangor, I said, Ill get up a nice little feed for you, and thats the end of it. Then, after, if you want to take me out I was thinking of the mall, because I always like to go out there why, that would be fine. Thats just what I said. She turned to Ralph with a smile that was small and bitter and fierce. It never occurred to me to wonder why both of them were coming to see me on a weekday, when both of them have jobs and they must really love those jobs, because theyre about all they ever talk about. I just thought how sweet of them it was . . . how thoughtful . . . and I put out a special effort to look nice and do everything right so Janet wouldnt suspect I was having a problem. I think that rankles most of all. Silly old Lois, Our Lois, as Bill always says . . . dont look so surprised, Ralph! Of course I knew about that; did you think I fell off a stump just yesterday? And hes right. I am foolish, I am silly, but that doesnt mean I dont hurt just like anyone else when Im taken advantage of . . . She was beginning to cry again. Of course it doesnt, Ralph said, and patted her hand. You would have laughed if youd seen me, she said, baking fresh squash muffins at four oclock in the morning and slicing mushrooms for an Italian omelette at fourfifteen and starting in with the makeup at fourthirty just to be sure, absolutely sure that Jan wouldnt get going with that Are you sure you feel all right, Mother Lois? stuff. I hate it when she starts in with that crap. And do you know what, Ralph? She knew what was wrong with me all the time. They both did. So I guess the laugh was on me, wasnt it? Ralph thought he had been following closely, but apparently he had lost her on one of the turns. Knew? How could they know? Because Litchfield told them! she shouted. Her face twisted again, but this time it was not hurt or sorrow Ralph saw there but a terrible rueful rage. That tattling son of a bitch called my son on the telephone and TOLD HIM EVERYTHING! Ralph was dumbfounded. Lois, they cant do that, he said when he finally found his voice again. The doctorpatient relationship is . . . well, its privileged. Your son would know all about it, because hes a lawyer, and the same thing applies to them. Doctors cant tell anyone what their patients tell them unless the patient Oh Jesus, Lois said, rolling her eyes. Crippled wheelchair Jesus. What world are you living in, Ralph? Fellows like Litchfield do whatever they think is right. I guess I knew that all along, which makes me doublestupid for going to him at all. Carl Litchfield is a vain, arrogant man who cares more about how he looks in his suspenders and designer shirts than he does about his patients. Thats awfully cynical. And awfully true, thats the sad part. You know what? Hes thirtyfive or thirtysix, and hes somehow gotten the idea that when he hits forty, hes just going to . . . stop. Stay forty for as long as he wants to. Hes got an idea that people are old once they get to be sixty, and that even the best of them are pretty much in their dotage by the age of sixtyeight or so, and that once youre past eighty, itd be a mercy if your relatives would turn you over to that Dr Kevorkian. Children dont have any rights of confidentiality from their parents, and as far as Litchfield is concerned, old poops like us dont have any rights of confidentiality from our kids. It wouldnt be in our best interests, you see. What Carl Litchfield did practically the minute I was out of his examining room was to phone Harold in Bangor. He said I wasnt sleeping, that I was suffering from depression, and that I was having the sort of sensory problems that accompany a premature decline in cognition. And then he said,You have to remember that your mother is getting on in years, Mr Chasse, and if I were you Id think very seriously about her situation down here in Derry. He didnt! Ralph cried, amazed and horrified. I mean . . . did he? Lois was nodding grimly. He said it to Harold and Harold said it to me and now Im saying it to you. Silly old me, I didnt even know what a premature decline in cognition meant, and neither of them wanted to tell me. I looked up cognition in the dictionary, and do you know what it means? Thinking, Ralph said. Cognition is thinking. Right. My doctor called my son to tell him I was going senile! Lois laughed angrily and used Ralphs handkerchief to wipe fresh tears off her cheeks. I cant believe it, Ralph said, but the hell of it was he could. Ever since Carolyns death he had been aware that the navet with which he had regarded the world up until the age of eighteen or so had apparently not departed forever when he crossed the threshold between childhood and manhood; that peculiar innocence seemed to be returning as he stepped over the threshold between manhood and old manhood. Things kept surprising him . . . except surprise was really too mild a word. What a lot of them did was knock him ass over teakettle. The little bottles under the Kissing Bridge, for instance. He had taken a long walk out to Bassey Park one day in July and had gone under the bridge to rest out of the afternoon sun for awhile. He had barely gotten comfortable before noticing a little pile of broken glass in the weeds by the stream that trickled beneath the bridge. He had swept at the high grass with a length of broken branch and discovered six or eight small bottles. One had some crusty white stuff in the bottom. Ralph had picked it up, and as he turned it curiously before his eyes, he realized he was looking at the remains of a crackparty. He had dropped the bottle as if it were hot. He could still remember the numbed shock he had felt, his unsuccessful attempt to convince himself that he was nuts, that it couldnt be what he thought it was, not in this hick town two hundred and fifty miles north of Boston. It was that emerging naf which had been shocked, of course; that part of him seemed to believe (or had until he had discovered the little bottles under the Kissing Bridge) that all those news stories about the cocaine epidemic had just been makebelieve, no more real than a TV crime show or a JeanClaude Van Damme movie. He felt a similar sensation of shock now. Harold said they wanted to run me up to Bangor and show me the place, Lois was saying. He never takes me for rides these days; he just runs me places. Like Im an errand. They had lots of brochures, and when Harold gave Janet the nod, she whipped them out so fast Whoa, slow down. What place? What brochures? Im sorry, Im getting ahead of myself, arent I? Its a place in Bangor called Riverview Estates. Ralph knew the name; had gotten a brochure himself, as a matter of fact. One of those mass mailing things, this one targeted at people sixtyfive and over. He and McGovern had shared a laugh about it . . . but the laugh had been just a touch uneasy like kids whistling past the graveyard. Shit, Lois thats a retirement home, isnt it? No, sir! she said, widening her eyes innocently. Thats what I said, but Harold and Janet set me straight. No, Ralph, Riverview Estates is a condominium development site for communityoriented senior citizens! When Harold said that I said, Is that so? Well, let me tell you both something you can put a fruit pie from McDonalds in a sterlingsilver chafing dish and call it a French tart, but its still just a fruit pie from McDonalds, as far as I am concerned. When I said that, Harold started to sputter and get red in the face, but Jan just gave me that sweet little smile of hers, the one she saves up for special occasions because she knows it drives me crazy. She says, Well, why dont we look at the brochures anyway. Mother Lois? Youll do that much, wont you, after we both took Personal Days from work and drove all the way down here to see you? Like Derry was in the heart of Africa, Ralph muttered. Lois took his hand and said something that made him laugh. Oh, to her it is! Was this before or after you found out Litchfield had tattled? Ralph asked. He used the same word Lois had on purpose; it seemed to fit this situation better than a fancier word or phrase would have done. Committed a breach of confidentiality was far too dignified for this nasty bit of work. Litchfield had run and tattled, simple as that. Before. I thought I might as well look at the brochures; after all, theyd come forty miles, and it wouldnt exactly kill me. So I looked while they ate the food Id fixed there wasnt any that had to be scraped into the swill later on, either and drank coffee. Thats quite a place, that Riverview. They have their own medical staff on duty twentyfour hours a day, and their own kitchen. When you move in they give you a complete physical and decide what you can have to eat. Theres a Red Diet Plan, a Blue Diet Plan, a Green Diet Plan, and a Yellow Diet Plan. There were three or four other colors as well. I cant remember what all of them were, but Yellow is for diabetics and Blue is for fatties. Ralph thought of eating three scientifically balanced meals a day for the rest of his life no more sausage pizzas from Gambinos, no more Coffee Pot sandwiches, no more chiliburgers from Mexico Milts and found the prospect almost unbearably grim. Also, Lois said brightly, they have a pneumatictube system that delivers your daily pills right to your kitchen. Isnt that a marvellous idea, Ralph? I guess so, Ralph said. Oh, yes, it is. Its marvellous, the wave of the future. Theres a computer to oversee everything, and I bet it never has a decline in cognition. Theres a special bus that takes the Riverview people to places of scenic or cultural interest twice a week, and it also takes them shopping. You have to take the bus, because Riverview people arent allowed to have cars. Good idea, he said, giving her hand a little squeeze. What are a few drunks on Saturday night compared to an old fogey with a slippery cognition on the loose in a Buick sedan? She didnt smile, as he had hoped she would. The pictures in those brochures turned my blood. Old ladies playing canasta. Old men throwing horseshoes. Both flavors together in this big pinepanelled room they call the River Hall, squaredancing. Although that is sort of a nice name, dont you think? River Hall? I guess its okay. I think it sounds like the kind of room youd find in an enchanted castle. But Ive visited quite a few old friends in Strawberry Fields thats the geriatrics home in Skowhegan and I know an old folks rec room when I see one. It doesnt matter how pretty a name you give it, theres still a cabinet full of board games in the corner and jigsaw puzzles with five or six pieces missing from each one and the TVs always tuned to something like Family Feud and never to the kind of movies where goodlooking young people take off their clothes and roll around on the floor together in front of the fireplace. Those rooms always smell of paste . . . and piss . . . and the fiveanddime watercolors that come in a long tin box . . . and despair. Lois looked at him with her dark eyes. Im only sixtyeight, Ralph. I know that sixtyeight doesnt seem like only anything to Dr Fountain of Youth, but it does to me, because my mother was ninetytwo when she died last year and my dad lived to be eightysix. In my family, dying at eighty is dying young . . . and if I had to spend twelve years living in a place where they announce dinner over the loudspeaker, Id go crazy. I would, too. I looked, though. I wanted to be polite. When I was finished, I made a neat little pile of them and handed them back to Jan. I said they were very interesting and thanked her. She nodded and smiled and put them back in her purse. I thought that was going to be the end of it and good riddance, but then Harold said, Put your coat on, Ma. For a second I was so scared I couldnt breathe. I thought theyd already signed me up! And I had an idea that if I said I wasnt going, Harold would open the door and there would be two or three men in white coats outside, and one of them would smile and say, Dont worry, Mrs Chasse; once you get that first handful of pills delivered direct to your kitchen, youll never want to live anywhere else. I dont want to put my coat on, I told Harold, and I tried to sound the way I used to when he was only ten and always tracking mud into the kitchen, but my heart was beating so hard I could hear it tapping in my voice. Ive changed my mind about going out. I forgot how much I had to do today. And then Jan gave the laugh I hate even more than her syrupy little smile and said,Why, Mother Lois, what would you have to do thats so important you cant go up to Bangor with us after weve taken time off to come down to Derry and see you? That woman always gets my back hair up, and I guess I do the same to her. I must, because Ive never in my life known one woman to smile that much at another without hating her guts. Anyway, I told her I had to wash the kitchen floor, to start with. Just look at it, I said. Dirty as the devil. Huh! Harold says. I cant believe youre going to send us back to the city emptyhanded after we came all the way down here, Ma. Well Im not moving into that place no matter how far you came, I said back, so you can get that idea right out of your head. Ive been living in Derry for thirtyfive years, half my life. All my friends are here, and Im not moving. They looked at each other the way parents do when theyve got a kid whos stopped being cute and started being a pain in the tail. Janet patted my shoulder and said, Now dont get all upset, Mother Lois we only want you to come and look. Like it was the brochures again, and all I had to do was be polite. Just the same, her saying it was just to look set my mind at ease a little. I should have known they couldnt make me live there, or even afford it on their own. Its Mr Chasses money theyre counting on to swing it his pension and the railroad insurance I got because he died on the job. It turned out they had an appointment all made for eleven oclock, and a man lined up to show me around and give me the whole pitch. I was mostly over being scared by the time I got all that straight in my mind, but I was hurt by the highhanded way they were treating me, and mad at how every other thing out of Janets mouth was Personal Days this and Personal Days that. It was pretty clear that she could think of a lot better ways to spend a day off than coming to Derry to see her fat old bag of a motherinlaw. Stop fluttering and come on, Mother, she says after a little more backandforth, like I was so pleased with the whole idea I couldnt even decide which hat to wear. Hop into your coat. Ill help you clean up the breakfast things when we get back. You didnt hear me, I said. Im not going anywhere. Why waste a beautiful fall day like this touring a place Ill never live in? And what gives you the right to drive down here and give me this kind of bums rush in the first place? Why didnt one of you at least call and say, We have an idea, Mom, want to hear it? Isnt that how you would have treated one of your friends? And when I said that, they traded another glance . . . Lois sighed, wiped her eyes a final time, and gave back Ralphs handkerchief, damper but otherwise none the worse for wear. Well, I knew from that look that we hadnt reached bottom yet. Mostly it was the way Harold looked like he did when hed just hooked a handful of chocolate bits out of the bag in the pantry. And Janet . . . she gave him back the expression I dislike most of all. Her bulldozer look, I call it. And then she asked him if he wanted to tell me what the doctor had said, or if she should do it. In the end they both told it, and by the time they were done I was so mad and scared that I felt like yanking my hair out by the roots. The thing I just couldnt seem to get over no matter how hard I tried was the thought of Carl Litchfield telling Harold all the things I thought were private. Just calling him up and telling him, like there was nothing in the world wrong with it. So you think Im senile? I asked Harold. Is that what it comes down to? You and Jan think Ive gone soft in the attic at the advanced age of sixtyeight? Harold got red in the face and started shuffling his feet under his chair and muttering under his breath. Something about how he didnt think any such thing, but he had to consider my safety, just like Id always considered his when he was growing up. And all the time Janet was sitting at the counter, nibbling a muffin and giving him a look I could have killed her for as if she thought he was just a cockroach that had learned to talk like a lawyer. Then she got up and asked if she could use the facility. I told her to go ahead, and managed to keep from saying it would be a relief to have her out of the room for two minutes. Thanks, Mother Lois, she says. I wont be long. Harry and I have to leave soon. If you feel you cant come with us and keep your appointment, then I guess theres nothing more to say. What a peach, Ralph said. Well, that was the end of it for me; Id had enough. I keep my appointments, Janet Chasse, I said, but only the ones I make for myself. I dont give a fart in a high wind for the ones other people make for me. She tossed up her hands like I was the most unreasonable woman who ever walked the face of the earth, and left me with Harold. He was looking at me with those big brown eyes of his, like he expected me to apologize. I almost felt like I should apologize, too, if only to get that cocker spaniel look off his face, but I didnt. I wouldnt. I just looked back at him, and after awhile he couldnt stand it anymore and told me I ought to stop being mad. He said he was just worried about me down here all by myself, that he was only trying to be a good son and Janet was only trying to be a good daughter. I guess I understand that, I said, but you should know that sneaking around behind a persons back is no way to express love and concern. He got all stiff then, and said he and Jan didnt see it as sneaking around. He cut his eyes toward the bathroom for a second or two when he said it, and I pretty much got the idea that what he meant was Jan didnt see it as sneaking around. Then he told me it wasnt the way I was making it out to be that Litchfield had called him, not the other way around. All right, I said back, but what kept you from hanging up once you realized what hed called to talk to you about? That was just plain wrong, Harry. What in Gods good name got into you? He started to flutter and flap around I think he might even have been starting to apologize when Jan came back and the youknowwhat really hit the fan. She asked where my diamond earrings were, the ones theyd given me for Christmas. It was such a change of direction that at first I could only sputter, and I suppose I sounded like I was going senile. But finally I managed to say they were in the little china dish on my bedroom bureau, same as always. I have a jewelry box, but I keep those earrings and two or three other nice pieces out because they are so pretty that looking at them always cheers me up. Besides, theyre only clusters of diamond chips its not like anyone would want to break in just to steal those. Same with my engagement ring and my ivory cameo, which are the other two pieces I keep in that dish. Lois gave Ralph an intense, pleading look. He squeezed her hand again. She smiled and took a deep breath. This is very hard for me. If you want to stop No, I want to finish . . . except that, past a certain point, I cant remember what happened, anyway. It was all so horrible. You see, Janet said she knew where I kept them, but they werent there. My engagement ring was, and the cameo, but not my Christmas earrings. I went in to check myself, and she was right. We turned the place upside down, looked everywhere, but we didnt find them. Theyre gone. Lois was now gripping Ralphs hands in both of her own, and seemed to be talking mostly to the zipper of his jacket. We took all the clothes out of the bureau . . . Harold pulled the bureau itself out from the wall and looked behind it . . . under the bed and the sofa cushions . . . and it seemed like every time I looked at Janet, she was looking back at me, giving me that sweet, wideeyed look of hers. Sweet as melting butter, it is except in the eyes, anyway and she didnt have to come right out and say what she was thinking, because I already knew. You see? You see how right Dr Litchfield was to call us, and how right we were to make that appointment? And how pigheaded youre being? Because you need to be in a place like Riverview Estates, and this just proves it. Youve lost the lovely earrings we gave you for Christmas, youre having a serious decline in cognition, and this just proves it. It wont be long before youre leaving the stoveburners on . . . or the bathroom heater . . . She began to cry again, and these tears made Ralphs heart hurt they were the deep, scouring sobs of someone who has been shamed to the deepest level of her being. Lois hid her face against his jacket. He tightened his arm around her. Lois, he thought. Our Lois. But no; he didnt like the sound of that anymore, if he ever had. My Lois, he thought, and at that instant, as if some greater power had approved, the day began to fill with light again. Sounds took on a new resonance. He looked down at his hands and Loiss, entwined on her lap, and saw a lovely bluegray nimbus around them, the color of cigarette smoke. The auras had returned. 3 You should have sent them away the minute you realized the earrings were gone, he heard himself say, and each word was separate and gorgeously unique, like a crystal thunderclap. The very second. Oh, I know that now, Lois said. She was just waiting for me to stick my foot in my mouth, and of course I obliged. But I was so upset first the argument about whether or not I was going to Bangor with them to look at Riverview Estates, then hearing my doctor had told them things he had no right to tell them, and on top of all that, finding out Id lost one of my most treasured possessions. And do you know what the cherry on top was? Having her be the one to discover those earrings were gone! Do you blame me for not knowing what to do? No,he said, and lifted her gloved hands to his mouth. The sound of them passing through the air was like the hoarse whisper of a palm sliding down a wool blanket, and for a moment he clearly saw the shape of his lips on the back of her right glove, printed there in a blue kiss. Lois smiled. Thank you, Ralph. Welcome. I suppose you have a pretty good idea of how things turned out, dont you? Jan said, You really should take better care, Mother Lois, only Dr Litchfield says youve come to a time of life when you really cant take better care, and thats why weve been thinking about Riverview Estates. Im sorry we ruffled your feathers, but it seemed important to move quickly. Now you see why. Ralph looked up. Overhead, the sky was a cataract of greenblue fire filled with clouds that looked like chrome airboats. He looked down the hill and saw Rosalie still lying between the Portosans. The dark gray balloonstring rose from her snout, wavering in the cool October breeze. I got really mad, then She broke off and smiled. Ralph thought it was the first smile hed seen from her today which expressed real humor instead of some less pleasant and more complicated emotion. No thats not right. I did more than just get mad. If my greatnephew had been there, he would have said, Nana went nuclear. Ralph laughed and Lois laughed with him, but her half sounded a trifle forced. What galls me is that Janet knew I would, she said. She wanted me to go nuclear, I think, because she knew how guilty Id feel later on. And God knows I do. I screamed at them to get the hell out. Harold looked like he wanted to sink right through the floorboards shouting has always made him so embarrassed but Jan just sat there with her hands folded in her lap, smiling and actually nodding her head, as if to say Thats right, Mother Lois, you go on and get all that nasty old poison out of your system, and when its gone, maybe youll be ready to hear sense. Lois took a deep breath. Then something happened. Im not sure just what. This wasnt the first time, either, but it was the worst time. Im afraid it was some kind of . . . well . . . some kind of seizure. Anyway, I started to see Janet in a really funny way . . . a really scary way. And I said something that finally got to her. I cant remember what it was, and Im not sure I want to know, but it certainly wiped that sweetysweetysweet smile I hate so much off her face. In fact, she just about dragged Harold out. The last thing I remember her saying is that one of them would call me when I wasnt so hysterical that I couldnt help making ugly accusations about the people who loved me. I stayed in my house for a little while after they were gone, and then I came out to sit in the park. Sometimes just sitting in the sun makes a body feel better. I stopped in the Red Apple for a snack, and thats when I heard you and Bill had a fight. Are you and he really on the outs, do you think? Ralph shook his head. Nah well make it up. I really like Bill, but but you have to be careful what you say with him, she finished. Also, Ralph, may I add that you cant take what he says back to you too seriously? This time it was Ralph who gave their linked hands a squeeze. That might be good advice for you, too, Lois you shouldnt take what happened this morning too seriously. She sighed. Maybe, but its hard not to. I said some terrible things at the end, Ralph. Terrible. That awful smile of hers . . . A rainbow of understanding suddenly hit Ralphs consciousness. In its glow he saw a very large thing, so large it seemed both unquestionable and preordained. He fully faced Lois for the first time since the auras had returned to him . . . or since he had returned to them. She sat in a capsule of translucent gray light as bright as fog on a summer morning which is about to turn sunny. It transformed the woman Bill McGovern called Our Lois into a creature of great dignity . . . and almost unbearable beauty. She looks like Eos, he thought. Goddess of the dawn. Lois stirred uneasily on the bench. Ralph? Why are you looking at me that way? Because youre beautiful, and because Ive fallen in love with you, Ralph thought, amazed. Right now Im so in love with you that I feel as if Im drowning, and the dyings fine. Because you remember exactly what you said. She began to play nervously with the clasp of her purse again. No, I Yes you do. You told your daughterinlaw that she took your earrings. She did it because she realized you were going to stick to your guns about not going with them, and not getting what she wants makes your daughterinlaw crazy . . . it makes her go nuclear. She did it because you pissed her off. Isnt that about the size of it? Lois was looking at him with round, frightened eyes. How do you know that, Ralph? How do you know that about her? I know it because you know it, and you know it because you saw it. Oh, no, she whispered. No, I didnt see anything. I was in the kitchen with Harold the whole time. Not then, not when she did it, but when she came back. You saw it in her and all around her. As he himself now saw Harold Chasses wife in Lois, as if the woman sitting beside him on the bench had become a lens. Janet Chasse was tall, fairskinned, and longwaisted. Her cheeks were spattered with freckles she covered with makeup, and her hair was a vivid, gingery shade of red. This morning she had come to Derry with that fabulous hair lying over one shoulder in a bulky braid like a sheaf of copper wire. What else did he know about this woman he had never met? Everything, everything. She covers her freckles with pancake because she thinks they make her look childish; that people dont take women with freckles seriously. Her legs are beautiful and she knows it. She wears short skirts to work, but today when she came to see (the old bitch) Mother Lois, she was wearing a cardigan and an old pair of jeans. Derry dressdowns. Her period is overdue. Shes reached that time of life when it doesnt come as regular as clockwork anymore, and during that uneasy two or threeday pause she suffers through every month, a pause when the whole world seems made of glass and everyone in it seems either stupid or wicked, her behavior and her moods have become erratic. Thats probably the real reason she did what she did. Ralph saw her coming out of Loiss tiny bathroom. Saw her shoot an intense, furious glance toward the kitchen door there is no sign of the sweetysweetysweet smile on that narrow, intense face now and then scoop the earrings out of the china dish. Saw her cram them into the left front pocket of her jeans. No, Lois had not actually witnessed this small, ugly theft, but it had changed the color of Jan Chasses aura from pale green to a complex, layered pattern of browns and reds which Lois had seen and understood at once, probably without the slightest idea of what was really happening to her. She took them, all right, Ralph said. He could see a gray mist drifting dreamily across the pupils of Loiss wide eyes. He could have looked at it for the rest of the day. Yes, but If youd agreed to keep the appointment at Riverview Estates after all, I bet you would have found them again after her next visit . . . or she would have found them, I guess thats more likely. Just a lucky accident Oh, Mother Lois, come see what I found! Under the bathroom sink, or in a closet, or lying in some dark corner. Yes. She was looking into his face now, fascinated, almost hypnotized. She must feel terrible . . . and she wont dare bring them back, will she? Not after the things I said. Ralph, how did you know? The same way you did. How long have you been seeing the auras, Lois? 4 Auras? I dont know what you mean. Except she did. Litchfield told your son about the insomnia, but I doubt if that alone would have been enough to get even Litchfield to . . . you know, tattle. The other thing what you said he called sensory problems went right by me. I was too amazed by the idea of anyone thinking you could possibly be prematurely senile, I guess, even though Ive been having my own sensory problems lately. You! Yes, maam. Then, just a little bit ago, you said something even more interesting. You said you started to see Janet in a really funny way. A really scary way. You couldnt remember what you said just before the two of them walked out, but you knew exactly how you felt. Youre seeing the other part of the world the rest of the world. Shapes around things, shapes inside things, sounds within sounds. I call it the world of auras, and thats what youre experiencing. Isnt it, Lois? She looked at him silently for a moment, then put her hands over her face. I thought I was losing my mind, she said, and then said it again Oh Ralph, I thought I was losing my mind. 5 He hugged her, then let her go and tilted her chin up. No more tears, he said. I didnt bring a spare hanky. No more tears, she agreed, but her eyes were already brimming again. Ralph, if you only knew how awful its been I do know. She smiled radiantly. Yes . . . you do, dont you? What made that idiot Litchfield decide you were slipping into senility except Alzheimers is probably what he had in mind wasnt just insomnia but insomnia accompanied by something else . . . something he decided were hallucinations. |
Right? I guess, but he didnt say anything like that at the time. When I told him about the things Id been seeing the colors and all he seemed very understanding. Uhhuh, and the minute you were out the door he called your son and told him to get the hell down to Derry and do something about old Mom, whos started seeing people walking around in colored envelopes with long balloonstrings floating up from their heads. You see those, too? Ralph, you see those, too? Me too, he said, and laughed. It sounded a bit loonlike, and he wasnt surprised. There were a hundred things he wanted to ask her; he felt crazed with impatience. And there was something else, something so unexpected he hadnt even been able to identify it at first he was horny. Not just interested; actually horny. Lois was crying again. Her tears were the color of mist on a still lake, and they smoked a little as they slipped down her cheeks. Ralph knew they would taste dark and mossy, like fiddleheads in spring. Ralph . . . this . . . this is . . . oh my! Bigger than Michael Jackson at the SuperBowl, isnt it? She laughed weakly. Well, just . . . you know, just a little. Theres a name for whats happening to us, Lois, and its not insomnia or senility or Alzheimers Disease. Its hyperreality. Hyperreality, she murmured. God, what an exotic word! Yes, it is. A pharmacist down the street at Rite Aid, Joe Wyzer, told it to me. Only theres a lot more to it than he knew. More than anyone in their right minds would guess. Yes, like telepathy . . . if its really happening, that is. Ralph, are we in our right minds? Did your daughterinlaw take your earrings? I . . . she . . . yes. Lois straightened. Yes, she did. No doubts? No. Then youve answered your own question. Were sane, all right . . . but I think youre wrong about the telepathy part. It isnt minds we read, but auras. Listen, Lois, theres all sorts of things I want to ask you, but I have an idea that right now theres only one thing I really have to know. Have you seen He stopped abruptly, wondering if he really wanted to say what was on the tip of his tongue. Have I seen what? Okay. This is going to sound crazier than anything youve told me, but Im not crazy. Do you believe that? Im not. I believe you, she said simply, and Ralph felt a vast weight slip from his heart. She was telling the truth. There was no question about it; her belief shone all around her. Okay, listen. Since this started happening to you, have you seen certain people who dont look like they belong on Harris Avenue? People who dont look like they belong anywhere in the ordinary world? Lois was looking at him with puzzled incomprehension. Theyre bald, theyre very short, they wear white smock tops, and what they look like more than anything are the drawings of space aliens they sometimes have on the front pages of those tabloid newspapers they sell in the Red Apple. You havent seen anyone like that when youve been having one of these hyperreality attacks? No, no one. He banged a fist on his leg in frustration, thought for a moment, then looked up again. Monday morning, he said. Before the cops showed up at Mrs Lochers . . . did you see me? Very slowly, Lois nodded her head. Her aura had darkened slightly, and spirals of scarlet, thin as threads, began to twist slowly up through it on a diagonal. I imagine you have a pretty good idea of who called the police, then, Ralph said. Dont you? Oh, I know it was you, Lois said in a small voice. I suspected before, but I wasnt sure until just now. Until I saw it . . . you know, in your colors. In my colors, he thought. It was what Ed had called them, too. But you didnt see two pintsized versions of Mr Clean come out of her house? No, she said, but that doesnt mean anything. I cant even see Mrs Lochers house from my bedroom window. The Red Apples roof is in the way. Ralph laced his hands together on top of his head. Of course it was, and he should have known it. The reason I thought you called the police is that just before I went to take a shower, I saw you looking at something through a pair of binoculars. I never saw you do that before, but I thought maybe you just wanted a better look at the stray dog who raids the garbage cans on Thursday mornings. She pointed down the hill. Him. Ralph grinned. Thats no him, thats the gorgeous Rosalie. Oh. Anyway, I was in the shower a long time, because theres a special rinse I put in my hair. Not color, she said sharply, as if he had accused her of this, just proteins and things that are supposed to keep it looking a little thicker. When I came out, the police were flocking all around. I looked over your way once, but I couldnt see you anymore. Youd either gone into a different room or kind of scrunched back in your chair. You do that, sometimes. Ralph shook his head as if to clear it. He hadnt been in an empty theater on all those nights, after all; someone else had been there, too. They had just been in separate boxes. Lois, the fight Bill and I had wasnt really about chess. It Down the hill, Rosalie voiced a rusty bark and began struggling to her feet. Ralph looked in that direction and felt an icicle slip into his belly. Although the two of them had been sitting here for going on half an hour and no one had even come near the comfort stations at the bottom of the hill, the pressed plastic door of the Portosan marked MEN was now slowly opening. Doc 3 emerged from it. McGoverns hat, the Panama with the crescent bitten in the brim, was cocked back on his head, making him look weirdly as McGovern had on the day Ralph had first seen him in his brown fedora like an enquiring newshawk in a forties crime drama. Upraised in one hand the bald stranger held the rusty scalpel. CHAPTER THIRTEEN 1 Lois? To Ralphs own ears, his voice seemed to be an echo winding down a long, deep canyon. Lois, do you see that? I dont Her voice broke off. Did the wind blow that bathroom door open? It didnt, did it? Is someone there? Is that why the dogs making that racket? Rosalie backed slowly away from the bald man, her ragged ears laid back, her muzzle wrinkled to expose teeth so badly eroded that they were not much more menacing than hard rubber pegs. She uttered a cracked volley of barks, then began to whine desperately. Yes! Dont you see him, Lois? Look! Hes right there! Ralph got to his feet. Lois got up with him, shielding her eyes with one hand. She peered down the slope with desperate intensity. I see a shimmer, thats all. Like the air over an incinerator. I told you to leave her alone! Ralph shouted down the hill. Quit it! Get the hell out! The bald man looked in Ralphs direction, but there was no surprise in the glance this time; it was casual, dismissive. He raised the middle finger of his right hand, flicked it at Ralph in the ancient salute, then bared his own teeth much sharper and much more menacing than Rosalies in a silent laugh. Rosalie cringed as the little man in the dirty smock began to walk toward her again, then actually raised a paw and put it on her own head, a cartoonish gesture that should have been funny and was horribly expressive of her terror instead. What cant I see, Ralph? Lois moaned. I see something, but Get AWAY from her! Ralph shouted, and raised his hand in that karatechop gesture again. The hand inside the hand which earlier had produced that wedge of tight blue light still felt like an unloaded gun, however, and this time the bald doc seemed to know it. He glanced in Ralphs direction and offered a small, jeering wave. [Aw, quit it. Shorts sit back, shut up, and enjoy the show.] The creature at the foot of the hill returned his attention to Rosalie, who sat huddled at the base of an old pine. The tree was emitting a thin green fog from the cracks in its bark. The bald doctor bent over Rosalie, one hand outstretched in a gesture of solicitude that went very badly with the scalpel curled into his left fist. Rosalie whined . . . then stretched her neck forward and humbly licked the bald creatures palm. Ralph looked down at his own hands, sensing something in them not the power hed had before, nothing like that, but something. Suddenly there were snaps of clear white light dancing just above his nails. It was as if his fingers had been turned into sparkplugs. Lois was grabbing frantically at him now. Whats wrong with the dog? Ralph, whats wrong with it? With no thought about what he was doing or why, Ralph put his hands over Loiss eyes, like someone playing Guess Who with a loved one. His fingers flashed a momentary white so bright it was almost blinding. Must be the white theyre always talking about in the detergent commercials, he thought. Lois screamed. Her hands flew to his wrists, clamped on them, then loosened. My God, Ralph, what did you do to me? He took his hands away and saw a glowing figureeight surrounding her eyes; it was as if she had just taken off a pair of goggles which had been dipped in confectioners sugar. The white began to dim almost as soon as his hands were gone . . . except . . . Its not dimming, he thought. Its sinking in. Never mind, he said, and pointed. Look! The widening of her eyes told him what he needed to know. Doc 3, completely unmoved by Rosalies desperate effort to make friends, shoved her muzzle aside with the hand holding the scalpel. He seized the old bandanna hanging around her neck in his other hand and yanked her head up. Rosalie howled miserably. Slobber ran back along the sides of her face. The bald man voiced a scabrous chuckle that made Ralphs flesh crawl. [Hi! Leave off! Leave off teasing that dog!] The bald mans head snapped around. The grin ran off his face and he snarled at Lois, sounding a little like a dog himself. [Yahh, go fuck yourself, you fat old ShortTime cunt! Dogs mine, just like I already told your limpdick boyfriend!] The bald man had let go of the blue bandanna when Lois shouted at him, and Rosalie was now cringing back against the pine again, her eyes rolling, curds of foam dripping from the sides of her muzzle. Ralph had never seen such a completely terrified creature in his life. Run! Ralph screamed. Get away! She seemed not to hear him, and after a moment Ralph realized she wasnt hearing him, because Rosalie was no longer entirely there. The bald doctor had done something to her already had pulled her at least partway out of ordinary reality like a farmer using his tractor and a length of chain to pull a stump. Ralph tried once more, anyway. [Run, Rosalie! Run away!] This time her laidback ears cocked forward and her head began to turn in Ralphs direction. He didnt know if she would have obeyed him or not, because the bald man renewed his hold on the bandanna before she could even begin to move. He yanked her head up again. Hes going to kill it! Lois screamed. Hes going to cut its throat with that thing he has! Dont let him, Ralph! Make him stop! I cant! Maybe you can! Shoot him! Shoot your hand at him! She looked at him, not understanding. Ralph made frantic woodchopping gestures with his right hand, but before Lois could respond, Rosalie gave a dreadful lost howl. The bald doc raised the scalpel and brought it down, but it wasnt Rosalies throat he cut. He cut her balloonstring. 2 A thread emerged from each of Rosalies nostrils and floated upward. They twined together about six inches above her snout, making a delicate pigtail, and it was at this point that Baldy 3s scalpel did its work. Ralph watched, frozen with horror, as the severed pigtail rose into the sky like the string of a released helium balloon. It was unravelling as it went. He thought it would tangle in the branches of the old pine, but it didnt. When the ascending balloonstring finally did meet one of the branches, it simply passed through. Of course, Ralph thought. The same way this guys buddies walked through May Lochers locked front door after they finished doing the same thing to her. This idea was followed by a thought too simple and gruesomely logical not to be believed not spacealiens, not little bald doctors, but Centurions. Ed Deepneaus Centurions. They didnt look like the Roman soldiers you saw in tinpants epics like Spartacus and Ben Hur, true, but they had to be Centurions . . . didnt they? Sixteen or twenty feet above the ground, Rosalies balloonstring simply faded away to nothingness. Ralph looked back down in time to see the bald dwarf pull the faded blue bandanna off over the dogs head and then push her down at the base of the tree. Ralph looked at her more closely and felt all his flesh shrink closer to his bones. His dream of Carolyn recurred with cruel intensity, and he found himself struggling to bottle up a shriek of terror. Thats right, Ralph, dont scream. You dont want to do that because once you start, you might not be able to stop you might just go on doing it until your throat bursts. Remember Lois, because shes in this now, too. Remember Lois and dont start screaming. Ah, but it was hard not to, because the dreambugs which had come spewing out of Carolyns head were now pouring from Rosalies nostrils in writhing black streams. Those arent bugs. I dont know what they are, but they are not bugs. No, not bugs just another kind of aura. Nightmarish black stuff, neither liquid nor gas, was pumping out of Rosalie with each exhaled breath. It did not float away but instead began to surround her in slow, nasty coils of antilight. That blackness should have hidden her from view, but it didnt. Ralph could see her pleading, terrified eyes as the darkness gathered around her head and then began to ooze down her back and sides and legs. It was a deathbag, a real deathbag this time, and he was watching as Rosalie, her balloonstring now cut, wove it relentlessly about herself like a poisonous placental sac. This metaphor triggered the voice of Ed Deepneau inside his head, Ed saying that the Centurions were ripping babies from the wombs of their mothers and taking them away in covered trucks. Ever wonder what was under most of those tarps? Ed had asked. Doc 3 stood grinning down at Rosalie. Then he united the knot in her bandanna and put it around his own neck, tying it in a big, loose knot, making it look like a bohemian artists necktie. This done, he looked up at Ralph and Lois with an expression of loathsome complacency. There! his look said. I took care of my business after all, and there wasnt a damned thing you could do about it, was there? [Do something, Ralph! Please do something! Make him stop!] Too late for that, but maybe not too late to send him packing before he could enjoy the sight of Rosalie dropping dead at the foot of the tree. He was pretty sure Lois couldnt produce a karatechop of blue light as he had done, but maybe she could do something else. Yes she can shoot him in her own way. He didnt know why he was so sure of that, but suddenly he was. He grabbed Lois by the shoulders to make her look at him, then raised his right hand. He cocked his thumb and pointed his forefinger at the bald man. He looked like a small child playing cops and robbers. Lois responded with a look of dismay and incomprehension. Ralph grabbed her hand and stripped off her glove. [You! You, Lois!] She got the idea, raised her own hand, extended her forefinger, and made the childs shooting gesture Pow! Pow! Two compact lozenge shapes, their grayblue shade identical to Loiss aura but much brighter, flew from the end of her finger and streaked down the hill. Doc 3 screeched and leaped upward, fisted hands held at shoulder height, the heels of his black shoes clipping against his buttocks, as the first of these bullets went under him. It struck the ground, rebounded like a flat stone skipped across the surface of a pond, and hit the Portosan marked WOMEN. For a moment the entire front of it glowed fiercely, as the window of the BuffyBuffy had done. The second bluegray pellet clipped the baldys left hip and ricocheted up into the sky. He screamed a high, chattery sound that seemed to twist like a worm in the middle of Ralphs head. Ralph raised his hands to his ears even though it could do no good, and saw Lois doing the same thing. He felt sure that if that scream went on for long, it would burst his head open just as surely as high C shatters fine crystal. Doc 3 fell to the needlecarpeted ground beside Rosalie and rolled back and forth, howling and holding his hip the way a small child will hold the place he banged when he tumbled off his tricycle. After a few moments of this, his cries began to diminish and he scrambled to his feet. His eyes blazed at them from below the white expanse of his brow. Bills Panama was tilted far back on his head now, and the left side of his smock was black and smoking. [Ill get you! Ill get you both! Goddam interfering ShortTime fucks! ILL GET YOU BOTH!] He whirled and bounded down the path which led to the playground and the tennis courts, running in big flying leaps like an astronaut on the moon. Loiss shot didnt appear to have done any real damage, judging by his speed afoot. Lois seized Ralphs shoulder and shook him. As she did, the auras began to fade again. [The children! Its going toward the chi ] She was fading out, and that seemed to make perfect sense, because he suddenly saw that Lois wasnt really talking at all, only staring at him fixedly with her dark eyes as she clutched his shoulder. I cant hear you! he yelled. Lois, I cant hear you! Whats wrong, are you deaf? Its going toward the playground! Toward the children! We cant let it hurt the children! Ralph let out a deep, shuddering sigh. It wont. How can you be sure? I dont know. I just am. I shot it. She turned her finger toward her face, for a moment looking like a woman who mimes suicide. I shot it with my finger. Uhhuh. It stung him, too. Hard, from the way he looked. I cant see the colors anymore, Ralph. He nodded. They come and go, like radio stations at night. I dont know how I feel . . . I dont even know how I want to feel! She wailed this last, and Ralph folded her into his arms. In spite of everything that was going on in his life right now, one fact registered very clearly it was wonderful to be holding a woman again. Thats okay, he told her, and pressed his face against the top of her head. Her hair smelled sweet, with none of the underlying murk of beautyshop chemicals hed gotten used to in Carolyns hair over the last ten or fifteen years of their life together. Let go of it for now, okay? She looked at him. He could no longer see the faint mist drifting across her pupils, but felt sure it was still there. And besides, they were very pretty eyes even without the extra added attraction. Whats it for, Ralph? Do you know what its for? He shook his head. His mind was whirling with jigsaw pieces hats, docs, bugs, protest signs, dolls that exploded in splatters of fake blood that would not fit together. And for the time being, at least, the thing that seemed to recur with the most resonance was Old Dors nonsense saying Donebuncantbeundone. Ralph had an idea that was nothing but the truth. 3 A sad little whine came to his ears and Ralph looked down the hill. Rosalie was lying at the base of the big pine, trying to get up. Ralph could no longer see the black bag around her, but he was sure it was still there. Oh Ralph, the poor thing! What can we do? There was nothing they could do. Ralph was sure of it. He took Loiss right hand in both of his and waited for Rosalie to lie back and die. Instead of that, she gave a wholebody lurch that sent her so strongly to her feet that she almost toppled over the other way. She stood still for a moment, her head held so low her muzzle was almost on the ground, and then sneezed three or four times. With that out of the way, she shook herself and looked up at Ralph and Lois. She yapped at them once, a short, brisk sound. To Ralph it sounded as if she were telling them to quit worrying. Then she turned and made off through a little grove of pine trees toward the parks lower entrance. Before Ralph lost sight of her, she had achieved the limping yet insouciant trot which was her trademark. The bum leg was no better than it had been before Doc 3s interference, but it seemed no worse. Clearly old but seemingly a long way from dead (Just like the rest of the Harris Avenue Old Crocks, Ralph thought), she disappeared into the trees. I thought that thing was going to kill her, Lois said. In fact, I thought it had killed her. Me too, Ralph said. Ralph, did all that really happen? It did, didnt it? Yes. The balloonstrings . . . do you think theyre lifelines? He nodded slowly. Yes. Like umbilical cords. And Rosalie . . . He thought back to his first real experience with the auras, of how hed stood outside the Rite Aid with his back to the blue mailbox and his jaw hanging down almost to his breastbone. Of the sixty or seventy people he had observed before the auras faded again, only a few had been walking inside the dark envelopes he now thought of as deathbags, and the one Rosalie had knitted around herself just now had been blacker by far than any he had seen that day. Still, those people in the parking lot whose auras had been dingydark had invariably looked unwell . . . like Rosalie, whose aura had been the color of old sweatsocks even before Baldy 3 started messing with her. Maybe he just hurried up what may otherwise be a perfectly natural process, he thought. Ralph? Lois asked. What about Rosalie? I think my old friend Rosalie is living on borrowed time now, Ralph said. Lois considered this, looking down the hill and into the sundusty grove where Rosalie had disappeared. At last she turned to Ralph again. That midget with the scalpel was one of the men you saw coming out of May Lochers house, wasnt he? No. Those were two other ones. Have you seen more? No. Do you think there are more? I dont know. He had an idea that next shed ask if Ralph had noticed that the creature had been wearing Bills Panama, but she didnt. Ralph supposed it was possible she hadnt recognized it. Too much weirdness swirling around, and besides, there hadnt been a chunk bitten out of the brim the last time shed seen Bill wearing it. Retired history teachers just arent the hatbiting type, he reflected, and grinned. This has been quite a morning, Ralph. Lois met his gaze frankly, eye to eye. I think we need to talk about this, dont you? I really need to know whats going on. Ralph remembered this morning a thousand years ago, now walking back down the street from the picnic area, running over his short list of acquaintances, trying to decide whom he should talk to. He had crossed Lois off that mental list on the grounds that she might gossip to her girlfriends, and he was now embarrassed by that facile judgement, which had been based more on McGoverns picture of Lois than on his own. It turned out that the only person Lois had spoken to about the auras before today was the one person she should have been able to trust to keep her secret. He nodded at her. Youre right. We need to talk. Would you like to come back to my house for a little late lunch? I make a pretty mean stirfry for an old gal who cant keep track of her earrings. Id love to. Ill tell you what I know, but its going to take awhile. When I talked to Bill this morning, I gave him the Readers Digest version. So, Lois said. The fight was about chess, was it? Well, maybe not, Ralph said, smiling down at his hands. Maybe it was actually more like the fight you had with your son and your daughterinlaw. And I didnt even tell him the craziest parts. But youll tell me? Yes, he said, and started to get up. Ill bet youre a hell of a good cook, too. In fact He stopped suddenly and clapped one hand to his chest. He sat back down on the bench, heavily, his eyes wide and his mouth ajar. Ralph? Are you all right? Her alarmed voice seemed to be coming from a great distance. In his minds eye he was seeing Baldy 3 again, standing between the BuffyBuffy and the apartment house next door. Baldy 3 trying to get Rosalie to cross Harris Avenue so he could cut her balloonstring. Hed failed then, but hed gotten the job done (I was gonna play with her! ) before the morning was out. Maybe the fact that Bill McGovern isnt the hatbiting type wasnt the only reason Lois didnt notice whose hat Baldy 3 was wearing, Ralph old buddy. Maybe she didnt notice because she didnt want to notice. Maybe there are a couple of pieces here that fit together, and if youre right about that, the implications are wideranging. You see that, dont you? Ralph? Whats wrong? He saw the dwarf snatching a bite from the brim of the Panama and then clapping it back on his head. Heard him saying he guessed he would have to play with Ralph instead. But not just me. Me and my friends, he said. Me and my asshole friends. Now, thinking back on it, he saw something else, as well. He saw the sun striking splinters of fire from the lobes of Doc 3s ears as he or it chomped into the brim of McGoverns hat. The memory was too clear to deny, and so were those implications. Those wideranging implications. Take it easy you dont know a thing for sure, and the funnyfarm is just over the horizon, my friend. I think you need to remember that, maybe use it as an anchor. I dont care if Lois is also seeing all this stuff or not. The other men in the white coats, not the pintsized baldies but the muscular guys with the butterfly nets and the Thorazine shots, can show up at any time. Any old time at all. But still. Still. Ralph! Jesus Christ, talk to me! Lois was shaking him now and shaking hard, like a wife trying to rouse a husband who is going to be late for work. He looked around at her and tried to manufacture a smile. It felt false from the inside but must have looked all right to Lois, because she relaxed. A little, anyway. Sorry, he said. For a few seconds there it all just sort of . . . you know, ganged up on me. Dont you scare me like that! The way you grabbed your chest, my God! Im fine, Ralph said, and forced his false smile even wider. He felt like a kid pulling a wad of Silly Putty, seeing how far he could stretch it before it thinned enough to tear. And if youre still cookin, Im still eatin. Threesixnine, hon, the goose drank wine. Lois took a close look at him and then relaxed. Good. That would be fun. I havent cooked for anyone but Simone and Mina theyre my girlfriends, you know in a long time. Then she laughed. Except that isnt what I mean. That isnt why it would be, you know, fun. What do you mean? That I havent cooked for a man in a long time. I hope I havent forgotten how. Well, there was the day Bill and I came in to watch the news with you we had macaroni and cheese. It was good, too. She made a dismissive gesture. Reheated. Not the same. The monkey chewed tobacco on the streetcar line. The line broke Smiling wider than ever. Waiting for the rips to start. Im sure you havent forgotten how, Lois. Mr Chasse had a very hearty appetite. All sorts of hearty appetites, in fact. But then he started having his liver trouble, and . . . She sighed, then reached for Ralphs arm and took it with a mixture of timidity and resolution he found completely endearing. Never mind. Im tired of snivelling and moaning about the past. Ill leave that to Bill. Lets go. He stood up, linked his arm through hers, and walked her down the hill and toward the lower entrance to the park. Lois beamed blindingly at the young mothers in the playground as she and Ralph passed them. Ralph was glad for the distraction. He could tell himself to withhold judgement, he could remind himself over and over again that he didnt know enough about what was happening to him and Lois to even kid himself that he could think logically about it, but he kept jumping at that conclusion anyway. The conclusion felt right to his heart, and he had already come a long way toward believing that, in the world of auras, feeling and knowing were close to identical. I dont know about the other two, but 3 is one crazy medic . . . and he takes souvenirs. Takes them the way some of the crazies in Vietnam took ears. That Loiss daughterinlaw had given in to an evil impulse, scooping the diamond earrings from the china dish and putting them in the pocket of her jeans, he had no doubt. But Janet Chasse no longer had them; even now she was no doubt reproaching herself bitterly for having lost them and wondering why she had ever taken them in the first place. Ralph knew the shrimp with the scalpel had McGoverns hat even if Lois had failed to recognize it, and they had both seen him take Rosalies bandanna. What Ralph had realized as he started to get up from the bench was that those splinters of light he had seen reflected from the bald creatures earlobes almost certainly meant that Doc 3 had Loiss earrings, as well. 4 The late Mr Chasses rocking chair stood on faded linoleum by the door to the back porch. Lois led Ralph to it and admonished him to stay out from underfoot. Ralph thought this was an assignment he could handle. Strong light, midafternoon light, fell across his lap as he sat and rocked. Ralph wasnt sure how it had gotten so late so fast, but somehow it had. Maybe I fell asleep, he thought. Maybe Im asleep right now, and dreaming all this. He watched as Lois took down a wok (definitely hobbitsized) from an overhead cupboard. Five minutes later, savory smells began to fill the kitchen. I told you Id cook for you someday, Lois said, adding vegetables from the fridge crisper and spices from one of the overhead cabinets. That was the same day I gave you and Bill the leftover macaroni and cheese. Do you remember? I believe I do, Ralph said, smiling. Theres a jug of fresh cider in the milkbox on the front porch cider always keeps best outside. Would you get it? You can pour out, too. My good glasses are in the cupboard over the sink, the one I cant reach without dragging over a chair. Youre tall enough to do without the chair, I judge. What are you, Ralph, about sixtwo? Sixthree. At least I was; I guess maybe Ive lost an inch or two in the last ten years. Your spine settles, or something. And you dont have to go putting on the dog just for me. Honest. She looked at him levelly, hands on hips, the spoon with which she had been stirring the contents of the wok jutting from one of them. Her severity was offset by a trace of a smile. I said my good glasses, Ralph Roberts, not my best glasses. Yes, maam, he said, grinning, then added From the way that smells, I guess you still remember how to cook for a man. The proof of the pudding is in the eating, Lois replied, but Ralph thought she looked pleased as she turned back to the wok. 5 The food was good, and they didnt talk about what had happened in the park as they applied themselves to it. Ralphs appetite had become uncertain, out more often than in, since his insomnia had really begun to bite, but today he ate heartily and chased Loiss spicy stirfry with three glasses of apple cider (hoping uneasily as he finished the last one that the rest of the days activities wouldnt take him too far from a toilet). When they had finished, Lois got up, went to the sink, and began to draw hot water for dishes. As she did, she resumed their earlier conversation as if it were a halffinished piece of knitting which had been temporarily laid aside for some other, more pressing, chore. What did you do to me? she asked him. What did you do to make the colors come back? I dont know. It was as if I was on the edge of that world, and when you put your hands over my eyes, you pushed me into it. He nodded, remembering how shed looked in the first few seconds after hed removed his hands as if shed just taken off a pair of goggles which had been dipped in powdered sugar. It was pure instinct. And youre right, it is like a world. I keep thinking of it just that way, as the world of auras. |
Its wonderful, isnt it? I mean, its scary, and when it first started to happen to me back in late July or early August, this was I was sure I was going crazy, but even then I liked it, too. I couldnt help liking it. Ralph gazed at her, startled. Had he once upon a time thought of Lois as transparent? Gossipy? Unable to keep a secret? No, Im afraid it was a little worse than that, old buddy. You thought she was shallow. You saw her pretty much through Bills eyes, as a matter of fact as our Lois. No less . . . but not much more. What? she asked, a little uneasily. Why are you looking at me like that? Youve been seeing these auras since summer? That long? Yes brighter and brighter. Also more often. Thats why I finally went to see the tattletale. Did I really shoot that thing with my finger, Ralph? The more time goes by, the less I can believe that part of it. You did. I did something like it myself shortly before I ran into you. He told her about his earlier confrontation with Doc 3, and about how he had banished the dwarf . . . temporarily, at least. He raised his hand to his shoulder and brought it swiftly down. Thats all I did like a kid pretending to be Chuck Norris or Steven Seagal. But it sent this incredible bolt of blue light at him, and he scurried in a hurry. Which was probably for the best, because I couldnt have done it again. I dont know how I did that, either. Could you have shot your finger again? Lois giggled, turned toward him, and cocked her finger in his general direction. Want to find out? Kapow! Kablam! Dont point dat ding at me, lady, Ralph told her. He smiled as he said it, but wasnt entirely sure he was joking. Lois lowered her finger and squirted Joy into the sink. As she began to stir the water around with one hand, puffing up the suds, she asked what Ralph thought of as the Big Questions Where did this power come from, Ralph? And whats it for? He shook his head as he got up and walked over to the dishdrainer. I dont know and I dont know. Hows that for helpful? Where do you keep your dishwipers, Lois? Never mind where I keep my dishwipers. Go sit down. Please tell me youre not one of these modern men, Ralph the ones that are always hugging each other and bawling. Ralph laughed and shook his head. Nope. I was just well trained, thats all. Okay. As long as you dont start going on about how sensitive you are. There are some things a girl likes to find out for herself. She opened the cupboard under the sink and tossed him a faded but scrupulously clean dishtowel. Just dry them and put them on the counter. Ill put them away myself. While youre working, you can tell me your story. The unabridged version. You got a deal. He was still wondering where to begin when his mouth opened, seemingly of its own accord, and began for him. When I finally started to get it through my head that Carolyn was going to die, I went for a lot of walks. And one day, while I was out on the Extension . . . 6 He told her everything, beginning with his intervention between Ed and the fat man wearing the West Side Gardeners gimmecap and ending with Bill telling him that hed better go see his doctor, because at their age mental illness was common, at their age it was common as hell. He had to double back several times to pick up dropped stitches the way Old Dor had showed up in the middle of his efforts to keep Ed from going at the man from West Side Gardeners, for instance but he didnt mind doing that, and Lois didnt seem to have any trouble keeping his narrative straight, either. The overall feeling Ralph was conscious of as he wound his way through his tale was a relief so deep it was nearly painful. It was as if someone had stacked bricks on his heart and mind and he was now removing them, one by one. By the time he was finished, the dishes were done and they had left the kitchen in favor of the living room with its dozens of framed photographs, presided over by Mr Chasse from his place on the TV. So? Ralph said. How much of it do you believe? All of it, of course, she said, and either did not notice the expression of relief of Ralphs face or chose to ignore it. After what we saw this morning not to mention what you knew about my wonderful daughterinlaw I cant very well not believe. Thats my advantage over Bill. Not your only one, Ralph thought but didnt say. None of this stuff is coincidental, is it? she asked him. Ralph shook his head. No, I dont think so. When I was seventeen, she said, my mother hired this boy from down the road Richard Henderson, his name was to do chores around our place. There were a lot of boys she could have hired, but she hired Richie because she liked him . . . and she liked him for me, if you understand what I mean. Of course I do. She was matchmaking. Uhhuh, but at least she wasnt doing it in a big, gruesome, embarrassing way. Thank God, because I didnt care a fig for Richie at least not like that. Still, Mother gave it her very best. If I was studying my books at the kitchen table, shed have him loading the woodbox even though it was May and already hot. If I was feeding the chickens, shed have Richie cutting sidehay next to the dooryard. She wanted me to see him around . . . to get used to him . . . and if we got to like each others company and he asked me to a dance or the town fair, that would have been just fine with her. It was gentle, but it was there. A push. And thats what this is like. The pushes dont feel all that gentle to me, Ralph said. His hand went involuntarily to the place where Charlie Pickering had pricked him with the point of his knife. No, of course they dont. Having a man stick a knife in your ribs like that must have been horrible. Thank God you had that spraycan. Do you suppose Old Dor sees the auras, too? That something from that world told him to put the can in your pocket? Ralph gave a helpless shrug. What she was suggesting had crossed his mind, but once you got beyond it, the ground really started to slope away. Because if Dorrance had done that, it suggested that some ((entity) force or being had known that Ralph would need help. Nor was that all. That force or being would also have had to know that (a) Ralph would be going out on Sunday afternoon, that (b) the weather, quite nice up until then, would turn nasty enough to require a jacket, and (c) which jacket he would wear. You were talking, in other words, about something that could foretell the future. The idea that he had been noticed by such a force frankly scared the hell out of him. He recognized that in the case of the aerosol can, at least, the intervention had probably saved his life, but it still scared the hell out of him. Maybe, he said. Maybe something did use Dorrance as an errandboy. But why? And what do we do now? she added. Ralph could only shake his head. She glanced up at the clock squeezed in between the picture of the man in the raccoon coat and the young woman who looked ready to say Twentythree skidoo any old time, then reached for the phone. Almost threethirty! My goodness! Ralph touched her hand. Who are you calling? Simone Castonguay. Id made plans to go over to Ludlow with her and Mina this afternoon theres a cardparty at the Grange but I cant go after all this. Id lose my shirt. She laughed, then colored prettily. Just a figure of speech. Ralph put his hand over hers before she could lift the receiver. Go on to your cardparty, Lois. Really? She looked both doubtful and a little disappointed. Yes. He was still unclear about what was going on here, but he sensed that was about to change. Lois had spoken of being pushed, but to Ralph it felt more as if he were being carried, the way a river carries a man in a small boat. But he couldnt see where he was going; heavy mist shrouded the banks, and now, as the current began to grow swifter, he could hear the rumble of rapids somewhere up ahead. Still, there are shapes, Ralph. Shapes in the mist. Yes. Not very comforting ones, either. They might be trees that only looked like clutching fingers . . . but on the other hand, they might be clutching fingers trying to look like trees. Until Ralph knew which was the case, he liked the idea of Lois being out of town just fine. He had a strong intuition or perhaps it was only hope masquerading as intuition that Doc 3 couldnt follow her to Ludlow, that he might not even be able to follow her across the Barrens to the east side. You cant know any such thing, Ralph. Maybe not, but it felt right, and he was still convinced that in the world of the auras, feeling and knowing were pretty nearly the same thing. One thing he did know was that Doc 3 hadnt cut Loiss balloonstring yet; that Ralph had seen for himself, along with the joyously healthy gray glow of her aura. Yet Ralph could not escape a growing certainty that Doc 3 Crazy Doc intended to cut it, and that, no matter how lively Rosalie had looked when she went trotting away from Strawford Park, the severing of that cord was a mortal, murderous act. Lets say youre right, Ralph; lets say he cant get at her this afternoon if shes playing nickelin, dimeorout in Ludlow. What about tonight? Tomorrow? Next week? Whats the solution? Does she call up her son and her bitch of a daughterinlaw, tell them shes changed her mind about Riverview Estates and wants to go there after all? He didnt know. But he knew he needed time to think, and he also knew that constructive thinking would be hard to do until he was fairly sure that Lois was safe, at least for awhile. Ralph? Youre getting that moogy look again. That what look? Moogy. She tossed her hair pertly. Thats a word I made up to describe how Mr Chasse looked when he was pretending to listen to me but was actually thinking about his coin collection. I know a moogy look when I see one, Ralph. What are you thinking about? I was wondering what time you think youll get back from your cardgame. That depends. On what? On whether or not we stop at Tubbys for chocolate frapps. She spoke with the air of a woman revealing a secret vice. Suppose you come straight back. Seven oclock. Maybe seventhirty. Call me as soon as you get home. Would you do that? Yes. You want me out of town, dont you? Thats what that moogy look really means. Well . . . You think that nasty bald thing means to hurt me, dont you? I think its a possibility. Well, he might hurt you, too! Yes, but . . . But so far as I can tell, Lois, hes not wearing any of my fashion accessories. But what? Im going to be okay until you get back, thats all. He remembered her deprecating remark about modern men hugging each other and bawling and tried for a masterful frown. Go play cards and leave this business to me, at least for the time being. Thats an order. Carolyn would have either laughed or gotten angry at such comicopera macho posturing. Lois, who belonged to an entirely different school of feminine thought, only nodded and looked grateful to have the decision taken out of her hands. All right. She tilted his chin down so she could look directly into his eyes. Do you know what youre doing, Ralph? Nope. Not yet, anyway. All right. Just as long as you admit it. She placed a hand on his forearm and a soft, openmouthed kiss on the corner of his mouth. Ralph felt an entirely welcome prickle of heat in his groin. Ill go to Ludlow and win five dollars playing poker with those silly women who are always trying to fill their inside straights. Tonight well talk about what to do next. Okay? Yes. Her small smile a thing more in the eyes than of the mouth suggested that they might do a little more than just talk, if Ralph was bold . . . and at that moment he felt quite bold, indeed. Not even Mr Chasses stern gaze from his place atop the TV affected that feeling very much. CHAPTER FOURTEEN 1 It was quarter to four by the time Ralph crossed the street and walked the short distance back up the hill to his own building. Weariness was stealing over him again; he felt as if he had been up for roughly three centuries. Yet at the same time he felt better than he had since Carolyn had died. More together. More himself. Or is that maybe just what you want to believe? That a person cant feel this miserable without some sort of positive payback? Its a lovely idea, Ralph, but not very realistic. All right, he thought, so maybe Im a little confused right now. Indeed he was. Also frightened, exhilarated, disoriented, and a touch horny. Yet one clear idea came through this mix of emotions, one thing he needed to do before he did anything else he had to make up with Bill. If that meant apologizing, he could do that. Maybe an apology was even in order. Bill, after all, hadnt come to him, saying, Gee, old buddy, you look terrible, tell me all about it. No, he had gone to Bill. He had done so with misgivings, true, but that didnt change the fact, and Ah, Ralph, jeez, what am I going to do with you? It was Carolyns amused voice, speaking to him as clearly as it had during the weeks following her death, when hed handled the worst of his grief by discussing everything with her inside his head . . . and sometimes aloud, if he happened to be alone in the apartment. Bill was the one who blew his top, sweetie, not you. I see youre just as determined to be hard on yourself now as you were when I was alive. I guess some things never change. Ralph smiled a little. Yeah, okay, maybe some things never did change, and maybe the argument had been more Bills fault than his. The question was whether or not he wanted to cut himself off from Bills companionship over a stupid quarrel and a lot of stiffnecked horseshit about who had been right and who had been wrong. Ralph didnt think he did, and if that meant making an apology Bill didnt really deserve, what was so awful about that? So far as he knew, there were no bones in the three little syllables that made up Im sorry. The Carolyn inside his head responded to this idea with wordless incredulity. Never mind, he told her as he started up the walk. Im doing this for me, not for him. Or for you, as far as that goes. He was amazed and amused to discover how guilty that last thought made him feel almost as if he had committed an act of sacrilege. But that didnt make the thought any less true. He was feeling around in his pocket for his latchkey when he saw a note thumbtacked to the door. Ralph felt for his glasses, but he had left them upstairs on the kitchen table. He leaned back, squinting to read Bills scrawling hand Dear RalphLoisFayeWhoever, I expect to be spending most of the day at Derry Home. Bob Polhursts niece called and told me that this time its almost certainly the real thing; the poor man has almost finished his struggle. Room 313 in Derry Home ICU is about the last place on earth I want to be on a beautiful day in October, but I guess Id better see this through to the end. Ralph, Im sorry I gave you such a hard time this morning. You came to me for help and I damned near clawed your face off instead. All I can say by way of apology is that this thing with Bob has completely wrecked my nerves. Okay? I think I owe you a dinner . . . if you still want to eat with the likes of me, that is. Faye, please please PLEASE quit bugging me about your damned chess tournament. I promised Id play, and I keep my promises. Goodbye, cruel world, Bill Ralph straightened up with a feeling of relief and gratitude. If only everything else that had been happening to him lately could straighten itself out as easily as this part had done! He went upstairs, shook the teakettle, and was filling it at the sink when the telephone rang. It was John Leydecker. Boy, Im glad I finally got hold of you, he said. I was getting a little worried, old buddy. Why? Ralph asked. Whats wrong? Maybe nothing, maybe something. Charlie Pickering made bail after all. You told me that wouldnt happen. I was wrong, okay? Leydecker said, clearly irritated. It wasnt the only thing I was wrong about, either. I told you the judged probably set bail in the fortythousanddollar range, but I didnt know Pickering was going to draw Judge Steadman, who has been known to say that he doesnt even believe in insanity. Steadman set bail at eighty grand. Pickerings courtappointed bellowed like a calf in the moonlight, but it didnt make any difference. Ralph looked down and saw he was still holding the teakettle in one hand. He put it on the table. And he still made bail? Yep. Remember me telling you that Ed would throw him away like a paring knife with a broken blade? Yes. Well, score it as another strikeout for John Leydecker. Ed marched into the bailiffs office at eleven oclock this morning with a briefcase full of money. Eight thousand dollars? Ralph asked. I said briefcase, not envelope, Leydecker replied. Not eight but eighty. Theyre still buzzing down at the courthouse. Hell, theyll be buzzing about it even after the Christmas tinsel comes down. Ralph tried to imagine Ed Deepneau in one of his baggy old sweaters and a pair of worn corduroys Eds madscientist outfits, Carolyn had called them pulling banded stacks of twenties and fifties out of his briefcase and couldnt do it. I thought you said ten per cent was enough to get out. It is, if you can also escrow something a house or a piece of property, for instance that stacks up somewhere near the total bail amount. Apparently Ed couldnt do that, but he did have a little rainyday cash under the mattress. Either that or he gave the toothfairy one hell of a blowjob. Ralph found himself remembering the letter he had gotten from Helen about a week after she had left the hospital and moved out to High Ridge. She had mentioned a check shed gotten from Ed seven hundred and fifty dollars. It seems to indicate he understands his responsibilities, she had written. Ralph wondered if Helen would still feel that way if she knew that Ed had walked into the Derry County Courthouse with enough money to send his daughter sailing through the first fifteen years of her life . . . and pledged it to free a crazy guy who liked to play with knives and Molotov cocktails. Where in Gods name did he get it? he asked Leydecker. Dont know. And he isnt required to say? Nope. Its a free country. I understand he said something about cashing in some stocks. Ralph thought back to the old days the good old days before Carolyn had gotten sick and died and Ed had just gotten sick. Thought back to meals the four of them had had together once every two weeks or so, takeout pizza at the Deepneaus or maybe Carols chicken potpie in the Robertses kitchen, and remembered Ed saying on one occasion that he was going to treat them all to prime rib at the Red Lion in Bangor when his stock accounts matured. Thats right, Helen had replied, smiling at Ed fondly. She had been pregnant then, just beginning to show, and looking all of fourteen with her hair pulled back in a ponytail and wearing a checkered smock that was still yards too big for her. Which do you think will mature first, Edward? The two thousand shares of United Toejam or the six thousand of Amalgamated Sourballs? And he had growled at her, a growl that had made them all laugh because Ed Deepneau didnt have a mean bone in his body, anyone who had known him more than two weeks knew that Ed wouldnt hurt a fly. Except Helen might have known a little different even back then Helen had almost surely known a little different, fond look or no fond look. Ralph? Leydecker asked. Are you still there? Ed didnt have any stocks, Ralph said. He was a research chemist, for Christs sake, and his father was foreman in a bottling plant in some crazy place like Plaster Rock, Pennsylvania. No dough there. Well, he got it somewhere, and Id be lying if I said I liked it. From the other Friends of Life, do you think? No, I dont. First, were not talking rich folks here most of the people who belong to The Friends are bluecollar types, workingclass heroes. They give what they can, but this much? No. They could have gotten together enough property deeds among them to spring Pickering, I suppose, but they didnt. Most of them wouldnt, even if Ed had asked. Eds all but persona non grata with them now, and I imagine they wish theyd never heard of Charlie Pickering. Dan Daltons taken back the leadership of The Friends of Life, and to most of them, thats a big relief. Ed and Charlie and two other people a man named Frank Felton and a woman named Sandra McKay seem to be operating very much on their own hook now. Felton I dont know anything about and theres no jacket on him, but the McKay woman has toured some of the same fine institutions as Charlie. Shes unmissable, too pasty complexion, lots of acne, glasses so thick they make her eyes look like poached eggs, goes about three hundred pounds. You joking? No. She favors stretch pants from Kmart and can usually be observed travelling in the company of assorted DingDongs, Funny Bones, and Hostess Twinkies. She often wears a big sweatshirt with the words BABY FACTORY on the front. Claims to have given birth to fifteen children. Shes never actually had any, and probably cant. Why are you telling me all this? Because I want you to watch out for these people, Leydecker said. He spoke patiently, as if to a child. They may be dangerous. Charlie is for sure, that you know without me telling you, and Charlie is out. Where Ed got the money to spring him is secondary he got it, thats what matters. I wouldnt be a bit surprised if he came after you again. Him, or Ed, or the others. What about Helen and Natalie? Theyre with their friends friends who are very hip to the dangers posed by screwloose hubbies. I filled Mike Hanlon in, and hell also keep an eye on her. The library is being watched very closely by our men. We dont think Helens in any real danger at the present time shes still staying at High Ridge but were doing what we can. Thank you, John. I appreciate that, and I appreciate the call. I appreciate that you appreciate it, but Im not quite done yet. You need to remember who Ed called and threatened, my friend not Helen but you. She doesnt seem to be much of a concern to him anymore, but you linger on his mind, Ralph. I asked Chief Johnson if I could assign a man Chris Nell would be my pick to keep an eye on you, at least until after WomanCares RentABitch has come and gone. I was turned down. Too much going on this week, he said . . . but the way I was turned down suggests to me that if you asked, youd get someone to watch your back. So what do you say? Police protection, Ralph thought. Thats what they call it on the TV cop shows and thats what hes talking about police protection. He tried to consider the idea, but too many other things got in the way; they danced in his head like weird sugarplums. Hats, docs, smocks, spraycans. Not to mention knives, scalpels, and a pair of scissors glimpsed in the dusty lenses of his old binoculars. Each thing I do I rush through so I can do something else, Ralph thought, and on the heels of that Its a long walk back to Eden, sweetheart, so dont sweat the small stuff. No, he said. What? Ralph closed his eyes and saw himself picking up this same phone and calling to cancel his appointment with the pinsticker man. This was the same thing all over again, wasnt it? Yes. He could get police protection from the Pickerings and the McKays and the Feltons, but that wasnt the way this was supposed to go. He knew that, felt it in every beat of his heart and pulse of his blood. You heard me, he said. I dont want police protection. For Gods sake, why? I can take care of myself, Ralph said, and grimaced a little at the pompous absurdity of this sentiment, which he had heard expressed in John Wayne Westerns without number. Ralph, I hate to be the one to break the news to you, but youre old. You got lucky on Sunday. You might not get lucky again. I didnt just get lucky, Ralph thought. Ive got friends in high places. Or maybe I should say entities in high places. Ill be okay, he said. Leydecker sighed. If you change your mind, will you call me? Yes. And if you see either Pickering or a large lady with thick glasses and stringy blonde hair hanging around Ill call you. Ralph, please think this over. Just a guy parked down the street is all Im talking about. Donebuncantbeundone, Ralph said. Huh? I said I appreciate it, but no. Ill be talking to you. Ralph gently replaced the telephone in its cradle. Probably John was right, he thought, probably he was crazy, yet he had never felt so completely sane in his life. Tired, he told his sunny, empty kitchen,but sane. He paused, then added Also halfway to being in love, maybe. That made him grin, and he was still grinning when he finally put the kettle on to heat. 2 He was on his second cup of tea when he remembered what Bill had said in his note about owing him a meal. He decided on the spur of the moment to ask Bill to meet him at Day Break, Sun Down for a little supper. They could start over. I think we have to start over, he thought, because that little psycho has got his hat, and Im pretty sure that means hes in trouble. Well, no time like the present. He picked up the phone and dialed a number he had no trouble remembering 9415000. The number of Derry Home Hospital. 3 The hospital receptionist connected him with Room 313. The clearly tired woman who answered the phone was Denise Polhurst, the dying mans niece. Bill wasnt there, she told him. Four other teachers from what she termed Uncs glory days had shown up around one, and Bill had proposed lunch. Ralph even knew how his downstairs tenant would have put it better belated than never. It was one of his favorites. When Ralph asked her if she expected him back soon, Denise Polhurst said she did. Hes been so faithful. I dont know what I would have done without him, Mr Robbins. Roberts, he said. Bill made Mr Polhurst sound like a wonderful man. Yes, they all feel that way. But of course the bills wont be coming to his fan club, will they? No, Ralph said uncomfortably. I suppose not. Bills note said your uncle is very low. Yes. The doctor says he probably wont last the day, let alone the night, but Ive heard that song before. God forgive me, but sometimes its like Uncle Bobs one of those ads from Publishers Clearing House always promising, never delivering. I suppose that sounds awful, but Im too tired to care. They turned off the lifesupport stuff this morning I couldnt have taken the responsibility all by myself, but I called Bill and he said it was what Unc would have wanted. Its time for Bob to explore the next world, he said. Hes mapped this one to a nicety. Isnt that poetic, Mr Robbins? Yes. Its Roberts, Ms Polhurst. Will you tell Bill that Ralph Roberts called and would like him to call ba So we turned it off and I was all prepared nerved up, I guess youd say and then he didnt die. I cant understand it. Hes ready, Im ready, his lifes work is done . . . so why wont he die? I dont know. Death is very stupid, she said, speaking in the nagging and unlovely voice which only the very tired and the deeply heartsick seem to employ. An obstetrician this slow in cutting a babys umbilical cord would be fired for malpractice. Ralphs mind had a tendency to drift these days, but this time it snapped back in a hurry. What did you say? Beg your pardon? She sounded startled, as if her own mind had been drifting. You said something about cutting the cord. I didnt mean anything, she said. That nagging tone had grown stronger . . . except it wasnt nagging, Ralph realized; it was whining, and it was frightened. Something was wrong here. His heartbeat suddenly speeded up. I didnt mean anything at all, she insisted, and suddenly the phone Ralph was holding turned a deep and sinister shade of blue in his hand. Shes been thinking about killing him, and not just idly, either shes been thinking about putting a pillow over his face and smothering him with it. It wouldnt take long, she thinks. A mercy, she thinks. Over at last, she thinks. Ralph pulled the phone away from his ear. Blue light, cold as a February sky, rose in pencilthin rays from the holes in the earpiece. Murder is blue, Ralph thought, holding the phone at arms length and staring with wideeyed unbelief as the blue rays began to bend and drip toward the floor. He could hear, very faintly, the quacking, anxious voice of Denise Polhurst. It wasnt anything I ever wanted to know, but I guess I know it anyway murder is blue. He brought the handset toward his mouth again, cocking it to keep the top half, with its freight of icicle aura, away from him. He was afraid that if that end of the handset got too close to his ear, it might deafen him with her cold and furious desperation. Tell Bill that Ralph called, he said. Roberts, not Robbins. He hung up without waiting for a reply. The blue rays shattered away from the phones earpiece and tumbled toward the floor. Ralph was again reminded of icicles; this time of how they fell in a neat row when you ran your gloved hand along the underside of an eave after a warm winter day. They disappeared before they hit the linoleum. He glanced around. Nothing in the room glowed, shimmered, or vibrated. The auras were gone again. He began to let out a sigh of relief and then, from outside on Harris Avenue, a car backfired. In the empty secondfloor apartment, Ralph Roberts screamed. 4 He didnt want any more tea, but he was still thirsty. He found half a Diet Pepsi flat but wet in the back of the fridge, poured it into a plastic cup with a faded Red Apple logo on it, and took it outside. He could no longer stand to be in the apartment, which seemed to smell of unhappy wakefulness. Especially not after what had happened with the phone. The day had become even more beautiful, if that was possible; a strong, mild wind had developed, rolling bands of light and shadow across the west side of Derry and combing the leaves from the trees. These the wind sent hurrying along the sidewalks in rattling dervishes of orange and yellow and red. Ralph turned left not because he had any conscious desire to revisit the picnic area up by the airport but only because he wanted the wind at his back. Nevertheless, he found himself entering the little clearing again some ten minutes later. This time it was empty, and he wasnt surprised. There was no edge in the wind that had sprung up, nothing to make old men and women scurry indoors, but it was hard work keeping cards on the table or chesspieces on the board when the puckish wind kept trying to snatch them away. As Ralph approached the small trestle table where Faye Chapin usually held court, he was not exactly surprised to see a note held down by a rock, and he had a good idea what the subject would be even before he put down his plastic Red Apple cup and picked it up. Two walks; two sightings of the bald doc with the scalpel; two old people suffering insomnia and seeing brightly colored visions; two notes. Its like Noah leading the animals onto the ark, not one by one but in pairs . . . and is another hard rain going to fall? Well, what do you think, old man? He didnt know what he thought . . . but Bills note had been a kind of obituaryinprogress, and he had absolutely no doubt that Fayes was the same thing. That sense of being carried forward, effortlessly and without hesitation, was simply too strong to doubt; it was like awakening on some alien stage to find oneself speaking lines (or stumbling through them, anyway) in a drama for which one could not remember having rehearsed, or seeing a coherent shape in what had up until then looked like complete nonsense, or discovering . . . Discovering what? Another secret city, thats what, he murmured. The Derry of Auras. Then he bent over Fayes note and read it while the wind played prankishly with his thinning hair. 5 Those of you who want to pay your final respects to Jimmy Vandermeer are advised to do so by tomorrow at the very latest. |
Father Coughlin came by this noon and told me the poor old guy is sinking fast. He CAN have visitors, tho. He is in Derry Home ICU, Room 315. Faye PS Remember that time is short. Ralph read the note twice, put it back on the table with the rock on top to weight it down for the next Old Crock to happen along, then simply stood there with his hands in his pockets and his head down, gazing out at Runway 3 from beneath the bushy tangle of his brows. A crisp leaf, orange as one of the Halloween pumpkins which would soon decorate the street, came flipping down from the deep blue sky and landed in his sparse hair. Ralph brushed it away absently and thought of two hospital rooms on Homes ICU floor, two rooms side by side. Bob Polhurst in one, Jimmy V in the other. And the next room up the hall? That one was 317, the room in which his wife had died. This is not a coincidence, he said softly. But what was it? Shapes in the mist? A secret city? Evocative phrases, both of them, but they answered no questions. Ralph sat on top of the picnic table next to the one upon which Faye had left his note, took off his shoes, and crossed his legs. The wind gusted, ruffling his hair. He sat there amid the falling leaves with his head slightly bent and his brow furrowed in thought. He looked like a Winslow Homer version of Buddha as he meditated with his hands cupping his kneecaps, carefully reviewing his impressions of Doc 1 and Doc 2 . . . and then contrasting these impressions with those hed gotten of Doc 3. First impression all three docs had reminded him of the aliens in tabloids like Inside View, and pictures which were always labelled artists conceptions. Ralph knew that these baldheaded, darkeyed images of mysterious visitors from space went back a good many years; people had been reporting contacts with short baldies the socalled little doctors for a long time, maybe for as long as people had been reporting UFOs. He was quite sure that he had read at least one such account way back in the sixties. Okay, so say there are quite a few of these fellows around, Ralph told a sparrow which had just lit on the picnic areas litter barrel. Not just three docs but three hundred. Or three thousand. Lois and I arent the only ones whove seen them. And . . . And didnt most of the people who gave accounts of such meetings also mention sharp objects? Yes, but not scissors or scalpels at least Ralph didnt think so. Most of the people who claimed to have been abducted by the little bald doctors talked about probes, didnt they? The sparrow flew off. Ralph didnt notice. He was thinking about the little bald docs who had visited May Locher on the night of her death. What else did he know of them? What else had he seen? They had been dressed in white smocks, like the ones worn by TVshow doctors in the fifties and sixties, like the ones pharmacists still wore. Only their smocks, unlike the one worn by Doc 3, had been clean. 3 had been toting a rusty scalpel; if there had been any rust on the scissors Doc 1 had been holding in his right hand, Ralph hadnt noticed it. Not even after hed trained the binoculars on them. Something else probably not important, but at least you noticed it. ScissorsToting Doc was righthanded, at least judging from the way he held his weapon. ScalpelWielding Doc is a southpaw. No, probably not important, but something about it another of those shapes in the mist, this a small one tugged at him just the same. Something about the dichotomy of left and right. Go to the left and youll be right, Ralph muttered, repeating the punchline of some joke he no longer even remembered. Go to the right and youll be left. Never mind. What else did he know about the docs? Well, they had been surrounded by auras, of course rather lovely greenishgold ones and they had left those (whiteman tracks) Arthur Murray dancediagrams behind them. And although their features had struck him as perfectly anonymous, their auras had conveyed feelings of power . . . and sobriety . . . and . . . And dignity, goddammit, Ralph said. The wind gusted again and more leaves blew down from the trees. Some fifty yards from the picnic area, not far from the old train tracks, a twisted, halfuprooted tree seemed to reach in Ralphs direction, stretching branches that actually did look a little like clutching hands. It suddenly occurred to Ralph that he had seen quite a lot that night for an old guy who was supposed to be living on the edge of the last age of man, the one Shakespeare (and Bill McGovern) called the slippered pantaloon. And none of it not one single thing suggested danger or evil intent. That Ralph had inferred evil intent wasnt very surprising. They were physically freakish strangers; he had observed them coming out of a sick womans house at a time of night when visitors seldom if ever called; he had seen them only minutes after waking from a nightmare of epic proportions. Now, however, recollecting what he had seen, other things recurred. The way they had stood on Mrs Lochers stoop, for instance, as if they had every right to be there; the sense he had gotten of two old friends indulging themselves in a bit of conversation before going on their way. Two old buddies talking it over one more time before heading home after a long nights work. That was your impression, yes, but that doesnt mean you can trust it, Ralph. But Ralph thought he could trust it. Old friends, longtime colleagues, done for the night. May Lochers had been their last stop. All right, so Docs 1 and 2 were as different from the third one as day is from night. They were clean while he was dirty, they were invested with auras while he had none (none that Ralph had seen, at least), they carried scissors while he carried a scalpel, they seemed as sane and sober as a couple of respected village elders while 3 seemed as crazy as a shithouse rat. One thing is perfectly clear, though, isnt it? Your playmates are supernatural beings, and other than Lois, the only person who seems to know theyre there is Ed Deepneau. Want to bet on how much sleep Ed is getting just lately? No, Ralph said. He raised his hands from his knees and held them in front of his eyes. They were shaking a little. Ed had mentioned bald docs, and there were bald docs. Was it the docs hed been talking about when he talked about Centurions? Ralph didnt know. He almost hoped so, because that word Centurions had begun to call up a much more terrible image in his mind each time it occurred to him the Ringwraiths from Tolkiens fantasy trilogy. Hooded figures astride skeletal, redeyed horses, bearing down on a small party of cowering hobbits outside the Prancing Pony Tavern in Bree. Thinking of hobbits made him think of Lois, and the trembling in his hands grew worse. Carolyn Its a long walk back to Eden, sweetheart, so dont sweat the small stuff. Lois In my family, dying at eighty is dying young. Joe Wyzer The medical examiner usually ends up writing suicide on the causeofdeath line rather than insomnia. Bill His specialty was the Civil War, and now he doesnt even know what a civil war is, let alone who won ours. Denise Polhurst Death is very stupid. An obstetrician this slow in cutting a babys umbilical cord It was as if someone had suddenly clicked on a bright searchlight inside his head, and Ralph cried out into the sunny autumn afternoon. Not even the Delta 727 settling in for a landing on Runway 3 could entirely drown that cry. 6 He spent the rest of the afternoon sitting on the porch of the house he shared with McGovern, waiting impatiently for Lois to come back from her cardgame. He could have tried McGovern again at the hospital, but didnt. The need to speak to McGovern had passed. Ralph didnt understand everything yet, but he thought he understood a great deal more than he had, and if his sudden flash of insight at the picnic area had any validity at all, telling McGovern what had happened to his Panama would serve absolutely no purpose even if Bill believed him. I have to get the hat back, Ralph thought. And I have to get Loiss earrings back, too. It was an amazing late afternoon and early evening. On the one hand, nothing happened. On the other hand, everything happened. The world of auras came and went around him like the stately progression of cloudshadows across the west side. Ralph sat and watched, rapt, breaking off only to eat a little and make a trip to the bathroom. He saw old Mrs Bennigan standing on her front porch in her bright red coat, clutching her walker and taking inventory of her fall flowers. He saw the aura surrounding her the scrubbed and healthy pink of a freshly bathed infant and hoped Mrs B didnt have a lot of relatives waiting around for her to die. He saw a young man of no more than twenty bopping along the other side of the street toward the Red Apple. He was the picture of health in his faded jeans and sleeveless Celtics jersey, but Ralph could see a deathbag clinging to him like an oilslick, and a balloonstring rising from the crown of his head that looked like a decaying drapepull in a haunted house. He saw no little bald doctors, but shortly after fivethirty he observed a startling shaft of purple light erupt from a manhole cover in the middle of Harris Avenue; it rose into the sky like a special effect in a Cecil B. DeMille Bible epic for perhaps three minutes, then simply winked out. He also saw a huge bird that looked like a prehistoric hawk go floating between the chimneys of the old dairy building around the corner on Howard Street, and alternating red and blue thermals twisting over Strawford Park in long, lazy ribbons. When soccer practice at Fairmount Grammar let out at quarter to six, a dozen or so kids came swarming into the parking lot of the Red Apple, where they would buy tons of presupper candy and bales of trading cards football cards by this time of year, Ralph supposed. Two of them stopped to argue about something, and their auras, one green and the other a vibrant shade of burnt orange, intensified, drew in, and began to gleam with rising spirals of scarlet thread. Look out! Ralph shouted mentally at the boy within the orange envelope of light, just a moment before Green Boy dropped his schoolbooks and socked the other in the mouth. The two of them grappled, spun around in a clumsy, aggressive dance, then tumbled to the sidewalk. A little circle of yelling, cheering kids formed around them. A purplishred dome like a thunderhead began to build up around and above the fight. Ralph found this shape, which was circulating in a slow counterclockwise movement, both terrible and beautiful, and he wondered what the aura above a fullscale military battle would look like. He decided that was a question to which he didnt really want an answer. Just as Orange Boy climbed on top of Green Boy and began to pummel him in earnest, Sue came out of the store and hollered at them to quit fighting in the damned parking lot. Orange Boy dismounted reluctantly. The combatants rose to their feet, looking at each other warily. Then Green Boy, trying to appear nonchalant, turned and went into the store. Only his quick glance back over his shoulder to make sure his opponent was not pursuing, spoiled the effect. The spectators were either following Green Boy into the store for their postpractice supplies or clustered around Orange Boy, congratulating him. Above them, unseen, that virulent redpurple toadstool was breaking up like a cloudbank before a strong wind. Pieces of it tattered, unravelled, and disappeared. The street is a carnival of energy, Ralph thought. The juice thrown off by those two boys during the ninety seconds they were mixing it up looked like enough to light Derry for a week, and if a person could tap the energy the watchers generated the energy inside that mushroom cloud you could probably light the whole state of Maine for a month. Can you imagine what it would be like to enter the world of auras in Times Square at two minutes to midnight on New Years Eve? He couldnt and didnt want to. He suspected he had glimpsed the leading edge of a force so huge and so vital that it made all the nuclear weapons created since 1945 seem about as powerful as a childs cappistol fired into an empty peach can. Enough force to destroy the universe, perhaps . . . or to create a new one. 7 Ralph went upstairs, dumped a can of beans into one pot and a couple of hotdogs into another, and walked impatiently back and forth through the flat, snapping his fingers and occasionally running his fingers through his hair, as he waited for this impromptu bachelors supper to cook. The bonedeep weariness which had hung on him like invisible weights ever since midsummer was, for the time being, at least, entirely gone; he felt filled with manic, antic energy, absolutely stuffed with it. He supposed this was why people liked Benzedrine and cocaine, only he had an idea that this was a much better high, that when it departed it would not leave him feeling plundered and mistreated, more used than user. Ralph Roberts, unaware that the hair his fingers were combing through had grown thicker, and that threads of black were visible in it for the first time in five years, jivetoured his apartment, walking on the balls of his feet, first humming and then singing an old rockandroll tune from the early sixties Hey, pretty baybee, you cant sit down . . . you gotta slop, bop, slip, slop, flip top alll about . . . The beans were bubbling in their pot, the hotdogs boiling in theirs only it looked to Ralph almost as if they were dancing in there, doing the Bristol Stomp to the old Dovells tune. Still singing at the top of his lungs (When you hear the hippie with the backbeat, you cant sit down), Ralph cut the hotdogs into the beans, dumped in half a pint of ketchup, added some chili sauce, then stirred everything vigorously together and headed for the door. He carried his supper, still in the pot, in one hand. He ran down the stairs as nimbly as a kid whos running late on the first day of school. He hooked a baggy old cardigan sweater McGoverns, but what the hell out of the front hall closet, and then went back out on the porch. The auras were gone, but Ralph wasnt dismayed; for the time being he was more interested in the smell of food. He couldnt remember the last time hed felt as flatout hungry as he did at that moment. He sat on the top step with his long thighs and bony knees sticking out on either side of him, looking decidedly Ichabod Craneish, and began to eat. The first few bites burned his lips and tongue, but instead of being deterred, Ralph ate faster, almost gobbling. He paused with half the pot of beans and franks consumed. The animal in his stomach hadnt gone back to sleep not yet but it had been pacified a bit. Ralph belched unselfconsciously and looked out at Harris Avenue with a feeling of contentment he hadnt known in years. Under the current circumstances, that feeling made no sense at all, but that didnt change it in the slightest. When was the last time he had felt this good? Maybe not since the morning hed awakened in that barn somewhere between Derry, Maine and Poughkeepsie, NewYork, amazed by the conflicting rays of light thousands of them, it had seemed which crisscrossed the warm, sweetsmelling place where he lay. Or maybe never. Yes, or maybe never. He spied Mrs Perrine coming up the street, probably returning from A Safe Place, the combination soupkitchen and homeless shelter down by the canal. Ralph once again found himself fascinated by her strange, gliding walk, which she achieved without the aid of a cane and seemingly without any sidetoside movement of her hips. Her hair, still more black than gray, was now held or perhaps subdued was the word by the hairnet she wore on the serving line. Thick support hose the color of cotton candy rose from her spotless white nurses shoes . . . not that Ralph could see much of either them or the legs they covered; this evening Mrs Perrine wore a mans wool overcoat, and the hem came almost to her ankles. She seemed to depend almost entirely on her upper legs to move her along a sign of some chronic back problem, Ralph guessed and this mode of locomotion, coupled with the overcoat, gave Esther Perrine a somewhat surreal aspect as she approached. She looked like the black queen on a chessboard, a piece that was either being guided by an invisible hand or moving all by itself. As she neared the place where Ralph sat still wearing the ripped shirt and now eating his supper directly from the pot in the bargain the auras began to steal back into the world again. The streetlights had already come on, and now Ralph saw delicate lavender arcs hung over each. He could also see a red haze hovering above some roofs, a yellow haze above others, a pale cerise above still others. In the east, where night was now gathering itself, the horizon flocked with dim green speckles. Closer to hand, he watched as Mrs Perrines aura sprang to life around her that firm gray that reminded him of a West Point cadets uniform. A few darker spots, like phantom buttons, shimmered above her bosom (Ralph assumed there was a bosom hidden somewhere beneath the overcoat). He was not sure, but thought these might be signs of impending ill health. Good evening, Mrs Perrine, he said politely, and watched as the words rose in front of his eyes in snowflake shapes. She gave him a penetrating glance, flicking her eyes up and down, seeming to simultaneously sum him up and dismiss him in a single look. I see youre still wearing that same shirt, Roberts, she said. What she didnt say but what Ralph was sure she was thinking was I also see you sitting there and eating beans right out of the pot, like some ragged streetperson who never learned any better . . . and I have a way of remembering what I see, Roberts. So I am, Ralph said. I guess I forgot to change it. Hmmp, said Mrs Perrine, and now he thought it was his underwear she was considering. When was the last time it occurred to you to change that? I shudder to think, Roberts. Lovely evening, isnt it, Mrs Perrine? Another of those quick, birdlike glances, this time up at the sky. Then back to Ralph. Its going to turn cold. Do you think so? Oh, yes Indian summers over. My back isnt good for much besides weather forecasting these days, but at that it does very well. She paused. I believe thats Bill McGoverns sweater. I guess it is, Ralph agreed, wondering if she would ask him next if Bill knew he had it. He wouldnt have put it past her. Instead, she told him to button it up. You dont want to be a candidate for pneumonia, do you? she asked, and the tucked set of her mouth added, As well as for the nuthouse? Absolutely not, Ralph said. He set the pot aside, reached for the sweater buttons, then stopped. He was still wearing a quilted stoveglove on his left hand. He hadnt noticed it until now. It will be easier if you take that off, Mrs Perrine said. There might have been the faintest gleam in her eyes. I suppose so, Ralph said humbly. He shook off the glove and buttoned McGoverns sweater. My offer holds good, Roberts. Beg your pardon? My offer to mend your shirt. If you can bring yourself to part with it for a day or so, that is. She paused. You do have another shirt, I assume? One you could wear while I mend the one you have on? Oh, yes, Ralph said. You bet. Quite a few of them. Choosing among them each day must be challenging for you. Theres bean juice on your chin, Roberts. With this pronouncement, Mrs Perrines eyes flicked forward and she began to march once more. What Ralph did then he did with no forethought or understanding; it was as instinctive as the chopping gesture he had made earlier to scare Doc 3 away from Rosalie. He raised the hand which had been wearing the thermal glove and curled it into a tube around his mouth. Then he inhaled sharply, producing a faint, whispery whistle. The results were amazing. A pencil of gray light poked out of Mrs Perrines aura like the quill of a porcupine. It lengthened rapidly, angling backward as the lady herself moved forward, until it had crossed the leaflittered lawn and darted into the tube formed by Ralphs curled fingers. He felt it enter him as he inhaled and it was like swallowing pure energy. He suddenly felt lit up, like a neon sign or the marquee of a bigcity movie theater. An explosive sense of force a feeling of Pow! ran through his chest and stomach, then raced down his legs all the way to the tips of his toes. At the same time it rocketed upward into his head, threatening to blow off the top of his skull as if it were the thin concrete roof of a missile silo. He could see rays of light, as gray as electrified fog, smoking out from between his fingers. A terrible, joyous sense of power lit up his thoughts, but only for a moment. It was followed by shame and amazed horror. What are you doing, Ralph? Whatever that stuff is, it doesnt belong to you. Would you reach into her purse and take some of her money while she wasnt looking? He felt his face flush. He lowered his cupped hand and shut his mouth. As his lips and teeth came together, he clearly heard and actually felt something crunch crisply inside. It was the sound you heard when you were chomping off a bite of fresh rhubarb. Mrs Perrine stopped, and Ralph watched apprehensively as she made a halfturn and looked out at Harris Avenue. I didnt mean to, he thought at her. Honest I didnt, Mrs P Im still learning my way around this thing. Roberts? Yes? Did you hear something? It sounded almost like a gunshot. Ralph could feel his ears throbbing with hot blood as he shook his head. No . . . but my ears arent what they Probably just a backfire over on Kansas Street, she said, dismissing his weaksister excuses out of hand. It made my heart miss a beat, though, I can tell you. She started off again in her odd, gliding, chessqueen walk, then stopped once more and looked back at him. Her aura had begun to fade out of Ralphs view, but he had no trouble seeing her eyes they were as sharp as a kestrels. You look different, Roberts, she said. Younger, somehow. Ralph, who had expected something else (Give me back what you stole, Roberts, and right this minute, for instance), could only flounder. Do you think . . . thats very . . . I mean to say thank y She flapped an impatient ohshutup hand at him. Probably the light. I advise you not to dribble on that sweater, Roberts. My impression of Mr McGovern is that he is a man who takes care of his things. He should have taken better care of his hat, Ralph said. Those bright eyes, which had begun once more to shift away from him, shifted back. I beg your pardon? His Panama, Ralph said. He lost it somewhere. Mrs Perrine held this up to the light of her intellect for a moment, then cast it aside with another Hmmp. Go inside, Roberts. If you stay out here much longer, youll catch your death of cold. And then she slid upon her way, not visibly the worse for wear as a result of Ralphs thoughtless act of thievery. Thievery? Im pretty sure thats the wrong word, Ralph. What you did just now was a lot closer to Vampirism, Ralph said bleakly. He put the pot of beans aside and began to slowly rub his hands together. He felt ashamed . . . guilty . . . and all but exploding with energy. You stole some of her lifeforce instead of her blood, but a vampire is a vampire, Ralph. Yes indeed. And it suddenly occurred to Ralph that this must not have been the first time he had done such a thing. You look different, Roberts. Younger, somehow. That was what Mrs Perrine had said tonight, but people had been making similar comments to him ever since the end of the summer, hadnt they? The main reason his friends hadnt hectored him into going to the doctor was because he didnt look like anything was wrong with him. He complained of insomnia, but he apparently looked like the picture of health. I guess that honeycomb must have really turned the trick, Johnny Leydecker had said just before the two of them had left the library on Sunday back in the Iron Age, that felt like now. And when Ralph had asked him what he was talking about, Leydecker had said he was talking about Ralphs insomnia. You look a gajillion times better than on the day I first met you. And Leydecker hadnt been the only one. Ralph had been more or less dragging himself through the days, feeling folded, spindled, and mutilated . . . but people kept telling him how good he looked, how refreshed he looked, how young he looked. Helen . . . McGovern . . . even Faye Chapin had said something a week or two ago, although Ralph couldnt remember exactly what Sure I do, he said in a low, dismayed voice. He asked me if I was using wrinkle cream. Wrinkle cream, for Gods sake! Had he been stealing from the lifeforce of others even back then? Stealing without even knowing it? I must have been, he said in that same low voice. Dear Jesus, Im a vampire. But was that the right word? he wondered suddenly. Wasnt it at least possible that, in the world of auras, a lifestealer was called a Centurion? Eds pallid, frantic face rose before him like a ghost which returns to accuse its murderer, and Ralph, suddenly terrified, wrapped his arms around his knees and lowered his head to rest upon them. CHAPTER FIFTEEN 1 At twenty minutes past seven, a perfectly maintained Lincoln Town Car of late seventies vintage drew up to the curb in front of Loiss house. Ralph who had spent the last hour showering, shaving, and trying to get himself calmed down stood on the porch and watched Lois get out of the back seat. Goodbyes were said and girlish, sprightly laughter drifted across to him on the breeze. The Lincoln pulled away and Lois started up her walk. Halfway along it, she stopped and turned. For a long moment the two of them regarded each other from their opposite sides of Harris Avenue, seeing perfectly well in spite of the deepening darkness and the two hundred yards which separated them. They burned for each other in that darkness like secret torches. Lois pointed a finger at him. It was very close to the hand gesture shed made before shooting at Doc 3, but this didnt upset Ralph in the least. Intent, he thought. Everything lies in intent. There are few mistakes in this world . . . and once you get to know your way around, maybe there are no mistakes at all. A narrow, grayglistening beam of force appeared at the end of Loiss finger and began to extend itself across the deepening shadows of Harris Avenue. A passing car drove blithely through it. The cars windows flashed a momentary bright, blind gray and its headlights seemed to flicker briefly, but that was all. Ralph raised his own finger, and a blue beam grew from it. These two narrowcasts of light met in the center of Harris Avenue and twined together like woodbine. Higher and higher the interwoven pigtail rose, paling slightly as it went. Then Ralph curled his finger, and his half of the loveknot in the middle of Harris Avenue winked out of existence. A moment later, Loiss half also disappeared. Ralph slowly descended the porch steps and began to cross his lawn. Lois came toward him. They met in the middle of the street . . . where, in a very real sense, they had met already. Ralph put his arms around her waist and kissed her. 2 You look different, Roberts. Younger, somehow. Those words kept running through his head recycling themselves like an endless tapeloop as Ralph sat in Loiss kitchen, drinking coffee. He was unable to take his eyes off her. She looked easily ten years younger and ten pounds lighter than the Lois hed gotten used to seeing over the last few years. Had she looked this young and pretty in the park this morning? Ralph didnt think so, but of course she had been upset this morning, upset and crying, and he supposed that made a difference. Still . . . Yes, still. The tiny networks of wrinkles around the corners of her mouth were gone. So were the incipient turkeywattles beneath her neck and the sag of flesh which had begun to hang from her upper arms. She had been crying this morning and was radiantly happy tonight, but Ralph knew that couldnt account for all the changes he saw. I know what youre looking at, Lois said. Its spooky, isnt it? I mean, it solves the question of whether or not all this has just been in our minds, but its still spooky. Weve found the Fountain of Youth. Forget Florida; it was right here in Derry, all along. Weve found it? For a moment she only looked surprised . . . and a little wary, as if she suspected he was teasing her, having her on. Of treating her as our Lois. Then she reached across the table and squeezed his hand. Go in the bathroom. Take a look at yourself. I know what I look like. Hell, I just finished shaving. Took my time over it, too. She nodded. You did a fine job, Ralph . . . but this isnt about your five oclock shadow. Just look at yourself. Are you serious? Yes, she said firmly. I am. He had almost gotten to the door when she said, You didnt just shave; you changed your shirt, too. Thats good. I didnt like to say anything, but that plaid one was ripped. Was it? Ralph asked. His back was to her, so she couldnt see his smile. I didnt notice. 3 He stood with his hands braced on the bathroom sink, looking into his own face, for a good two minutes. It took him that long to admit to himself that he was really seeing what he thought he was seeing. The streaks of black, lustrous as crow feathers, which had returned to his hair were amazing, and so was the disappearance of the ugly pouches beneath his eyes, but the thing he could not seem to take his eyes away from was the way the lines and deep cracks had disappeared from his lips. It was a small thing . . . but it was also an enormous thing. It was the mouth of a young man. And . . . Abruptly, Ralph ran a finger into his mouth, along the righthand line of his lower teeth. He couldnt be entirely positive, but it seemed to him that they were longer, as if some of the wear had been rolled back. Holy shit, Ralph murmured, and his mind returned to that sweltering day last summer when he had confronted Ed Deepneau on his lawn. Ed had first told him to drag up a rock and then confided in him that Derry had been invaded by sinister, babykilling creatures. Lifestealing creatures. All lines of force have begun to converge here, Ed had told him. I know how difficult that is to believe, but its true. Ralph was finding it less difficult to believe all the time. What was getting harder to believe was the idea that Ed was mad. If this doesnt stop, Lois said from the doorway, startling him, were going to have to get married and leave town, Ralph. Simone and Mina could not literally could not take their eyes off me. I made a lot of glib talk about some new makeup Id gotten out at the mall, but they didnt swallow it. A man would, but a woman knows what makeup can do. And what it cant. They walked back to the kitchen, and although the auras were gone again for the time being, Ralph discovered he could see one anyway a blush rising out of the collar of Loiss white silk blouse. Finally I told them the only thing they would believe. What was that? Ralph asked. I said Id met a man. She hesitated, and then, as the rising blood reached her cheeks and stained them pink, she plunged. And had fallen in love with him. He touched her arm and turned her toward him. He looked at the small, clean crease in the bend of her elbow and thought how much he would like to touch it with his mouth. Or the tip of his tongue, perhaps. Then he raised his eyes to look at her. And was it true? She looked back with eyes that were all hope and candor. I think so, she said in a small, clear voice, but everythings so strange now. All I know for sure is that I want it to be true. I want a friend. Ive been frightened and unhappy and lonely for quite awhile now. |
The loneliness is the worst part of getting old, I think not the aches and pains, not the cranky bowels or the way you lose your breath after climbing a flight of stairs you could have just about flown up when you were twenty but being lonely. Yes, Ralph said. That is the worst. No one talks to you anymore oh, they talk at you, sometimes, but thats not the same and mostly its like people dont even see you. Have you ever felt that way? Ralph thought of the Derry of the Old Crocks, a city mostly ignored by the hurrytowork, hurrytoplay world which surrounded it, and nodded. Ralph, would you hug me? My pleasure, he said, and pulled her gently into the circle of his arms. 4 Some time later, rumpled and dazed but happy, Ralph and Lois sat together on the livingroom couch, a piece of furniture so stringently hobbitsized it was really not much more than a loveseat. Neither of them minded. Ralphs arm was around Loiss shoulders. She had let her hair down and he twined a lock of it in his fingers, musing upon how easy it was to forget the feel of a womans hair, so marvellously different from the feel of a mans. She had told him about her cardgame and Ralph had listened closely, amazed but not, he discovered, much surprised. There were a dozen or so of them who played every week or so at the Ludlow Grange for small stakes. It was possible to go home a fivebuck loser or a tenbuck winner, but the most likely result was finishing a dollar ahead or a handful of change behind. Although there were a couple of good players and a couple of shlumps (Lois counted herself among the former), it was mostly just a fun way to spend an afternoon the Lady Old Crock version of chess tournaments and marathon ginrummy games. Only this afternoon I just couldnt lose. I should have come home completely broke, what with all of them asking what kind of vitamins I was taking and where Id gotten my last facial and all the rest of it. Who can concentrate on a silly game like Deuces and Jacks, Man with the Axe, Natural Sevens Take All when you have to keep telling new lies and trying not to trip over the ones youve already told? Must have been hard, Ralph said, trying not to grin. It was. Very hard! But instead of losing, I just kept raking it in. And do you know why, Ralph? He did, but shook his head so she would tell him. He liked listening to her. It was their auras. I didnt always know the exact cards they were holding, but a lot of times I did. Even when I didnt, I could get a pretty clear idea of how good their hands were. The auras werent always there, you know how they come and go, but even when they were gone I played better than I ever have in my life. During the last hour, I began to lose on purpose just so they wouldnt all hate me. And do you know something? Even losing on purpose was hard. She looked down at her hands, which had begun to twine together nervously in her lap. And on the way back, I did something Im ashamed of. Ralph began to glimpse her aura again, a dim gray ghost in which unformed blobs of dark blue swirled. Before you tell me, he said, listen to this and see if it sounds familiar. He related how Mrs Perrine had approached while he was sitting on the porch, eating and waiting for Lois to get back. As he told her what he had done to the old lady, he dropped his eyes and felt his ears heating up again. Yes, she said when he was finished. Its the same thing I did . . . but I didnt mean to, Ralph . . . at least, I dont think I meant to. I was sitting in the back seat with Mina, and she was starting to go on and on again about how different I looked, how young I looked, and I thought Im embarrassed to say it right out loud, but I guess I better I thought, Ill shut you up, you snoopy, envious old thing. Because it was envy, Ralph. I could see it in her aura. Big, jagged spikes the exact color of a cats eyes. No wonder they call jealousy the greeneyed monster! Anyway, I pointed out the window and said Oooh, Mina, isnt that the dearest little house? And when she turned to look, I . . . I did what you did, Ralph. Only I didnt curl up my hand. I just kind of puckered my lips . . . like this . . . She demonstrated, looking so kissable that Ralph felt moved (almost compelled, in fact) to take advantage of the expression. . . . and I breathed in a big cloud of her stuff. What happened? Ralph asked, fascinated and afraid. Lois laughed ruefully. To me or her? Both of you. Mina jumped and slapped the back of her neck. Theres a bug on me! she said. It bit me! Get it off, Lo! Please get it off! Of course there was no bug on her I was the bug but I brushed at her neck just the same, then opened the window and told her it was gone, it flew away. She was lucky I didnt knock her brains out instead of just brushing her neck thats how full of pep I was. I felt like I could have opened the car door and run all the way home. Ralph nodded. It was wonderful . . . too wonderful. Its like the stories about drugs you see on TV, how they take you to heaven at first and then lock you in hell. What if we start doing this and cant stop? Yeah, Ralph said. And what if it hurts people? I keep thinking about vampires. Do you know what I keep thinking about? Loiss voice had dropped to a whisper. Those things you said Ed Deepneau talked about. Those Centurions. What if theyre us, Ralph? What if theyre us? He hugged her and kissed the top of her head. Hearing his worst fear coming from her mouth made it less heavy on his own heart, and that made him think of what Lois had said about loneliness being the worst part of getting old. I know, he said. And what I did to Mrs Perrine was totally spurofthemoment I dont remember thinking about it at all, just doing it. Was it that way with you? Yes. Just like that. She laid her head against his shoulder. We cant do it anymore, he said. Because it really might be addictive. Anything that feels that good just about has to be addictive, dont you think? Weve got to try and build up some safeguards against doing it unconsciously, too. Because I think I have been. That could be why A scream of brakes and sliding, wailing tires cut him off. They stared at each other, wideeyed, as outside on the street that sound went on and on, grief seeming to search for a point of impact. There was a muffled thud from the street as the scream of the brakes and tires silenced. It was followed by a brief cry uttered by either a woman or a child, Ralph could not tell which. Someone else shouted, What happened? and then, Oh, cripe! There was a rattle of running footsteps on pavement. Stay on the couch, Ralph said, and hurried to the living room window. When he ran up the shade Lois was standing right beside him, and Ralph felt a flash of approval. It was what Carolyn would have done under similar circumstances. They looked out on a nighttime world that pulsed with strange color and fabulous motion. Ralph knew it was Bill they were going to see, knew it Bill hit by a car and lying dead in the street, his Panama with the crescent bitten out of the brim lying near one outstretched hand. He slipped an arm around Lois and she gripped his hand. But it wasnt McGovern in the fan of headlights thrown by the Ford which was slued around in the middle of Harris Avenue; it was Rosalie. Her earlymorning shopping expeditions were at an end. She lay on her side in a spreading pool of blood, her back bunched and twisted in several places. As the driver of the car which had struck her knelt beside the old stray, the pitiless glare of the nearest streetlamp illuminated his face. It was Joe Wyzer, the Rite Aid druggist, his orangeyellow aura now swirling with confused eddies of red and blue. He stroked the old dogs side, and each time his hand slipped into the vile black aura which clung to Rosalie, it disappeared. Dreams of terror washed through Ralph, dropping his temperature and shrivelling his testicles until they felt like hard little peachpits. Suddenly it was July of 1992 again, Carolyn dying, the deathwatch ticking, and something weird had happened to Ed Deepneau. Ed had freaked out, and Ralph had found himself trying to keep Helens normally goodnatured husband from springing at the man in the West Side Gardeners cap and attempting to rip his throat out. Then the cherry on the Charlotte russe, Carol would have said Dorrance Marstellar had arrived. Old Dor. And what had he said? I wouldnt touch him anymore . . . I cant see your hands. I cant see your hands. Oh my God, Ralph whispered. 5 He was brought back to the here and now by the feeling of Lois swaying against him, as if she were on the edge of a faint. Lois! he said sharply, gripping her arm. Lois, are you okay? I think so . . . but Ralph . . . do you see . . . Yes, its Rosalie. I guess she I dont mean her; I mean him! She pointed to the right. Doc 3 was leaning against the trunk of Joe Wyzers Ford, McGoverns Panama tipped jauntily back on his bald skull. He looked toward Ralph and Lois, grinned insolently, then slowly raised his thumb to his nose and waggled his small fingers at them. You bastard! Ralph bellowed, and slammed his fist against the wall beside the window in frustration. Half a dozen people were running toward the scene of the accident, but there was nothing they could do; Rosalie would be dead before even the closest of them arrived at the place where she lay in the glare of the cars headlights. The black aura was solidifying, becoming something which looked almost like sootdarkened brick. It encased her like a formfitting shroud, and Wyzers hand disappeared up to the wrist every time it slipped through that terrible garment. Now Doc 3 raised his hand with the forefinger sticking up and cocked his head a teacherly pantomime so good that it almost said Pay attention, please! right out loud. He tiptoed forward unnecessary, as he couldnt be seen by the people out there, but good theater and reached toward Joe Wyzers back pocket. He glanced around at Ralph and Lois, as if to ask them if they were still paying attention. Then he began to tiptoe forward again, reaching out with his left hand. Stop him, Ralph, Lois moaned. Oh please stop him. Slowly, like a man who has been drugged, Ralph raised his hand and then chopped it down. A blue wedge of light flew from his fingertips, but it diffused as it passed through the windowglass. A pastel fog spread out a little distance from Loiss house and then disappeared. The bald doctor shook his finger in an infuriating pantomime Oh, you naughty boy, it said. Doc 3 reached out again, and plucked something from Wyzers back pocket as he knelt in the street, mourning the dog. Ralph couldnt tell for sure what it was until the creature in the dirty smock swept McGoverns hat from his head and pretended to use it on his own nonexistent hair. He had taken a black pocketcomb, the kind you could buy in any convenience store for a buck twentynine. Then he leaped into the air, clicking his heels like a malignant elf. Rosalie had raised her head at the bald doctors approach. Now she lowered it back to the pavement and died. The aura surrounding her disappeared at once, not fading but simply winking out of existence like a soapbubble. Wyzer got to his feet, turned to a man standing on the curb, and began to tell him what had happened, gesturing with his hands to indicate how the dog had run out in front of his car. Ralph found he could actually read a string of six words as they came off Wyzers lips seemed to come out of nowhere. And when Ralph shifted his gaze back down to the side of Wyzers car, he saw that was the place to which the little bald doctor had returned. CHAPTER SIXTEEN 1 Ralph was able to get his rustbucket Oldsmobile started, but it still took him twenty minutes to get them across town to Derry Home on the east side. Carolyn had understood his increasing worries about his driving and had tried to be sympathetic, but shed had an impatient, hurryup streak in her nature, and the years had not mellowed it much. On trips longer than half a mile or so, she was almost always unable to keep from lapsing into reproof. She would stew in silence for awhile, thinking, then begin her critique. If she was particularly exasperated with their progress or lack of it she might ask him if he thought an enema would help him get the lead out of his ass. She was a sweetheart, but there had always been an edge to her tongue. Following such remarks, Ralph would always offer and always without rancor to pull over and let her drive. Such offers Carol had always declined. Her belief was that, on short hops, at least, it was the husbands job to drive and the wifes to offer constructive criticism. He kept waiting for Lois to comment on either his speed or his sloppy driving habits (he didnt think he would be able to remember his blinkers with any consistency these days even if someone put a gun to his head), but she said nothing only sat where Carolyn had sat on five thousand rides or more, holding her purse on her lap exactly as Carolyn had always held hers. Wedges of light store neon, traffic signals, streetlights ran like rainbows across Loiss cheeks and brows. Her dark eyes were distant and thoughtful. She had cried after Rosalie died, cried hard, and made Ralph pull down the shade again. Ralph almost hadnt done that. His first impulse had been to bolt out into the street before Joe Wyzer could get away. To tell Joe he had to be very careful. To tell him that when he emptied his pants pockets tonight, he was going to be missing a cheap comb, no big deal, people were always losing combs, except this time it was a big deal, and next time it might be Rite Aid pharmacist Joe Wyzer lying at the end of the skid. Listen to me, Joe, and listen closely. You have to be very careful, because theres all sorts of news from the HyperReality Zone, and in your case all of it comes inside black borders. There were problems with that, however. The biggest was that Joe Wyzer, sympathetic as he had been on the day he had gotten Ralph an appointment with the acupuncturist, would think Ralph was crazy. Besides, how did one defend oneself against a creature one couldnt even see? So he had pulled the shade . . . but before he did, he took one last hard look at the man who had told him he used to be Joe Wyze but was now older and Wyzer. The auras were still there, and he could see Wyzers balloonstring, a bright orangeyellow, rising intact from the top of his head. So he was still all right. For now, at least. Ralph had led Lois into the kitchen and poured her another cup of coffee black, with lots of sugar. He killed her, didnt he? she asked as she raised the cup to her lips with both hands. The little beast killed her. Yes. But I dont think he did it tonight. I think he really did it this morning. Why? Why? Because he could, Ralph said grimly. I think thats the only reason he needs. Just because he could. Lois had given him a long, appraising look, and an expression of relief had slowly crept into her eyes. Youve figured it out, havent you? I should have known it the minute I saw you this evening. I would have known, if I hadnt had so many other things rolling around in what passes for my mind. Figured it out? Im miles from that, but I have had some ideas. Lois, do you feel up to a trip to Derry Home with me? I suppose so. Do you want to see Bill? Im not sure exactly who I want to see. It might be Bill, but it might be Bills friend, Bob Polhurst. Maybe even Jimmy Vandermeer do you know him? Jimmy V? Of course I know him! I knew his wife even better. In fact, she used to play poker with us until she died. It was a heart attack, and so sudden She broke off suddenly, looking at Ralph with her dark Spanish eyes. Jimmys in the hospital? Oh God, its the cancer, isnt it? The cancer came back. Yes. Hes in the room right next to Bills friend. Ralph told her about the conversation hed had with Faye that morning and the note hed found on the picnic table that afternoon. He pointed out the odd conjunction of rooms and residents Polhurst, Jimmy V, Carolyn and asked Lois if she thought it was just a coincidence. No. Im sure it isnt. She had glanced at the clock. Come on regular visiting hours over there finish at ninethirty, I think. If were going to get there before then, wed better wiggle. 2 Now, as he turned onto Hospital Drive (Forgot your damned turnblinker again, sweetheart, Carolyn commented), he glanced at Lois Lois sitting there with her hands clasped on her purse and her aura invisible for the time being and asked if she was all right. She nodded. Yes. Not great, but okay. Dont worry about me. But I do worry, Lois, Ralph thought. A lot. And by the way, did you see Doc 3 take the comb out of Joe Wyzers pocket? That was a stupid question. Of course shed seen. The bald midget had wanted her to see. Had wanted both of them to see. The real question was how much significance she had attached to it. How much do you really know, Lois? How many connections have you made? I have to wonder, because theyre not really that hard to see. I wonder . . . but Im afraid to ask. There was a low brick building about a quarter of a mile farther down the feeder road WomanCare. A number of spotlights (new additions, he was quite sure) threw fans of illumination across its lawn, and Ralph could see two men walking back and forth at the end of grotesquely elongated shadows . . . rentacops, he supposed. Another new wrinkle; another straw flying in an evil wind. He turned left (this time remembering the blinker, at least) and eased the Olds carefully up the chute which led into the multilevel hospital parking garage. At the top, an orange barrierarm blocked the way. PLEASE STOP TAKE TICKET, read the sign next to it. Ralph could recall a time when there used to be actual people in places like this, rendering them a little less eerie. Those were the days, my friend, we thought theyd never end, he thought as he unrolled his window and took a ticket from the automated dispenser. Ralph? Hmmm? He was concentrating on avoiding the back bumpers of the cars slantparked on both sides of the ascending aisles. He knew that the aisles were much too wide for the bumpers of those other cars to be an actual impediment to his progress intellectually he knew it but what his guts knew was something else. How Carolyn would bitch and moan about the way Im driving, he thought with a certain distracted fondness. Do you know what were doing here, or are we just winging it? Just another minute let me get this damned thing parked. He passed several slots big enough for the Olds on the first level, but none with enough bufferzone to make him feel comfortable. On the third level he found three spaces side by side (together they were big enough to hold a Sherman tank comfortably) and babied the Olds into the one in the middle. He killed the motor and turned to face Lois. Other engines idled above and below them, their locations impossible to pinpoint because of the echo. Orange light that persistent, penetrating toneglow now common to all such facilities as this, it seemed lay upon their skins like thin toxic paint. Lois looked back at him steadily. He could see traces of the tears she had cried for Rosalie in her puffy, swollen lids, but the eyes themselves were calm and sure. He was struck by how much she had changed just since that morning, when he had found her sitting slumpshouldered on a park bench and weeping. Lois, he thought, if your son and daughterinlaw could see you tonight, I think they might run away screaming at the top of their lungs. Not because you look scary, but because the woman they came to bulldoze into moving to Riverview Estates is gone. Well? she asked with just a hint of a smile. Are you going to talk to me or just look at me? Ralph, ordinarily a cautious sort of man, recklessly said the first thing to come into his head. What Id like to do, I think, is eat you like icecream. Her smile deepened enough to make dimples at the corners of her mouth. Maybe later well see how much of an appetite for icecream you really have, Ralph. For now, just tell me why you brought me here. And dont tell me you dont know, because I think you do. Ralph closed his eyes, drew in a deep breath, and opened them again. I guess were here to find the other two bald guys. The ones I saw coming out of May Lochers. If anyone can explain whats going on, itll be them. What makes you think youll find them here? I think theyve got work to do . . . two men, Jimmy V and Bills friend, dying side by side. I should have known what the bald doctors are what they do from the minute I saw the ambulance guys bring Mrs Locher out strapped to a stretcher and with a sheet over her face. I would have known, if I hadnt been so damned tired. The scissors should have been enough. Instead, it took me until this afternoon, and I only got it then because of something Mr Polhursts niece said. What was it? That death was stupid. That if an obstetrician took as much time cutting the umbilical cord, hed be sued for malpractice. It made me think of a myth I read when I was in gradeschool and couldnt get enough of gods and goddesses and Trojan horses. The story was about three sisters the Greek Sisters, maybe, or maybe it was the Weird Sisters. Shit, dont ask me; I cant even remember to use my damned turnblinkers half the time. Anyway, these sisters were responsible for the course of all human life. One of them spun the thread, one of them decided how long it would be . . . is any of this ringing a bell, Lois? Of course it is! she nearly shouted. The balloonstrings! Ralph nodded. Yes. The balloonstrings. I dont remember the names of the first two sisters, but I never forgot the name of the last one Atropos. And according to the story, her job is to cut the thread the first one spins and the second one measures. You could argue with her, you could beg, but it never made any difference. When she decided it was time to cut, she cut. Lois was nodding. Yes, I remember that story. I dont know if I read it or someone told it to me when I was a kid. You believe its actually true, Ralph, dont you? Only it turns out to be the Bald Brothers instead of the Weird Sisters. Yes and no. As I remember the story, the sisters were all on the same side a team. And thats the feeling I got about the two men who came out of Mrs Lochers house, that they were longtime partners with immense respect for each other. But the other guy, the one we saw again tonight, isnt like them. I think Doc 3s a rogue. Lois shivered, a theatrical gesture that became real at the last moment. Hes awful, Ralph. I hate him. I dont blame you. He reached for the doorhandle, but Lois stopped him with a touch. I saw him do something. Ralph turned and looked at her. The tendons in his neck creaked rustily. He had a pretty good idea what she was going to say. He picked the pocket of the man who hit Rosalie, she said. While he was kneeling beside her in the street, the bald man picked his pocket. Except all he took was a comb. And the hat that bald man was wearing . . . Im pretty sure I recognized it. Ralph went on looking at her, fervently hoping that Loiss memory of Doc 3s apparel did not extend any further. It was Bills, wasnt it? Bills Panama. Ralph nodded. Sure it was. Lois closed her eyes. Oh, Lord. What do you say, Lois? Are you still game? Yes. She opened her door and swung her legs out. But lets get going right away, before I lose my nerve. Tell me about it, said Ralph Roberts. 3 As they approached the main doors of Derry Home, Ralph leaned toward Loiss ear and murmured, Is it happening to you? Yes. Her eyes were very wide. God, yes. Its strong this time, isnt it? As they broke the electriceye beam and the doors to the hospital lobby swung open before them, the surface of the world suddenly peeled back, disclosing another world, one that simmered with unseen colors and shifted with unseen shapes. Overhead, on the walltowall mural depicting Derry as it had been during its halcyon lumbering days at the turn of the century, dark brown arrowshapes chased each other, growing closer and closer together until they touched. When that happened, they flashed a momentary dark green and changed direction. A bright silver funnel that looked like either a waterspout or a toy cyclone was descending the curved staircase which led up to the secondfloor meeting rooms, cafeteria, and auditorium. Its wide top end nodded back and forth as it moved from step to step, and to Ralph it felt distinctly friendly, like an anthropomorphic character in a Disney cartoon. As Ralph watched, two men with briefcases hurried up the stairs, and one of them passed directly through the silver funnel. He never paused in what he was saying to his companion, but when he emerged on the other side, Ralph saw he was absently using his free hand to smooth back his hair . . . although not a strand was out of place. The funnel reached the bottom of the stairs, raced around the center of the lobby in a tight, exuberant figureeight, and then popped out of existence, leaving only a faint, rosy mist behind. This quickly dissipated. Lois dug her elbow into Ralphs side, started to point toward an area beyond the Central Information booth, realized there were people all around them, and settled for lifting her chin in that direction instead. Earlier, Ralph had seen a shape in the sky which had looked like a prehistoric bird. Now he saw something which looked like a long translucent snake. It was essing its way across the ceiling above a sign which read PLEASE WAIT HERE FOR BLOODTESTING. Is it alive? Lois whispered with some alarm. Ralph looked more closely and realized the thing had no head . . . no discernible tail, either. It was all body. He supposed it was alive he had an idea all the auras were alive in some fashion but he didnt think it was really a snake, and he doubted that it was dangerous, at least to the likes of them. Dont sweat the small stuff, sweetheart, he whispered back to her as they joined the short line at Central Information, and as he said it, the snakething seemed to melt into the ceiling and disappear. Ralph didnt know how important such things as the bird and the cyclone were in the secret worlds scheme of things, but he was positive that people were still the main show. The lobby of Derry Home Hospital was like a gorgeous Fourth of July fireworks display, a display in which the parts of the Roman candles and Chinese fountains were being played by human beings. Lois hooked a finger into his collar to make him bend his head toward her. Youll have to do the talking, Ralph, she said in a strengthless, amazed little voice. Im having all I can do not to wee in my pants. The man ahead of them left the booth and Ralph stepped forward. As he did, a clear, sweetly nostalgic memory of Jimmy V surfaced in his mind. Theyd been on the road someplace in Rhode Island Kingston, maybe and had decided on the spur of the moment that they wanted to attend the tent revival going on in a nearby hayfield. They had both been drunk as fleas in a ginbottle, of course. A pair of wellscrubbed young ladies had been standing outside the turnedback flaps of the tent, handing out tracts, and as he and Jimmy neared them, they began to admonish each other in aromatic whispers to act sober, dammit, to just act sober. Had they gotten in that day? Or Help you? the woman in the Central Information booth asked, her tone saying she was doing Ralph a real favor just by speaking to him. He looked through the glass at her and saw a woman buried inside a troubled orange aura that looked like a burning bramblebush. Heres a lady who loves the fine print and stands on all the ceremony she can, he thought, and on the heels of that, Ralph remembered that the two young women flanking the entrance to the tent had gotten one whiff of him and Jimmy V and turned them politely but firmly away. They had ended up spending the evening in a Central Falls jukejoint, as he recalled, and had probably been lucky not to get rolled when they staggered out after last call. Sir? the woman in the glass booth asked impatiently. Can I help you? Ralph came back to the present with a thud he could almost feel. Yes, maam. My wife and I would like to visit Jimmy Vandermeer on the third floor, if Thats ICU! she snapped. Cant go up to ICU without a special pass. Orange hooks began to poke their way out of the glow around her head, and her aura began to look like barbed wire strung across some ghostly nomansland. I know, Ralph said, more humbly than ever, but my friend, Lafayette Chapin, he said Gosh! the woman in the booth interrupted. Its wonderful, the way everyones got a friend. Really wonderful. She rolled a satiric eye toward the ceiling. Faye said Jimmy could have visitors, though. You see, he has cancer and hes not expected to live much l Well, Ill check the files, the woman in the booth said with the grudging air of one who knows she is being sent upon a fools errand, but the computer is very slow tonight, so its going to take awhile. Give me your name, then you and your wife go sit over there. Ill page you as soon as Ralph decided that he had eaten enough humble pie in front of this bureaucratic guard dog. It wasnt as if he wanted an exit visa from Albania, after all; just a goddam ICU pass would do. There was a slot in the base of the glass booth. Ralph reached through it and grasped the womans wrist before she could pull it away. There was a sensation, painless but very clear, of those orange hooks passing directly through his flesh without finding anything to catch on. Ralph squeezed gently and felt a small burst of force something that would have been no bigger than a pellet if it had been seen pass from him to the woman. Suddenly the officious orange aura around her left arm and side turned the faded turquoise of Ralphs aura. She gasped and jerked forward on her chair, as if someone had just dumped a paper cup filled with icecubes down the back of her uniform. [Never mind the computer. Just give me a couple of passes, please. Right away.] Yes, sir, she said at once, and Ralph let go of her wrist so she could reach beneath her desk. The turquoise glow around her arm was turning orange again, the change in color creeping down from her shoulder toward her wrist. But I could have turned her all blue, Ralph thought. Taken her over. Run her around the room like a windup toy. He suddenly remembered Ed quoting Matthews Gospel Then Herod, when he saw that he was mocked, was exceeding wroth and a mixture of fright and shame filled him. Thoughts of vampirism recurred as well, and a snatch from a famous old Pogo comic strip We have met the enemy and he is us. Yes, he could probably do almost anything he wanted with this orangehaloed grump; his batteries were fully charged. The only problem was that the juice in those batteries and in Loiss, as well was stolen goods. When the informationladys hand emerged from beneath the desk, it was holding two pink laminated badges marked INTENSIVE CAREVISITOR. Here you are, sir, she said in a courteous voice utterly unlike the tone in which she had first addressed him. Enjoy your visit and thank you for waiting. Thank you, Ralph said. He took the badges and grasped Loiss hand. Come on, dear. We ought to [Ralph, what did you DO to her?] [Nothing, I guess I think shes all right.] get upstairs and make our visit before it gets too late. Lois glanced back at the woman in the information booth. She was dealing with her next customer, but slowly, as if shed just been granted some moderately amazing revelation and had to think it over. The blue glow was now visible only at the very tips of her fingers, and as Lois watched, that disappeared as well. Lois looked up at Ralph again and smiled. [Yes . . . she is all right. So stop beating up on yourself.] [Was that what I was doing?] [I think so, yes . . . |
Subsets and Splits