Four Past Midnight - Stephen King [256]
'I know.'
' - but these days you can only see them from the outside, because they changed the Library inside. Lowered the ceiling to conserve heat, or something. Anyway, those skylights had big brass catches on them. You grabbed the catches with a long pole to open the skylights and let in fresh air, I guess. She tied a rope to one of the catches - she must have used one of the track-ladders that ran along the bookcases to do it - and hanged herself from it. She did that after she killed the children.'
'I see.' Sam's voice was calm, but his heart was beating slowly and very hard. 'And how did she ... how did she kill the children?'
'I don't know. No one's ever said, and I've never asked. I suppose it was horrible.'
'Yes. I suppose it was.'
'Now tell me what happened to you.'
'First I want to see if Dave's at the shelter.'
Naomi tightened up at once. 'I'll see if Dave's at the shelter,' she said. 'You're going to sit tight in the car. I'm sorry for you, Sam, and I'm sorry I jumped to the wrong conclusion last night. But you won't upset Dave anymore. I'll see to that.'
'Naomi, he's a part of this!'
'That's impossible,' she said in a brisk this-closes-the-discussion tone of voice.
'Dammit, the whole thing is impossible!'
They were nearing Angle Street now. Ahead of them was a pick-up truck rattling toward the Recycling Center, its bed full of cardboard cartons filled with bottles and cans.
'I don't think you understood what I told you,' she said. 'It doesn't surprise me; Earth People rarely do. So open your ears, Sam. I'm going to say it in words of one syllable. If Dave drinks, Dave dies. Do you follow that? Does it get through?'
She tossed another glance Sam's way. This one was so furious it was still smoking around the edges, and even in the depths of his own distress, Sam realized something. Before, even on the two occasions when he had taken Naomi out, he had thought she was pretty. Now he saw she was beautiful.
'What does that mean, Earth People?' he asked her.
'People who don't have a problem with booze or pills or pot or cough medicine or any of the other things that mess up the human head,' she nearly spat. 'People who can afford to moralize and make judgments.'
Ahead of them, the pick-up truck turned off onto the long, rutted driveway leading to the redemption center. Angle Street lay ahead. Sam could see something parked in front of the porch, but it wasn't a car. It was Dirty Dave's shopping-cart.
'Stop a minute,' he said.,
Naomi did, but she wouldn't look at him. She stared straight ahead through the windshield. Her jaw was working. There was high color in her cheeks.
'You care about him,' he said, 'and I'm glad. Do you also care about me, Sarah? Even though I'm an Earth Person?'
'You have no right to call me Sarah. I can, because it's part of my name - I was christened Naomi Sarah Higgins. And they can, because they are, in a way, closer to me than blood relatives could ever be. We are blood relatives, in fact - because there's something in us that makes us the way we are. Something in our blood. You, Sam - you have no right.'
'Maybe I do,' Sam said. 'Maybe I'm one of you now. You've got booze. This Earth Person has got the Library Police.'
Now she looked at him, and her eyes were wide and wary. 'Sam, I don't underst -'
'Neither do I. All I know is that I need help. I need it desperately. I borrowed two books from a library that doesn't exist anymore, and now the books don't exist, either. I lost them. Do you know where they ended up?'
She shook her head.
Sam pointed over to the left, where two men had gotten out of the pick-up's cab and were starting to unload the cartons of returnables. 'There. That's