Four Past Midnight - Stephen King [267]
'My father left my mom about a year after I was born, just left her flat, and I got an idea now that was who I was tryin to draw in all those posters. I used to call him the dark man, and I think it was my dad. I think maybe Ardelia prodded him out of me somehow. And when I took the second one out, she liked it fine. She laughed over it. "It's perfect, Davey!" she said. "It'll scare a whole mountain of do-right into the little snotnoses! I'll put it up right away!" She did, to, on the front of the checkout desk in the Children's Room. And when she did, I saw somethin that really chilled my blood. I knew the little boy I'd drawn, you see. It was Willy Klemmart. I'd drawn him without even knowin it, and the expression on what was left of his face was the one I'd seen that day when she took his hand and led him into the Children's Room.
'I was there when the kids came in for Story Hour and saw that poster for the first time. They were scared. Their eyes got big, and one little girl started to cry. And I liked it that they were scared. I thought, "That'll pound the do-right into em, all right. That'll teach em what'll happen if they cross her, if they don't do what she says." And part of me thought, You're gettin to think like her, Dave. Pretty soon you'll get to be like her, and then you'll be lost. You'll be lost forever.
'But I went on, just the same. I felt like I had a one-way ticket and I wasn't goin to get off until I rode all the way to the end of the line. Ardelia hired some college kids, but she always put em in the circulation room and the reference room and on the main desk. She kept complete charge of the kids ... they were the easiest to scare, you see. And I think they were the best scares, the ones that fed her the best. Because that's what she lived on, you know - she fed on their fright. And I made more posters. I can't remember them all, but I remember the Library Policeman. He was in a lot of them. In one - it was called LIBRARY POLICEMEN GO ON VACATION, TOO - he was standin on the edge of a stream and fishin. Only what he'd baited his hook with was that little boy the kids called Simple Simon. In another one, he had Simple Simon strapped to the nose of a rocket and was pullin the switch that would send him into outer space. That one said LEARN MORE ABOUT SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY AT THE LIBRARY - BUT BE SURE TO DO RIGHT AND GET YOUR BOOKS BACK ON TIME.
'We turned the Children's Room into a house of horrors for the kids who came there,' Dave said. He spoke slowly, and his voice was full of tears. 'She and I. We did that to the children. But do you know what? They always came back. They always came back for more. And they never, never told. She saw to that.'
'But the parents!' Naomi exclaimed suddenly, and so sharply that Sam jumped. 'Surely when the parents saw - '
'No!' Dave told her. 'Their parents never saw nothing. The only scary poster they ever saw was the one of Little Red Ridin Hood and the wolf. Ardelia left that one up all the time, but the others only went up during Story Hour - after school, on Thursday nights, and Saturday mornings. She wasn't a human bein, Sarah. You've got to get that straight in your mind. She was not human. She knew when grownups was comin, and she always got the posters I'd drawn off the walls and the other ones - regular posters that said things like READ BOOKS JUST FOR THE FUN OF IT - up before they came.
'I can remember times when I'd be there for Story Hour - in those days I never left her if I could stay close, and I had lots of time to stay close, because I'd quit paintin pictures, all my regular jobs had fell through, and I was livin on the little I'd managed to save up. Before long the money