Four Past Midnight - Stephen King [270]
'But I still haven't got to the worst thing. Those stories, you see - well, sometimes it was the posters, but mostly it was the stories - would scare one of them into a crying fit, or they'd start to faint or pass out or whatever. And when that happened, she'd tell the others, "Put your heads down and rest while I take Billy ... or Sandra ... or Tommy ... to the bathroom and make him feel better."
'They'd all drop their heads at the same instant. It was like they were dead. The first time I seen it happen, I waited about two minutes after she took some little girl out of the room, and then I got up and went over to the circle. I went to Willy Klemmart first.
' "Willy!" I whispered, and poked him in the shoulder. "You okay, Will?"
'He never moved, so I poked him harder and said his name again. He still didn't move. I could hear him breathin - kinda snotty and snory, the way kids are so much of the time, always runnin around with colds like they do - but it was still like he was dead. His eyelids were partway open, but I could only see the whites, and this long thread of spit was hangin off his lower lip. I got scared and went to three or four of the others, but wouldn't none of them look up at me or make a sound.'
'You're saying she enchanted them, aren't you?' Sam asked. 'That they were like Snow White after she ate the poisoned apple.'
'Yes,' Dave agreed. 'That's what they were like. In a different kind of way, that's what I was like, too. Then, just as I was gettin ready to take hold of Willy Klemmart and shake the shit out of him, I heard her comin back from the bathroom. I ran to my seat so she wouldn't catch me. Because I was more scared of what she might do to me than anything she might have done to them.
'She came in, and that little girl, who'd been as gray as a dirty sheet and half unconscious when Ardelia took her out, looked like somebody had just filled her up with the finest nerve-tonic in the world. She was wide awake, with roses in her cheeks and a sparkle in her eye. Ardelia patted her on the bottom and she ran for her seat. Then Ardelia clapped her hands together and said, "All Good Babies lift your heads up! Sonja feels much better, and she wants us to finish the story, don't you, Sonja?"
"Yes, ma'am," Sonja pipes up, just as pert as a robin in a birdbath. And their heads all came up. You never would have known that two seconds before that room looked like it was full of dead kids.
'The third or fourth time this happened, I let her get out of the room and then I followed her. I knew she was scarin them on purpose, you see, and I had an idea there was a reason for it. I was scared almost to death myself, but I wanted to see what it was.
'That time it was Willy Klemmart she'd taken down to the bathroom. He'd started havin hysterics during Ardelia's version of "Hansel and Gretel." I opened the door real easy and quiet, and I seen Ardelia kneelin in front of Willy down by where the washbasin was. He had stopped cryin, but beyond that I couldn't tell anything. Her back was to me, you see, and Willy was so short she blocked him right out of my view, even on her knees. I could see his hands were on the shoulders of the jumper she was wearin, and I could see one sleeve of his red sweater, but that was all. Then I heard somethin - a thick suckin sound, like a straw makes when you've gotten just about all of your milkshake out of the glass. I had an idea then she was ... you know, molestin him, and she was, but not the way I thought.
'I walked in a little further, and slipped over to the right, walkin high up on the toes of my shoes so the heels wouldn't clack. I expected her to hear me just the same, though - she had ears like goddam radar dishes, and I kept waitin for her