Four Past Midnight - Stephen King [280]
'I wanted to hide - hell, I needed to hide. I started walkin down Main Street, and by the time I got to the end, I was almost runnin. By then Ardelia had gotten all mixed up in my mind with the Library Policeman and the dark man - the one who was drivin the steamroller, and the car with Simple Simon on it. I expected to see all three of them turn onto Main Street in the dark man's old Buick, lookin for me. I got out to the railway depot and crawled under the loadin platform again. I huddled up in there, shiverin and shakin, even cryin a little, waitin for her to show up and do for me. I kept thinkin I'd look up and I'd see her face pokin under the platform's concrete skirt, her eyes all red and glaring, her mouth turnin into that horn thing.
'I crawled all the way to the back, and I found half a jug of wine under a pile of dead leaves and old spiderwebs. I'd stashed it back there God knows when and forgot all about it. I drank the wine in about three long swallows. Then I started to crawl back to the front of that space under the platform, but halfway there I passed out. When I woke up again, I thought at first that no time at all had gone by, because the light and the shadows were just about the same. Only my headache was gone, and my belly was roarin for food.' 'You'd slept the clock around, hadn't you?' Naomi guessed.
'No - almost twice around. I'd made my call to the Sheriffs Office around ten o'clock on Monday mornin. When I came to under the loadin platform with that empty jug of wine still in my hand, it was just past seven on Wednesday morning. Only it wasn't sleep, not really. You have to remember that I hadn't been on an all-day drunk or even a week-long toot. I'd been roaring drunk for the best part of two years, and that wasn't all - there was Ardelia, and the Library, and the kids, and Story Hour. It was two years on a merrygo-round in hell. I think the part of my mind that still wanted to live and be sane decided the only thing to do was to pull the plug for awhile and shut down. And when I woke up, it was all over. They hadn't found the bodies of Patsy Harrigan and Tom Gibson yet, but it was over, just the same. And I knew it even before I poked my head out from under the loadin platform. There was an empty place in me, like an empty socket in your gum after a tooth falls out. Only that empty place was in my mind. And I understood. She was gone. Ardelia was gone.
'I crawled out from under and almost fainted again from hunger. I saw Brian Kelly, who used to be freightmaster back in those days. He was countin sacks of somethin on the other loadin platform and makin marks on a clipboard. I managed to walk over to him. He saw me, and an expression of disgust came over his face. There had been a time when we'd bought each other drinks in The Domino - a roadhouse that burned down long before your time, Sam - but those days were long gone. All he saw was a dirty, filthy drunk with leaves and dirt in his hair, a drunk that stank of piss and Old Duke.
' "Get outta here, daddy-O, or I'll call the cops," he says.
'That day was another first for me. One thing about bein a drunk - you're always breakin new ground. That was the first time I ever begged for money. I asked him if he could spare a quarter so I could get a cuppa joe and some toast at the Route 32 Diner. He dug into his pocket and brought out some change. He didn't hand it to me; he just tossed it in my general direction. I had to get down in the cinders and grub for it. I don't think he threw the money to shame me. He just didn't want to touch me. I don't blame him, either.
'When he saw I had the money he said, "Get in the wind, daddy-O. And if I see you down here again, I will call the cops."
' "You bet," I said, and went on my way. He never even knew who I was, and I'm glad.
'About halfway to the diner, I passed one of those newspaper boxes, and I seen that day's Gazette inside. That was when I