Four Past Midnight - Stephen King [282]
'Not that last time, though - the time she wanted to find me most of all - and I think I know why. I told you that I didn't fall asleep or even black out after makin that call; it was more like goin into a coma, or bein dead. And when she turned whatever eye she had in her mind outward, looking for me, it couldn't see me. I don't know how many times that day and that night her eye might have passed right over where I lay, and I don't want to know. I only know if she'd found me, it wouldn't have been any kid with a foldedover note that showed up. It would have been her, and I can't even imagine what she would have done to me for interfering with her plans the way I did.
'She probably would have found me anyway if she'd had more time, but she didn't. Her plans were laid, that was one thing. And then there was the way her change was speedin up. Her time of sleep was comin on, and she couldn't waste time lookin for me. Besides, she must have known she'd have another chance, further up the line. And now her chance has come.'
'I don't understand what you mean,' Sam said.
'Of course you do,' Dave replied. 'Who took the books that have put you in this jam? Who sent em to the pulper, along with your newspapers? I did. Don't you think she knows that?'
'Do you think that she still wants you?' Naomi asked.
'Yes, but not the way she did. Now she only wants to kill me.' His head turned and his bright, sorrowful eyes gazed into Sam's. 'You're the one she wants now.'
Sam laughed uneasily. 'I'm sure she was a firecracker thirty years ago,' he said, 'but the lady has aged. She's really not my type.'
'I guess you don't understand after all,' Dave said. 'She doesn't want to fuck you, Sam; she wants to be you.'
10
After a few moments Sam said, 'Wait. just hold on a second.'
'You've heard me, but you haven't taken it to heart the way you need to,' Dave told him. His voice was patient but weary; terribly weary. 'So let me tell you a little more.
'After Ardelia killed John Power, she put him far enough away so she wouldn't be the first one to fall under suspicion. Then she went ahead and opened the Library that afternoon, just like always. Part of it was because a guilty person looks more suspicious if they swerve away from their usual routines, but that wasn't all of it. Her change was right upon her, and she had to have those children's lives. Don't even think about asking me why, because I don't know. Maybe she's like a bear that has to stuff itself before it goes into hibernation. All I can be sure of is that she had to make sure there was a Story Hour that Monday afternoon . . . and she did.
'Sometime during that Story Hour, when all the kids were sittin around her in the trance she could put em into, she told Tom and Patsy that she wanted em to come to the Library on Tuesday morning, even though the Library was closed Tuesdays and Thursdays in the summer. They did, and she did for em, and then she went to sleep ... that sleep that looks so much like death. And now you come along, Sam, thirty years later. You know me, and Ardelia still owes me a settling up, so that is a start ... but there's something a lot better than that. You also know about the Library Police.'
'I don't know how -'
'No, you don't know how you know, and that makes you even better. Because secrets that are so bad that we even have to hide them from ourselves ... for someone like Ardelia Lortz, those are the best secrets of all. Plus, look at the bonuses - you're young, you're single, and you have no close friends. That's true, isn't it?'
'I would have said so until today,' Sam said after a moment's thought. 'I would have said the only good friends I