Gerald's Game - Stephen King [128]
That was you, Jessie, Punkin said. I mean . . . we're all you, You do know that, don't you?
Yes. She knew that perfectly well.
She pushed the cover of the adhesive tape and held the roll clumsily with her right hand while she used her left thumb to lift up the end of the tape. She returned the roll to her left hand, pressed the end of the tape to her makeshift bandage, and revolved the roll around her right wrist several times, binding the already damp sanitary pad as tightly against the slash on the inside of her wrist as she could. She tore the tape off the roll with her teeth, hesitated, and then added a white, overlapping armlet of adhesive tape just below her right elbow. Jessie had no idea how much good such a makeshift tourniquet could do, but she didn't think it could do any harm.
She tore the tape a second time, and as she dropped the much diminished roll back onto the counter, she saw a green bottle of Excedrin standing on the middle shelf of the medicine cabinet. No childproof cap, either — God be thanked. She took it down with her left hand and used her teeth to pry off the white plastic top. The smell of the aspirin tablets was acrid, sharp, faintly vinegary.
I don't think that's a good idea at all, Goodwife Burlingame said nervously. Aspirin thins the blood and slows clotting.
That was probably true, but the exposed nerves of the back of her right hand were now shrieking like a fire-alarm, and if she didn't do something to damp them down a little, Jessie thought she would soon be rolling around on the floor and baying at the reflections on the ceiling. She shook two Excedrin into her mouth, hesitated, shook in two more. She turned on the tap again, swallowed them, then looked guiltily at the makeshift bandage on her wrist. The red was still sinking through the layers of paper; soon she would be able to take the pad off and wring blood out of it like hot red water. An awful image . . . and once she had it in her head, she could not seem to get rid of it.
If you made that worse — Goody began dolefully.
Oh, give me a break, the Ruth-voice responded. It spoke briskly but not unkindly. If I die of blood-loss now, am I supposed to blame it on four aspirin after I damned near scalped my right hand in order to get off the bed in the first place? That's surreal!
Yes indeed. Everything seemed surreal now. Except that wasn't exactly the right word. The right word was . . .
'Hyper-real,' she said in a low, musing voice.
Yes, that was it. Definitely it. Jessie turned around so she was facing out the bathroom door again, then gasped in alarm. The part of her head which monitored equilibrium reported that she was still turning. For a moment she imagined dozens of Jessies, an overlapping chain of them, documenting the arc of her turn like frames of movie-film. Her alarm deepened as she observed that the golden bars of light slanting in through the west window had taken on an actual texture — they looked like swatches of bright yellow snakeskin. The dust motes spinning through them had become sprays of diamond grit. She could hear the fast light beat of her heart, could smell the mixed aromas of blood and well-water. It was like sniffing an ancient copper pipe.
I'm getting ready to pass out.
No, Jess, you're not. You can't afford to pass out.
That was probably true, but she was pretty sure it was going to happen, anyway. There was nothing she could do about it.
Yes, there is. And you know what.
She looked down at her skinned hand, then raised it. There would be no need to actually do anything except relax the muscles of her right arm. Gravity would take care of the rest. If the pain of her peeled hand striking the edge of the counter weren't enough to drag her out of this terrible bright place she suddenly