Gerald's Game - Stephen King [84]
Suddenly revolted — not so much by what it was as from whom it had originated — Jessie threw the underpants into the hamper on top of the sundress. Then she had a vision of her mother, who emptied the hampers and did the wash in the dank basement laundry room, fishing this particular pair of panties out of this particular hamper and finding this particular deposit. And what would she think? Why, that the family's troublesome squeaky wheel had gotten the grease, of course . . . what else?
Her revulsion turned to guilty horror, and Jessie quickly fished the underpants back out. All at once the flat odor seemed to fill her nose, thick and bland and sickening. Oysters and copper, she thought, and that was all it took. She fell on her knees in front of the toilet, the underpants wadded up in one clenched hand, and vomited. She flushed quickly, before the smell of partly digested hamburger could get into the air, then turned on the cold sink-tap and rinsed her mouth out. Her fear that she was going to spend the next hour or so in here, kneeling in front of the toilet and puking, began to subside. Her stomach seemed to be settling. If she could just keep from getting another whiff of that bland copper-creamy smell . . .
Holding her breath, she thrust the panties under the cold tap, rinsed them, wrung them out, and flung them back in the hamper. Then she took a deep breath, pushing her hair away from her temples with the backs of her damp hands at the same time. If her mother asked her what a damp pair of panties was doing in the dirty clothes —
Already you're thinking like a criminal, the voice that would one day belong to the Goodwife mourned. Do you see what being a bad girl gets you, Jessie? Do you? I certainly hope you d —
Be quiet, you little creep, the other voice snarled back. You can nag all you want later on, but right now we're trying to take care of a little business here, if you don't mind. Okay?
No answer. That was good. Jessie brushed nervously at her hair again, although very little of it had fallen back down against her temples. If her mother asked what the damp panties were doing in the dirty-clothes hamper, Jessie would simply say it was so hot she went for a dip without changing out of her shorts. All three of them had done that on several occasions this summer.
Then you better remember to run your shorts and shirt under the tap, too. Right, toots?
Right, she agreed. Good point.
She slipped into the robe hanging on the back of the bathroom door and returned to the bedroom to get the shorts and the teeshirt she'd been wearing when her mother, brother, and older sister left that morning . . . a thousand years ago, it now seemed. She didn't see them at first, and got down on her knees to look under the bed.
The other woman is on her knees, too, a voice remarked, and she smells that same smell. That smell that's like copper and cream.
Jessie heard but didn't hear. Her mind was on her shorts and tee-shirt — on her cover story. As she had suspected, they were under the bed. She reached for them.
It's coming out of the well, the voice remarked further. The smell from the well.
Yes, yes, Jessie thought, grabbing the clothes and starting back to the bathroom. The smell from the well, very good, you're a poet and you don't know it.
She made him fall down the well, the voice said, and that finally got through. Jessie came to a dead stop in the bathroom doorway, her eyes widening. She was suddenly afraid in some new and deadly way. Now that she was actually listening to it, she realized that this voice was not like any of the others; this one was like a voice you might pick up on the radio late at night, when conditions were exactly right — a voice that might come from far, far away.
Not that far, Jessie; she is in the path of the eclipse, too.
For one moment, the upper hallway of the house of Dark Score Lake seemed to be gone. What replaced it was a tangle of blackberry bushes,