Salem's Lot - Stephen King [127]
‘And if Norbert comes?’
‘I can handle Norbert,’ Jimmy said. ‘I’ll tell him Reardon asked me to check her for infectious encephalitis. He’ll never check.’
Green nodded. ‘Norbert doesn’t know enough to check his watch, unless someone asks him.’
‘Is it okay, Maury?’
‘Sure, sure. I thought you said a big favor.’
‘It’s bigger than you think, maybe.’
‘When I finish my coffee, I’ll go home and see what horror Rachel has produced for my Sunday dinner. Here is the key. Lock up when you go, Jimmy.’
Jimmy tucked it away in his pocket. ‘I will. Thanks again, Maury.’
‘Anything. Just do me one favor in return.’
‘Sure. What?’
‘If she says anything, write it down for posterity.’ He began to chuckle, saw the identical look on their faces, and stopped.
10
It was five to seven. Ben felt tension begin to seep into his body.
‘Might as well stop staring at the clock,’ Jimmy said.
‘You can’t make it go any faster by looking at it.’
Ben started guiltily.
‘I doubt very much that vampires-if they exist at all-rise at almanac sunset,’ Jimmy said. ‘It’s never full dark.’ Nonetheless he got up and shut off the TV, catching a wood duck in mid-squawk.
Silence descended on the room like a blanket. They were in Green’s workroom, and the body of Marjorie Glick was on a stainless-steel table equipped with gutters and foot stirrups that could be raised or depressed. It reminded Ben of the tables in hospital delivery rooms.
Jimmy had turned back the sheet that covered her body when they entered and had made a brief examination. Mrs Glick was wearing a burgundy-colored quilted house coat and knitted slippers. There was a Band-Aid on her left shin, perhaps covering a shaving nick. Ben looked away from it, but his eyes were drawn back again and again.
‘What do you think?’ Ben had asked.
‘I’m not going to commit myself when another three hours will probably decide one way or the other. But her condition is strikingly similar to that of Mike Ryerson-no surface lividity, no sign of rigor or incipient rigor.’ And he had pulled the sheet back and would say no more.
It was 7:02.
Jimmy suddenly said, ‘Where’s your cross?’
Ben started. ‘Cross? Jesus, I don’t have one!’
‘You were never a Boy Scout,’ Jimmy said, and opened his bag. ‘I, however, always come prepared.’
He brought out two tongue depressors, stripped off the protective cellophane, and bound them together at right angles with a twist of Red Cross tape.
‘Bless it,’ he said to Ben.
‘What? I can’t… I don’t know how.’
‘Then make it up,’ Jimmy said, and his pleasant face suddenly appeared strained. ‘You’re the writer; you’ll have to be the metaphysician. For Christ’s sake, hurry. I think something is going to happen. Can’t you feel it?’
And Ben could. Something seemed to be gathering in the slow purple twilight, unseen as yet, but heavy and electric. His mouth had gone dry, and he had to wet his lips before he could speak.
‘In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost.’ Then he added, as an afterthought: ‘In the name of the Virgin Mary, too. Bless this cross and… and… ’
Words rose to his lips with sudden, eerie surety.
‘The Lord is my shepherd,’ he spoke, and the words fell into the shadowy room as stones would have fallen into a deep lake, sinking out of sight without a ripple. ‘I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: He leadeth me beside the still waters. He restoreth my soul.’
Jimmy’s voice joined his own, chanting.
‘He leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name’s sake. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil-’
It seemed hard to breathe properly. Ben found that his whole body had crawled into goose flesh, and the short hairs on the nape of his neck had begun to prickle, as if they were rising into hackles.
‘Thy rod and thy staff they comfort me. Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over. Surely goodness and mercy shall-’
The sheet covering Marjorie Glick’s body had begun to tremble. A hand fell out below the