Salem's Lot - Stephen King [165]
By quarter of seven, most meals have been eaten, most after-dinner cigarettes and cigars and pipes smoked, most tables cleared. Dishes are being washed, rinsed, and stacked in drainers. Young children are being packed into Dr Dentons and sent into the other room to watch game shows on TV until bedtime.
Roy McDougall, who has burned the shit out of a fry pan full of veal steaks, curses and throws them-fry pan and all-into the swill. He puts on his denim jacket and sets out for Dell’s, leaving his goddamn good-for-nothing pig of a wife to sleep in the bedroom. Kid’s dead, wife’s slacking off, supper’s burned to hell. Time to get drunk. And maybe time to haul stakes and roll out of this two-bit town.
In a small upstairs flat on Taggart Street, which runs a short distance from Jointner Avenue to a dead end behind the Municipal Building, Joe Crane is given a left-handed gift from the gods. He has finished a small bowl of Shredded Wheat and is sitting down to watch the TV when he feels a large and sudden pain paralyze the left side of his chest and his left arm. He thinks: What’s this? Ticker? As it happens, this is exactly right. He gets up and makes it halfway to the telephone before the pain suddenly swells and drops him in his tracks like a steer hit with a hammer. His small color TV babbles on and on, and it will be twenty-four hours before anyone finds him. His death, which occurs at 6:51 P.M., is the only natural death to occur in Jerusalem’s Lot on October 6.
By 7:00 the panoply of colors on the horizon has shrunk to a bitter orange line on the western horizon, as if furnace fires had been banked beyond the edge of the world. In the east the stars are already out. They gleam steadily, like fierce diamonds. There is no mercy in them at this time of year, no comfort for lovers. They gleam in beautiful indifference.
For the small children, bedtime is come. Time for the babies to be packed into their beds and cribs by parents who smile at their cries to be let up a little longer, to leave the light on. They indulgently open closet doors to show there is nothing in there.
And all around them, the bestiality of the night rises on tenebrous wings. The vampire’s time has come.
17
Matt was dozing lightly when Jimmy and Ben came in, and he snapped awake almost immediately, his hand tightening on the cross he held in his right hand.
His eyes touched Jimmy’s, moved to Ben’s… and lingered. ‘What happened?’
Jimmy told him briefly. Ben said nothing.
‘Her body?’
‘Callahan and I put it face down in a crate that was down cellar, maybe the same crate Barlow came to town in. We threw it into the Royal River not an hour ago. Filled the box with stones. We used Straker’s car. If anyone noticed it by the bridge, they’ll think of him.’
‘You did well. Where’s Callahan? And the boy?’
‘Gone to Mark’s house. His parents have to be told everything. Barlow threatened them specifically.’
‘Will they believe?’
‘If they don’t, Mark will have his father call you.’ Matt nodded. He looked very tired.
‘And Ben,’ he said. ‘Come here. Sit on my bed.’
Ben came obediently, his face blank and dazed. He sat down and folded his hands neatly in his lap. His eyes were burned cigarette holes.
‘There’s no comfort for you,’ Matt said. He took one of Ben’s hands in his own. Ben let him, unprotesting. ‘It doesn’t matter. Time will comfort you. She is at rest.’
‘He played us for fools,’ Ben said hollowly. ‘He mocked us, each in turn. Jimmy, give him the letter.’
Jimmy gave Matt the envelope. He stripped the heavy sheet of stationery from the envelope and read it carefully, holding the paper only inches from his nose. His lips moved slightly. He put it down and said, ‘Yes. It is him. His ego is larger than even I imagined. It makes me want to shiver.’
‘He left her for a joke,’ Ben said hollowly. ‘He was gone, long before. Fighting him is like fighting the wind. We must seem like bugs to him. Little bugs scurrying around for his amusement.’
Jimmy opened his mouth to speak, but Matt shook his head slightly.
‘That is far from the truth,’ he said.