The Regulators - Stephen King [37]
This was the place she returned to when Tak was fully out and fully in command of Seth. This was where she hid, with a Janice who was still Goodlin instead of Conroy, a Janice who was still young. Sometimes she would tell Janice about Seth — how he had come to stay, and how neither she nor Herb had seen or suspected (at least at first) what was inside Seth, a thing that was being very still, watching them and husbanding its strength and waiting for the right time to come out. Sometimes on these occasions she would tell Jan how much she missed Herb and how terrified she was . . . how she felt caught, like a fly in a web or a coyote in a leghold trap.
But that kind of talk felt dangerous, and she tried to stay away from it. Mostly she just replayed the sweet inconsequentialities of that long-ago day when Reagan had still been in his first term and there had been real vinyl records in the record stores. Stuff like whether or not Ray Soames, Jan's current boyfriend, would be a considerate lover (pig-selfish, Jan had reported matter-of-factly three weeks later, just before bidding adieu to Ray's sultry good looks forever), and what sorts of jobs they would have, and how many kids they would have, and who, in their circle of friends, would be the most successful.
Running through it all, large but unspoken — perhaps they hadn't dared to speak of it, for fear of ruining it — was their joy in the day, in the unremarkable good health of young women, and their love for one another. It was these things and not her current troubles that Audrey concentrated on when she felt Tak digging into her with its unseen but exquisitely painful teeth, trying to batten on her and feed from her. It was to that day's love and brightness that she fled, and so far it had given her succor and shelter.
So far, she was alive.
More important, so far she was still she.
In the meadow, the confusion and darkness melted away and everything stood clear: the splintery gray poles which held up the folly's roof, each casting its thin precise shadow; the table (equally splintered) at which they sat on opposing wooden benches, a table that was deeply carved with initials, mostly those of lovers; the picnic basket, now set aside on the board floor, still open but really finished for the day, the utensils and plastic food-containers neatly packed for the trip back to the hotel. She could see the golden highlights in Jan's hair, and a loose thread on the left shoulder of her blouse. She heard every cry of every bird.
Only one thing was different from the way it had really been. On the table where the picnic hamper had rested until they had repacked it and set it aside, there was a red plastic telephone. Audrey had had one exactly like it at the age of five, using it to hold long and deliriously nonsensical chats with an invisible playmate named Melissa Sweetheart.
On some visits to the folly in the meadow, the word PLAYSKOOL was stamped on the phone's handset. At other times (usually on days that had been particularly horrible, and there were a lot more of those lately), she would see a shorter and much more ominous word stamped there: the name of the vampire.
It was the Tak-phone, and it never rang. At least not yet. Audrey had an idea that if it ever did, it would be because Tak had found her safe and secret place. If it did, she was sure it would be the end of her. She might go on breathing and eating for a little while, as Herb had, but it would be the end of her, nevertheless.
She occasionally tried to make the Tak-phone disappear. It had occurred to her that if she could dispose of it, get rid of the damned thing, she could perhaps escape the creature on the Poplar Street end of her life for good. Yet she couldn't alter the phone's reality, no matter how hard she tried. It did disappear sometimes, but never while she was looking at it or thinking about it.