He nodded and went out the back door, still in his slippers, expecting to see either Susan or Sheriff McCaslin. But the visitor was a small, economical boy sitting on the top step of the porch and looking out over the town, which was coming slowly to its Monday morning vitality.
"Hello?" Ben said, and the boy turned around quickly.
They looked at each other for no great space of time, but for Ben the moment seemed to undergo a queer stretching, and a feeling of unreality swept him. The boy reminded him physically of the boy he himself had been, but it was more than that. He seemed to feel a weight settle onto his neck, as if in a curious way he sensed the more-than-chance coming together of their lives. It made him think of the day he had met Susan in the park, and how their light, get-acquainted conversation had seemed queerly heavy and fraught with intimations of the future.
Perhaps the boy felt something similar, for his eyes widened slightly and his hand found the porch railing, as if for support.
"You're Mr Mears," the boy said, not questioning.
"Yes. You have the advantage, I'm afraid."
"My name is Mark Petrie," the boy said. "I have some bad news for you."
And I bet he does, too, Ben thought dismally, and tried to tighten his mind against whatever it might be--but when it came, it was a total, shocking surprise.
"Susan Norton is one of them," the boy said. "Barlow got her at the house. But I killed Straker. At least, I think I did."
Ben tried to speak and couldn't. His throat was locked.
The boy nodded, taking charge effortlessly. "Maybe we could go for a ride in your car and talk. I don't want anyone to see me around. I'm playing hooky and I'm already in dutch with my folks."
Ben said something--he didn't know what. After the motorcycle accident that had killed Miranda, he had picked himself up off the pavement shaken but unhurt (except for a small scratch across the back of his left hand, mustn't forget that, Purple Hearts had been awarded for less) and the truck driver had walked over to him, casting two shadows in the glow of the streetlight and the headlamps of the truck--he was a big, balding man with a pen in the breast pocket of his white shirt, and stamped in gold letters on the barrel of the pen he could read "Frank's Mobil Sta" and the rest was hidden by the pocket, but Ben had guessed shrewdly that the final letters were "tion," elementary, my dear Watson, elementary. The truck driver had said something to Ben, he didn't remember what, and then he took Ben's arm gently, trying to lead him away. He saw one of Miranda's flat-heeled shoes lying near the large rear wheels of the moving van and had shaken the trucker off and started toward it and the trucker had taken two steps after him and said, I wouldn't do that, buddy. And Ben had looked up at him dumbly, unhurt except for the small scratch across the back of his left hand, wanting to tell the trucker that five minutes ago this hadn't happened, wanting to tell the trucker that in some parallel world he and Miranda had taken a left at the corner one block back and were riding into an entirely different future. A crowd was gathering, coming out of a liquor store on one corner and a small milk-and-sandwich bar on the other. And he had begun to feel then what he was feeling now: the complex and awful mental and physical interaction that is the beginning of acceptance, and the only counterpart to that feeling is rape. The stomach seems to drop. The lips become numb. A thin foam forms on the roof of the mouth. There is a ringing noise in the ears. The skin on the testicles seems to crawl and tighten. The mind goes through a turning away, a hiding of its face, as from a light too brilliant to bear. He had shaken off the well-meaning truck driver's hands a second time and had walked over to the shoe. He picked it up. He turned it over. He placed his hand inside it, and the insole was still warm from her foot. Carrying it, he had gone two steps further and had seen her sprawled legs under the truck's front wheels, clad in the yellow Wranglers she had pulled on with such careless and laughing ease back at the apartment. It was impossible to believe that the girl who had pulled on those slacks was dead, yet the acceptance was there, in his belly, his mouth, his balls. He had groaned aloud, and that was when the tabloid photographer had snapped his picture for Mabel's paper. One shoe off, one shoe on. People looking at her bare foot as if they had never seen one before. He had taken two steps away and leaned over and--
"I'm going to be sick," he said.
"That's all right."
Ben stepped behind his Citroen and doubled over, holding on to the door handle. He closed his eyes, feeling darkness wash over him, and in the darkness Susan's face appeared, smiling at him and looking at him with those lovely deep eyes. He opened his eyes again. It occurred to him that the kid might be lying, or mixed up, or an out-and-out psycho. Yet the thought brought him no hope. The kid was not set up like that. He turned back and looked into the kid's face and read concern there--nothing else.
"Come on," he said.
The boy got in the car and they drove off. Eva Miller watched them go from the kitchen window, her brow creased. Something bad was happening. She felt it, was filled with it, the same way she had been filled with an obscure and cloudy dread on the day her husband died.
She got up and dialed Loretta Starcher. The phone rang over and over without answer until she put it back in the cradle. Where could she be? Certainly not at the library. It was closed Mondays.
She sat, looking pensively at the telephone. She felt that some great disaster was in the wind--perhaps something as terrible as the fire of '51.
At last she picked up the phone again and called Mabel Werts, who was filled with the gossip of the hour and eager for more. The town hadn't known such a weekend in years.
FOUR
Ben drove aimlessly and without direction as Mark told his story. He told it well, beginning with the night Danny Glick had come to his window and ending with his nocturnal visitor early this morning.
"Are you sure it was Susan?" he asked.
Mark Petrie nodded.
Ben pulled an abrupt U-turn and accelerated back up Jointner Avenue.
"Where are you going? To the--"
"Not there. Not yet."
FIVE
"Wait. Stop."
Ben pulled over and they got out together. They had been driving slowly down the Brooks Road, at the bottom of Marsten's Hill. The wood-road where Homer McCaslin had spotted Susan's Vega. They had both caught the glint of sun on metal. They walked up the disused road together, not speaking. There were deep and dusty wheel ruts, and the grass grew high between them. A bird twitted somewhere.
They found the car shortly.
Ben hesitated, then halted. He felt sick to his stomach again. The sweat on his arms was cold.
"Go look," he said.
Mark went down to the car and leaned in the driver's side window. "Keys are in it," he called back.
Ben began to walk toward the car and his foot kicked something. He looked down and saw a .38 revolver lying in the dust. He picked it up and turned it over in his hands. It looked very much like a police issue revolver.
"Whose gun?" Mark asked, walking toward him. He had Susan's keys in his hand.
"I don't know." He checked the safety to be sure it was on, and then put the gun in his pocket.
Mark offered him the keys and Ben took them and walked toward the Vega, feeling like a man in a dream. His hands were shaking and he had to poke twice before he could get the right key into the trunk slot. He twisted it and pulled the back deck up without allowing himself to think.
They looked in together. The trunk held a spare tire, a jack, and nothing else. Ben felt his breath come out in a rush.
"Now?" Mark asked.
Ben didn't answer for a moment. When he felt that his voice would be under control, he said, "We're going to see a friend of mine named Matt Burke, who is in the hospital. He's been researching vampires."
The urgency in the boy's gaze remained. "Do you believe me?"
"Yes," Ben said, and hearing the word on the air seemed to confirm it and give it weight. It was beyond recall. "Yes, I believe you."
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"Mr Burke is from the high school, isn't he? Does he know about this?"
"Yes. So does his doctor."
"Dr Cody?"
"Yes."
They were both looking at the car as they spoke, as if it were a relic of some dark, lost race which they had discovered in these sunny woods to the west of town. The trunk gaped open like a mouth, and as Ben slammed it shut, the dull thud of its latching echoed in his heart.
"And after we talk," he said, "we're going up to the Marsten House and get the son of a bitch who did this."
Mark looked at him without moving. "It may not be as easy as you think. She will be there, too. She's his now."
"He's going to wish he never saw 'salem's Lot," he said softly. "Come on."
SIX
They arrived at the hospital at nine-thirty, and Jimmy Cody was in Matt's room. He looked at Ben, unsmiling, and then his eyes flicked to Mark Petrie with curiosity.
"I've got some bad news for you, Ben. Sue Norton has disappeared."
"She's a vampire," Ben said flatly, and Matt grunted from his bed.
"Are you sure of that?" Jimmy asked sharply.
Ben cocked his thumb at Mark Petrie and introduced him. "Mark here had a little visit from Danny Glick on Saturday night. He can tell you the rest."
Mark told it from beginning to end, just as he had told Ben earlier.
Matt spoke first when he had finished. "Ben, there are no words to say how sorry I am."
"I can give you something if you need it," Jimmy said.
"I know what medicine I need, Jimmy. I want to move against this Barlow today. Now. Before dark."
"All right," Jimmy said. "I've canceled all my calls. And I phoned the county sheriff 's office. McCaslin is gone, too."
"Maybe that explains this," Ben said, and took the pistol out of his pocket and dropped it onto Matt's bedside table. It looked strange and out of place in the hospital room.
"Where did you get this?" Jimmy asked, picking it up.
"Out by Susan's car."
"Then I can guess. McCaslin went to the Norton house sometime after he left us. He got the story on Susan, including the make, model, and license number of her car. Went out cruising some of the back roads, just on the off-chance. And--"
Broken silence in the room. None of them needed it filled.
"Foreman's is still closed," Jimmy said. "And a lot of the old men who hang around Crossen's have been complaining about the dump. No one has seen Dud Rogers for a week."
They looked at each other bleakly.
"I spoke with Father Callahan last night," Matt said. "He has agreed to go along, providing you two--plus Mark, of course--will stop at this new shop and talk to Straker first."
"I don't think he'll be talking to anyone today," Mark said quietly.
"What did you find out about them?" Jimmy asked Matt. "Anything useful?"
"Well, I think I've put some of the pieces together. Straker must be this thing's human watchdog and bodyguard...a kind of human familiar. He must have been in town long before Barlow appeared. There were certain rites to be performed, in propitiation of the Dark Father. Even Barlow has his Master, you see." He looked at them somberly. "I rather suspect no one will ever find a trace of Ralphie Glick. I think he was Barlow's ticket of admission. Straker took him and sacrificed him."
"Bastard," Jimmy said distantly.
"And Danny Glick?" Ben asked.
"Straker bled him first," Matt said. "His Master's gift. First blood for the faithful servant. Later, Barlow would have taken over that job himself. But Straker performed another service for his Master before Barlow ever arrived. Do any of you know what?"
For a moment there was silence, and then Mark said quite distinctly, "The dog that man found on the cemetery gate."
"What?" Jimmy said. "Why? Why would he do that?"
"The white eyes," Mark said, and then looked questioningly at Matt, who was nodding with some surprise.
"All last night I nodded over these books, not knowing we had a scholar in our midst." The boy blushed a little. "What Mark says is exactly right. According to several of the standard references on folklore and the supernatural, one way to frighten a vampire away is to paint white 'angel eyes' over the real eyes of a black dog. Win's Doc was all black except for two white patches. Win used to call them his headlights--they were directly over his eyes. He let the dog run at night. Straker must have spotted it, killed it, and then hung it on the cemetery gate."
"And how about this Barlow?" Jimmy asked. "How did he get to town?"
Matt shrugged. "I have no way of telling. I think that we must assume, in line with the legends, that he is old...very old. He may have changed his name a dozen times, or a thousand. He may have been a native of almost every country in the world at one time or another, although I suspect his origins may have been Romanian or Magyar or Hungarian. It doesn't really matter how he got to town anyway...although I wouldn't be surprised to find out Larry Crockett had a hand in it. He's here. That's the important thing.
"Now, here is what you must do: Take a stake when you go. And a gun, in case Straker is still alive. Sheriff McCaslin's revolver will serve the purpose. The stake must pierce the heart or the vampire may rise again. Jimmy, you can check that. When you have staked him you must cut off his head, stuff the mouth with garlic, and turn it facedown in the coffin. In most vampire fiction, Hollywood and otherwise, the staked vampire mortifies almost instantly into dust. This may not happen in real life. If it doesn't, you must weight the coffin and throw it into running water. I would suggest the Royal River. Do you have questions?"
There were none.
"Good. You must each carry a vial of holy water and a bit of the Host. And you must each have Father Callahan hear your confession before you go."
"I don't think any of us are Catholic," Ben said.
"I am," Jimmy said. "Nonpracticing."
"Nonetheless, you will make a confession and an act of contrition. Then you go pure, washed in Christ's blood...clean blood, not tainted."
"All right," Ben said.
"Ben, had you slept with Susan? Forgive me, but--"
"Yes," he said.
"Then you must pound the stake--first into Barlow, then into her. You are the only person in this little party who has been hurt personally. You will act as her husband. And you mustn't falter. You'll be releasing her."
"All right," he said again.
"Above all"--his glance swept all of them--"you must not look in his eyes! If you do, he'll catch you and turn you against the others, even at the expense of your own life. Remember Floyd Tibbits! That makes it dangerous to carry a gun, even if it's necessary. Jimmy, you take it, and hang back a little. If you have to examine either Barlow or Susan, give it to Mark."
"Understood," Jimmy said.
"Remember to buy garlic. And roses, if you can. Is that little flower shop in Cumberland still open, Jimmy?"
"The Northern Belle? I think so."
"A white rose for each of you. Tie them in your hair or around your neck. And I'll repeat myself--don't look in his eyes! I could keep you here and tell you a hundred other things, but you better go along. It's ten o'clock already, and Father Callahan may be having second thoughts. My best wishes and my prayers go with you. Praying is quite a trick for an old agnostic like me, too. But I don't think I'm as agnostic as I once was. Was it Carlyle who said that if a man dethrones God in his heart, then Satan must ascend to His position?"
No one answered, and Matt sighed. "Jimmy, I want a closer look at your neck."
Jimmy stepped to the bedside and lifted his chin. The wounds were obviously punctures, but they had both scabbed over and seemed to be healing nicely.
"Any pain? Itching?" Matt asked.
"No."
"You were very lucky," he said, looking at Jimmy soberly.
"I'm starting to think I was luckier than I'll ever know."
Matt leaned back in his bed. His face looked drawn, the eyes deeply socketed.
"I will take the pill Ben refused, if you please."
"I'll tell one of the nurses."
"I'll sleep while you go about your work," Matt said. "Later there is another matter...well, enough of that." His eyes shifted to Mark. "You did a remarkable thing yesterday, boy. Foolish and reckless, but remarkable."
"She paid for it," Mark said quietly, and clasped his hands together in front of him. They were trembling.
"Yes, and you may have to pay again. Any of you, or all of you. Don't underestimate him! And now, if you don't mind, I'm very tired. I was reading most of the night. Call me the very minute the work is done."
They left. In the hall Ben looked at Jimmy and said, "Did he remind you of anyone?"
"Yes," Jimmy said. "Van Helsing."
SEVEN
At quarter past ten, Eva Miller went down cellar to get two jars of corn to take to Mrs Norton who, according to Mabel Werts, was in bed. Eva had spent most of September in a steamy kitchen, toiling over her canning operations, blanching vegetables and putting them up, putting paraffin plugs in the tops of Ball jars to cover homemade jelly. There were well over two hundred glass jars neatly shelved in her spick-and-span dirt-floored basement--canning was one of her great joys. Later in the year, as fall drifted into winter and the holidays neared, she would add mincemeat.
The smell struck her as soon as she opened the cellar door.
"Gosh'n fishes," she muttered under her breath, and went down gingerly, as if wading into a polluted pool. Her husband had built the cellar himself, rock-walling it for coolness. Every now and then a muskrat or woodchuck or mink would crawl into one of the wide chinks and die there. That was what must have happened, although she could never recall a stink this strong.
She reached the lower floor and went along the walls, squinting in the faint overhead glow of the two sixty-watt bulbs. Those should be replaced with seventy-fives, she thought. She got her preserves, neatly labeled corn in her own careful blue script (a slice of red pepper on the top of every one), and continued her inspection, even squeezing into the space behind the huge, multi-duct furnace. Nothing.
She arrived back at the steps leading up to her kitchen and stared around, frowning, hands on hips. The large cellar was much neater since she had hired two of Larry Crockett's boys to build a tool shed behind her house two years ago. There was the furnace, looking like an Impressionist sculpture of the goddess Kali with its score of pipes twisting off in all directions; the storm windows that she would have to get on soon now that October had come and heating was so dear; the tarpaulin-covered pool table that had been Ralph's. She had the felt carefully vacuumed each May, although no one had played on it since Ralph had died in 1959. Nothing much else down here now. A box of paperbacks she had collected for the Cumberland Hospital, a snow shovel with a broken handle, a pegboard with some of Ralph's old tools hanging from it, a trunk containing drapes that were probably all mildewed by now.